Coal-tar creosote is greenish-brown liquid, with different degrees of darkness, viscosity, and fluorescence depending on how it is made. When freshly made, the creosote is a yellow oil with a greenish cast and highly fluorescent, and the fluorescence is increased by exposure to air and light. After settling, the oil is dark green by reflected light and dark red by transmitted light. To the naked eye, it generally appears brown. The creosote (often called "creosote oil") consists almost wholly of aromatic hydrocarbons, with some amount of bases and acids and other neutral oils. The flash point is 70&ndash;75 °C and burning point is 90&ndash;100 °C, and when burned it releases a greenish smoke. The smell largely depends on the naphtha content in the creosote. If there is a high amount, it will have a naphtha-like smell, otherwise it will smell more of tar.
In the process of coal-tar distillation, the distillate is collected into four fractions; the "light oil", which remains lighter than water, the "middle oil" which passes over when the light oil is removed; the "heavy oil", which sinks; and the "anthracene oil", which when cold is mostly solid and greasy, of a buttery consistence. Creosote refers to the portion of coal tar which distills as "heavy oil", typically between 230 and 270 °C, also called "dead oil"; it sinks into water but still is fairly liquid. Carbolic acid is produced in the second fraction of distillation and is often distilled into what is referred to as "carbolic oil".
Commercial creosote contains substances from six groups. The two groups occur in the greatest amounts and are the products of the distillation process—the "tar acids", which distill below 205 °C and consist mainly of phenols, cresols, and xylenols, including carbolic acid—and aromatic hydrocarbons, which divide into naphthalenes, which distill approximately between 205 and 255 °C, and constituents of an anthracene nature, which distill above 255 °C. The quantity of each varies based on the quality of tar and temperatures used, but generally, the tar acids wont exceed 5%, the naphthalenes make up 15 to 50%, and the anthracenes make up 45% to 70%. The hydrocarbons are mainly aromatic; derivatives of benzene and related cyclic compounds such as naphthalene, anthracene, phenanthrene, acenaphthene, and fluorene. Creosotes from vertical-retort and low temperature tars contain, in addition, some paraffinic and olefinic hydrocarbons. The tar-acid content also depends on the source of the tar—it may be less than 3% in creosote from coke-oven tar and as high as 32% in creosote from vertical retort tar. All of these have antiseptic properties. The tar acids are the strongest antiseptics but have the highest degree of solubility in water and are the most volatile; so, like with wood-tar creosote, phenols are not the most valued component, as by themselves they would lend to being poor preservatives. In addition, creosote contains several products naturally occurring in coal—nitrogen-containing heterocycles, such as acridines, carbazoles, and quinolines, referred to as the "tar bases" and generally make up about 3% of the creosote—sulfur-containing heterocycles, generally benzothiophenes—and oxygen-containing heterocycles, dibenzofurans. Lastly, creosote contains a small number of aromatic amines produced by the other substances during the distillation process and likely resulting from a combination of thermolysis and hydrogenation. The tar bases are often extracted by washing the creosote with aqueous mineral acid, although theyre also suggested to have antiseptic ability similar to the tar acids.
Commercially used creosote is often treated to extract the carbolic acid, naphthalene, or anthracene content. The carbolic acid or naphthalene is generally extracted to be used in other commercial products. American produced creosote oils typically have low amounts of anthracene and high amounts of naphthalene, because when forcing the distillate at a temperature that produces anthracene the soft pitch will be ruined and only the hard pitch will remain; this ruins it for use in roofing purposes, and only leaves a product which isn't commercially useful.