Carbon black

“ It is equipped for the manufacture of such carbon black, and can be used for no other purpose, and there is produced from it approximately 13,000 pounds of that article daily, which is sufficient for the manufacture of 117,000 pounds of printing ink. From the gas consumed to make the carbon black, there is first extracted approximately 1,600 gallons per day of high-gravity gasoline. ”

“ Not only is carbon concealed in sugar, but it is present in all plant and animal matter. That is why burning almost any kind of food makes it black. You drive off most of the other elements and separate the food into its parts by getting it too hot; the water evaporates [pg 301] and so does the nitrogen; what is left is mainly black carbon.
Making hydrogen come out of hiding. The light gas, hydrogen, conceals itself as perfectly as carbon does by combining with other elements. It is hiding in everything that is sour and in many things that are not sour. ”

“ Other affidavits express the detriment, in the opinion of the affiants, of any restriction or regulation of the production of it; and others, from asserted experts, exhibit the source of the gas and the process of manufacture from it of carbon black, and that in its manufacture heat is necessarily evolved, but that as soon as any attempt is made to transform the heat into any other form of energy, such as light or mechanical power, an enormous, but inevitable, loss of heat results. ”

“ The imperishable nature of carbon, in its various forms of lamp-black, ivory-black, wood-charcoal, and graphite or black lead, holds out much greater promise of being usefully employed in the manufacture of a permanent writing material; since, for this substance, in its elementary condition and at ordinary temperatures, there exists no solvent nor chemical reagent capable of affecting its alteration. ”

“ He sighed. "I know you will not believe me."
"Diamonds," he began—and as he spoke his voice lost its faint flavour of the tramp and assumed something of the easy tone of an educated man—"are to be made by throwing carbon out of combination in a suitable flux and under a suitable pressure; the carbon crystallises out, not as black-lead or charcoal-powder, but as small diamonds. So much has been known to chemists for years, but no one yet had hit upon exactly the right flux in which to melt up the carbon, or exactly the right pressure for the best results. ”

“ It may be, as it is deposed, that 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas converted into gasoline and carbon black may be sold much higher than can be obtained from the same amount of gas sold for fuel purposes, but it does not follow from that fact that the state may not consider, and direct its legislation by the consideration that (and we take the averment of the companies) 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas is consumed to produce 1 3/4 pounds of carbon black and about two-tenths of a gallon of gasoline. ”

“ To the contention that oil could not be taken at a profit by one who made no use of the gas, it was replied that such fact 'went, not to the power to make regulations, but to their wisdom.' And this can be said of the contention, in the case at bar, that one element is more valuable than another; that carbon black is more valuable than the gas from which it is extracted. ”

“ Such carbon is a solid, without smell or taste, and bears the strongest heats of our furnaces without suffering any change, provided air be excluded: it is a bad conductor of heat, but conducts electricity very well. When burned, it unites with oxygen, and forms carbonic acid, the fixed air of Dr. Black, the choke-damp of the miner. When this carbonic acid is made to traverse red hot charcoal it dissolves a portion of it, and becomes carbonic oxide, which contains only one half of its volume of oxygen ”

“ We are ignorant 289 of the means which nature employs to crystallize it. It may probably be the work of ages, to purify, arrange, and unite the particles of carbon in the form of diamond. Here is some charcoal in the purest state we can procure it: you see that it is a very black, brittle, light, porous substance, entirely destitute of either taste or smell. Heat, without air, produces no alteration in it, as it is not volatile; but, on the contrary, it invariably remains at the bottom of the vessel after all the other parts of the vegetable are evaporated. ”

“ In whatever way and from whatever materials carbon is made for use as a pigment, the manufacturer must always endeavour to obtain it as pure as possible, and in a condition of the finest division; the depth of colour and the covering power depend on these two conditions. Carbon only shows a pure black colour when it is pure; if it contains relatively small quantities of impurities, it has a more or less brown shade. ”

