Common Uses
The most common use (70%) of carbon black is as a pigment and reinforcing phase in automobile tires. Carbon black also helps conduct heat away from the tread and belt area of the tire, reducing thermal damage and increasing tire life. Carbon black particles are also employed in some radar absorbent materials and in photocopier and laser printer toner.
Total production was around 8,100,000 metric tons (8,900,000 short tons) in 2006. About 20% of world production goes into belts, hoses, and other non-tire rubber goods. The balance is mainly used as a pigment in inks, coatings and plastics. For example, it is added to polypropylene because it absorbs ultraviolet radiation, which otherwise causes the material to degrade.
Carbon black from vegetable origin is used as a food coloring, in Europe known as additive E152. It is approved for use as additive 153(Carbon blacks or Vegetable carbon) in Australia and New Zealand but has been banned in the USA.
Read more about this topic: Carbon Black
Famous quotes containing the word common:
“But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man’s despair.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“There were none of the small deer up there; they are more common about the settlements. One ran into the city of Bangor two years before, and jumped through a window of costly plate glass, and then into a mirror, where it thought it recognized one of its kind.... This the inhabitants speak of as the deer that went a-shopping.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)