thousand years.[11]
Coke[edit]
Pyrolysis is used on a massive scale to turn coal into coke for metallurgy, especially steelmaking. Coke can also be produced from the solid residue left from petroleum refining.
Those starting materials typically contain hydrogen, nitrogen, or oxygen atoms combined with carbon into molecules of medium to high molecular weight. The coke-making or "coking" process consists of heating the material in closed vessels to very high temperatures (up to 2,000 °C or 3,600 °F) so that those molecules are broken down into lighter volatile substances, which leave the vessel, and a porous but hard residue that is mostly carbon and inorganic ash. The amount of volatiles varies with the source material, but is typically 25–30% of it by weight. ...
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