“ Thousands of feet of carbon rods are volatilized every night in the arc lamps of our cities, but the trouble is that this carbon vapor so formed, when cooled, or condensed, is not converted into the exceedingly hard, clear, crystalline diamond, but into the soft, dull black graphite or plumbago. ”

“ Pressure seems to have played a considerable part in the formation of carboniferous strata. In fact, it is to its degree of power that are due the different sorts of coal, of which industry makes use. Thus in the lowest layers of the coal ground appears the anthracite, which, being almost destitute of volatile matter, contains the greatest quantity of carbon. In the higher beds are found, on the contrary, lignite and fossil wood, substances in which the quantity of carbon is infinitely less. ”

“ It is very difficult at first to picture such a black thing as carbon making part of delicate leaves and beautiful flowers, and still more of pure white sugar. But we can make an experiment by which we can draw the hydrogen and oxygen out of common loaf sugar, and then you will see the carbon stand out in all its blackness. ”

“ This rinsing with clear water is repeated till all the hydrochloric acid is washed away and only pure carbon remains in the vat. As for pigment-making purposes it is essential that the carbon should be as finely divided as possible, it is as well to grind the washed carbon in an ordinary color mill. Very little power is required for this purpose, as when once the bone earth is removed the carbon particles have little cohesion. The properly ground mass forms a deep-black mud, which can be left to dry or be dried by artificial heat. ”

“ Lamp-black is the name given to those varieties of carbon which are deposited when hydrocarbons are burned with an insufficient supply of oxygen; thus the smoke and soot emitted into our atmosphere from our furnaces and fireplaces are composed of comparatively pure carbon.
Coal is an impure form of carbon derived from the gradual oxidation and destruction of vegetable matters by natural causes; thus wood first changes into a peaty substance, and subsequently into a body called lignite, which again in its turn becomes converted into the different varieties of coal ”

“ In its purest form it occurs in the diamond, which is believed to be produced by the decomposition of vegetable matters, and it is there crystallized and remarkably transparent; but when produced by artificial processes, carbon is always black, more or less porous, and soils the fingers. It is insoluble in water, burns readily, and is converted into carbonic acid. Carbon is the largest constituent of plants, and forms, in round numbers, about 50 per cent of their weight when dry. ”

“ Black limestones usually contain carbon in an extremely fine state of division, and are quite useless to the colour-maker owing to the impossibility of completely burning off this contained carbon, which always imparts a greyish tinge to the burnt lime. ”

“ Charcoal is made of carbon. About one half of every plant is carbon.
The coal we burn in our fireplaces is the carbon left upon the earth by plants that lived and died thousands of years ago. It is the carbon that Leaf Green and [Pg 153] Sunbeam together stole from the air, and turned over into the plant.
If one looks at a piece of coal with the eyes which one keeps for the little picture gallery all children carry in their heads, one sees more than just a shining, black lump. One sees a plant that grew upon the earth thousands of years ago, with its bright green leaves dancing in the sunlight ”

“ Professor Faraday said, in his examination before the Committee, “is the visible black part of the products, the unburnt portions of the carbon. If you prevent the production of carbonic oxide or carbonic acid, you increase the production of smoke. You must with coal fuel either have carbonic acid or oxide, or else black smoke. ”

“ A carbon coil is a perfectly black substance. It is an emblem of utter darkness. But into it is poured an electric current and instantly it becomes a reservoir of light. There once lay in the earth a dull, dark bit of carbon. It suddenly became the subject of the intense transforming energy of volcanic fire. Ever since that it has been a diamond in which lives dazzling light. ”

“ The preparation of good black pigments demands considerable practice.
There are two methods by which carbon can be made for use as a pigment. One has been indicated, the heating of organic materials in the absence of air, i.e., their dry distillation; the second, which produces [Pg 286] the best qualities of black, consists in burning substances very rich in carbon with a very small supply of air. The product of this process, commonly known as soot, is very different in external appearance from carbon made by dry distillation. ”

