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Further Reading
1 Delhaes, P. (2012). Carbon Science and Technology. ISTE Ltd. and Wiley.
2 Krueger, A. (2010). Carbon Materials and Nanotechnology. Weinheim: Wiley‐VCH.
3 Long, J.C. and Criscione, J.M. (2004). Carbon, Kirk Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 5e, vol. 4, 733–741. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
4 Messina, G. and Santangelo, S. (eds.) (2009). Carbon. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer‐Verlag.
5 Miller, F.P., Vandome, A.F., and McBrewster, J. (eds.) (2009). Allotropes of Carbon. Mauritius: VDM Publishing House.
6 Pierson, H.O. (1993). Handbook of Carbon, Graphite, Diamond and Fullerenes. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Publications.
Note
1 * A previous version of this article has been published in Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry.
3 History of Carbon Materials
Gerd Collin †
DECHEMA e.V., Theodor‐Heuss‐Allee 25, Frankfurt am Main, 60486, Germany
3.1 Origin of Elemental Carbon
The origin of elemental carbon is connected with the origin of our universe [1]. Carbon was formed firstly after the “big bang” about 13 × 109 years ago. As the prime matter has cooled down to about 600K, the light elements hydrogen and helium were generated. These elements formed by gravitation spiral nebulas with stars, composed mainly of hydrogen. This “star breeding” continues still today, e.g. in the horsehead nebula near the belt stars of the Orion or in the nebula Rho Ophiuchi, the latter with a distance of “only” 400 light years to our solar system, one of the nearest regions of star breeding. Within the bright stars, several exothermic nuclear fusion processes proceed. By these processes, lighter elements are transformed to heavier one, e.g. hydrogen to helium and helium to carbon. Old stars can collapse and explode as “novae.” Then the built‐up heavier elements such as carbon erupt into the interstellar cosmic space. They “soil” the spiral nebulas – from them new stars and solar systems emerge (“cosmic recycling”).
Our galaxy contains about 10 wt% interstellar matter, consisting of an average 86% hydrogen, 10% helium, and 4% “dust.” This “dust” is composed of water ice, silicates, organic compounds (inter alia, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and elemental carbon forms, e.g. the “football molecule” C50 and higher molecular fullerenes. Hence, carbon is widespread within the universe. The Earth’s crust (including the hydrosphere and atmosphere) contains about 3 × 1016 t carbon, i.e. nearly 0.1 wt%, but mostly chemically bound, and only a small share occurs in elemental forms such as the allotropic modifications graphite and diamond, and some noncrystalline forms, e.g. the fossil shungit, originated presumably about 2 × 109 years ago from marine organism (algae) [2].
3.2 Formation and Economic Development of Natural Diamonds
Natural diamond crystallized under high pressure in the Earth’s magma about 1.5 to 4 × 109 years ago. The crystals were thrown through volcanic pipes together with the mineral melt of kimberlite near to the Earth’s surface. There the diamond crystals have been found since antiquity in primary and secondary deposits of kimberlite, firstly in India and since the nineteenth century in South Africa and many other countries. Since antiquity, about 4 × 109 carat (− 800 t) was mined, cumulatively. The actual production amounts to about 120 × 106 carat (− 24 t) annually, from which about 90% are used for industrial purposes (drilling and cutting tools). Main production countries became Australia, Zaire, Botswana, Russia, and South Africa. New deposits of diamonds are still being found and used [3].
3.3 Formation and Use of Natural Graphite
Natural graphite occurs similar to coal in seams whose age is estimated to at least 109 years. About the genesis, biogenic and inorganic hypotheses are propounded. For most deposits organic matter as origin is assumed. Natural graphite is used since the La Tène Age by the Celts for sealing clay flagons to store and transport water and wine and for the manufacture of fireproof ceramics. At the latest since Middle Ages, natural graphite has been mined in Bavaria near Passau (mine Kropfmühl) for the manufacture of crucibles and cart grease. Since the sixteenth century, pencils have been made with natural graphite as “lead,” firstly by sheep farmers in Cumberland (England). Only in 1772 the French chemist Antoine‐Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794) detected by his combustion experiments with oxygen that graphite and diamonds are modifications of pure carbon and not special forms of lead and minerals, respectively.
With the development of the heavy current technique at the end of the nineteenth century, natural graphite became an important raw material because of its excellent conductive and gliding properties for the manufacturing of carbon brushes for dynamos and electric motors, carbon rods for arc lamps, and electrodes for electrochemical reactors (e.g. for production of aluminum and caustic soda). These carbon materials