AN IMPROVED CARBON PRECURSOR MATERIAL

A carbon precursor material is provided comprising a distillation residue from a distillate, said distillate being a distillate fraction of coal tar and/or petroleum-based raw material, or of coal tar-based and/or petroleum-based pitch, wherein the distillation residue has a softening point between 70 and 120°C Mettler. Further, the present invention provides the use of the carbon precursor material as a binder and/or impregnation material in the manufacturing of graphite electrodes for electric arc furnaces and carbon anodes for aluminum production, and/or the use of the carbon precursor material as coating material for carbon-coated particles for the manufacturing of battery electrodes. In addition, the present invention provides a process for obtaining a carbon precursor material comprising the steps of providing coal tar and/or petroleum-based raw material, or a coal tar-based and/or petroleum-based pitch, exposing the raw material or the pitch to a first vacuum distillation process, thereby obtaining a raw material-based distillate fraction or a pitch-based distillate fraction, subsequently exposing said distillate fraction to a second vacuum distillation process, thereby obtaining a distillation residue being said carbon precursor material.