“ At first sight it appears to be a very simple matter to obtain black pigments from organic materials; it is simply necessary to expose them in the absence of air to a temperature high enough to decompose them, carbon is then left as a residue. ”

“ She was looking at the display of various chemicals and reagents on the shelves.
"What's that stuff?" she asked, pointing to a large jar of black powder labeled Deflocculated Graphite. "I bet those cops have gone for a search warrant."
"Finely divided carbon," McGill said. "Damn, I wish I could think of something! A chunk of glass ... blowing up...."
"Graphite is carbon?" Molly said. "You don't think they'd actually do anything to Alec, do you?"
"It's another form of carbon. A diamond is still another: the rare crystalline form," he said. "I wouldn't put it past that mob to do anything." ”

“ The hydrogen combines more easily than the carbon; part of the carbon may remain behind as charcoal if your wood does not all burn up, and many of the smaller carbon particles only glow in the burning hydrogen, instead of burning. That is what makes the flame yellow. If you hold anything white over a yellow flame, it will soon be covered with black soot, which is carbon. ”

“ Many organic and some inorganic bodies hold carbon so loosely combined that it can be separated out under the influence of chemical action, heat or electricity, but invariably the carbon assumes the black amorphous form. The other method is to try to fuse the carbon by fierce heat, when from analogy it is argued that on cooling it will solidify to a clear limpid crystal. ”

“ It is his belief that death in such cases is owing, in all appearance, more or less to a suppression of the circulation of air and blood by the black substance. His impression is, "that the carbon is not procured from without, but naturally deposited, as life advances, in the substance of the respiratory organs; and that this deposit of carbon causes death, by rendering the lungs irrespirable, while, at the same time, it has much influence in modifying the progress of tubercular disease ”

“ Many that are rather dark in colour will, nevertheless, burn perfectly white, whereas others, much lighter in shade, always give a product that is not quite pure in tone. This divergent behaviour seems to have some connection with the chemical composition of the organic matter in question. If it consists of coal, or substances analogous thereto, no really pure white lime can be obtained from a light grey limestone, it being impossible to burn off the finely divided carbon completely. ”

“ The idea that carbon is capable of being solidified into its purest form, the diamond, was always uppermost in his mind; and pondering on the fact that here was crystalized carbon—only simple carbon in its purest form—he continually asked himself, "Why cannot this familiar element be caught, prisoned, and solidified into the precious gem?" "Nature," he argued, "has but few secrets in her laboratory which are not penetrable to man; her processes are hidden, but may be discovered or imitated; and if we know that Nature makes a diamond by crystalizing carbon, why not follow in her footsteps?" ”

“ Carbonic acid gas, though so poisonous, is made up of two things, which are very good and perfectly harmless when they are separated—carbon and the life-giving oxygen. Carbon is coal, or something like coal. United together, these two harmless things make a dreadfully dangerous one, just as innocent saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal unite to form the deadly gunpowder.
Now notice how beautifully plants and animals are made to live together and help each other. ”

“ Oxygen and nitrogen are free as air, and as we have seen in the second chapter, their direct combination by the electric spark is possible. Hydrogen is free in the form of water but expensive to extricate by means of the electric current. But we need more carbon than anything else and where shall we get that? Bits of crystallized carbon can be picked up in South Africa and elsewhere, but those who can afford to buy them prefer to wear them rather than use them in making synthetic food. Graphite is rare and hard to melt. We must then have recourse to the compounds of carbon. ”

“ By a thousand pores in every leaf the carbonic acid which renders the atmosphere unfit for animal life is absorbed, the carbon being separated, and assimilated to form the vegetable fibre, which, as wood, makes and furnishes our houses and ships, is burned for our warmth, or is stored up under pressure for coal. All this carbon has played its part, and many parts in its time, as animal existences from monad up to man. ”