Carbon is a non-metallic, chiefly trivalent element found native (as in diamond and graphite) or as a constituent of coal, petroleum, and asphalt, of limestone and other bicarbonates, and of organic compounds or obtained artificially in varying degrees of purity especially as carbon black, lampblack, activated charcoal and coke. It has the symbol C and is contained in all life forms.
The diamond is the purest form of carbon; in the different varieties of charcoal, in coal, anthracite, etc, it is more or less mixed with other substances. Pure charcoal is a black, brittle, light, and inodorous substance. It is usually the remains of some vegetable body from which all the volatile matter has been expelled by heat; but it may be obtained from most organic matters, animal as well as vegetable, by ignition in close vessels. Carbon, being one of those elements which exist in various distinct forms, is an example of what is called allotropy. The compounds of this element are more numerous than those of all the other elements taken together. With hydrogen especially it forms a very large number of compounds, called hydrocarbons, some of which have latterly become of the greatest economic importance. With oxygen carbon forms only two compounds, but union between the two elements is easily effected. Research Carbon
Abbreviations
SciTech
Research Carbon