Carbon Black Feedstock Oil (Carbon Oil)

About This Product

For a carbon black producer, feedstock oil is judged largely on yield. The oil makes up a large share of what it costs to produce furnace black, and its chemistry goes a long way to deciding the tonnage of black recovered from every tonne of oil; the industry sums that chemistry up in a single number, BMCI, the Bureau of Mines Correlation Index. It is calculated from specific gravity and mid-boiling temperature and increases with the carbon-to-hydrogen ratio; the higher the index, the more of the feed is converted to black and the less is lost to hydrogen and tail gas. Carbon Black Feedstock Oil has a BMCI of typically 100, with 95 as the minimum.

A second figure supports that reading. The VGC of min 0.95, worked out from viscosity and gravity, confirms the same aromatic character by another route. The oil is dense, with the condensed ring structure a reactor operator looks for, and its specific gravity is limited to max 1.10.

Getting the feed into the reactor sets the other limits. Because it is heated and then sprayed through atomising nozzles, its viscosity is limited to max 45.0 cSt at 100 °C, so that it pumps readily and breaks up into fine, uniform droplets. The COC flash point, at least 240 °C, leaves a wide safety margin in heated tanks and feed pipework. Colour, max +8 on the ASTM D-1500 scale, is close to the darkest reading and is used as a consistency check. This specification sets no limits for sulphur, ash or asphaltenes, so any plant whose reactor or emissions permit requires them should include them in the enquiry.

Inside the refractory-lined reactor, the oil meets very hot combustion gases that hold too little oxygen to burn it. It cracks and dehydrogenates instead, producing carbon particles that join into aggregates. Quenching with water ends the reaction, bag filters separate the black from the tail gas, and the black is then pelletised. Whereas RPO, LEO and HEO end up as ingredients in rubber or polymer compounds, this grade is used up as a chemical feedstock and converted in the reactor.

Markets for the finished black include tyres, where reinforcing grades go into treads and carcasses; plastics, as black masterbatch; printing inks, as pigment black; and cables and antistatic goods, as conductive compounds. Hazard classification and handling precautions are set out in the SDS.

BG Petro Chemicals supplies this Pakistan-origin feedstock in ISO tanks, IBC tanks or drums, with custom packaging to suit the receiving plant. A certificate of analysis comes with every lot, and the technical datasheet and SDS are available on request.