Preparation and characterization of low-temperature coal tar toughened phenolic foams

In this study, coal tar-based phenolic foam (CPF) was prepared using low-temperature coal tar as raw material to partially replace phenol. The chemical structure, apparent morphology, compressive strength, thermal stability, flame retardancy and thermal insulation properties of CPFs were characterized. The results show that CPFs have similar chemical structures to conventional phenolic foam. Comparing with conventional phenolic foam, the compressive strength of 30%CPF and 40%CPF increases by 18.3% and 55.9%, and the pulverization rate decreases by 22.9% and 50.8%, respectively. The results indicated that toughness was significantly strengthened due to the incorporation of aliphatic structures such as alkylphenols. In addition, the thermal stability of CPFs in the low temperature stage also improves. Although the limited oxygen index of CPFs decreases and thermal conductivity of CPFs increases, they still maintain good flame retardancy and thermal insulation properties. The obtained results prove that low-temperature coal tar can significantly replace phenol to prepare phenolic foam with good performance, which provides a new idea for the high-value utilization of low-temperature coal tar.