The story of Naphthalene

Naphthalene is made from crude oil or coal tar. It is also produced when things burn, so Naphthalene is found in cigarette smoke, car exhaust, and smoke from forest fires. It is used as an insecticide and pest repellent.

The primary use for Naphthalene(CAS NO:91-20-3) is in the production of phthalic anhydride. However, o-xylene is replacing Naphthalene as the preferred raw material for phthalic anhydride production.Other uses of Naphthalene include carbamate insecticides, surface active agents and resins, as a dye intermediate, as a synthetic tanning agent, as a moth repellent, and in miscellaneous organic chemicals. 

Naphthalene was first registered as a pesticide in the United States in 1948.In early 1820, two chemists, in two separate reports, described a white solid with a pungent odor derived from the distillation of coal tar. In 1821, John Kidd cited these two disclosures and then described many of this substance's properties and the means of its production. 

He proposed the name Naphthalene, as it had been derived from a kind of naphtha. Naphthalene's chemical formula was determined by Michael Faraday in 1826. The structure of two fused benzene rings was proposed by Emil Erlenmeyer in 1866, and confirmed by Carl Gräbe three years later.

Most Naphthalene is derived from coal tar. From the 1960s until the 1990s, significant amounts of Naphthalene were also produced from heavy petroleum fractions during petroleum refining, but today petroleum-derived Naphthalene represents only a minor component of Naphthalene production.

Naphthalene is the most abundant single component of coal tar. Although the composition of coal tar varies with the coal from which it is produced, typical coal tar is about 10% Naphthalene by weight. In industrial practice, distillation of coal tar yields an oil containing about 50% Naphthalene, along with a variety of other aromatic compounds. This oil, after being washed with aqueous sodium hydroxide to remove acidic components (chiefly various phenols), and with sulfuric acid to remove basic components, undergoes fractional distillation to isolate Naphthalene.

 The crude Naphthalene(CAS NO:91-20-3) resulting from this process is about 95% Naphthalene by weight. The chief impurities are the sulfur-containing aromatic compound benzothiophene, indane, indene, and methylNaphthalene . Petroleum-derived Naphthalene is usually purer than that derived from coal tar. Where required, crude Naphthalene can be further purified by recrystallization from any of a variety of solvents, resulting in 99% Naphthalene by weight, referred to as 80 C (melting point). Approximately 1.3M tons are produced annually.

In North America, coal tar producers are Koppers Inc. and Recochem Inc., and petroleum-derived producer is Advanced Aromatics, L.P. In Western Europe most known producers are Koppers, Ruetgers and Deza. In Eastern Europe, variety of integrated metallurgy complexes in Russia. Dedicated Naphthalene and phenol maker INKOR and Yenakievsky Metallurgy plant in Ukraine, and ArcelorMittal Temirtau in Kazakhstan.

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