"Research Carbon Weng Says Carbon" (VIII): Carbon to Continuously Improve the Quality of Human Life

The most important feature of carbon atoms is that they can not only combine with most other elements, but also connect with each other to form a variety of chain, ring, layered or cage structures. Carbon is a skeletal element that forms human tissues, and it can also play a unique role in some materials used in human production and life. In the process of the development of civilization, human beings continue to understand and discover the characteristics and functions of carbon, and constantly synthesize, develop and utilize a variety of carbon-containing organic substances and inorganic carbonaceous materials.

Since human evolution, a variety of carbon-containing materials and carbon materials have been used very early. When people stand upright, the first thing they learn is to use carbon-containing plants as fuel for heating and cooking food. However, it was not until the 18th century that people gradually realized that carbon was an element. Charcoal, coal, graphite and diamond were all composed of carbon. Until the 18th century, humans only used carbon as a resource. my country has made soot into ink in the 5th to 6th centuries BC. In the 18th century, Britain, Germany, France and other countries used natural graphite to make pencils. All these have contributed to the progress of human culture. As early as in Egypt in the 30th century BC and the Yin Dynasty in the 10th century, humans have used carbon in charcoal as an energy source and a reducing agent to reduce ores to obtain metals such as copper and iron, enabling humans to evolve into the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

Steel is the material basis of modern society and an indispensable material for construction, transportation, manufacturing and people's daily life, but the development of the steel industry is inseparable from carbon. Humans began to use coke as a reducing agent in the 18th century, and the output of coke for ironmaking is still the largest in the processing and use of carbon-containing raw materials. If there is no carbon in iron, there is neither strength nor hardness, and only carbon can "point iron into steel". Steel is an iron-carbon alloy with a carbon content of 0.03 to 2%. With the increase of carbon content, the hardness of carbon steel increases and the toughness decreases. However, when the carbon content exceeds 2% to 4.3, the iron-carbon alloy becomes hard and brittle, but can withstand pressure and wear-resistant pig iron. You see, isn't the role of carbon amazing? In the 19th century, with the development of electric furnace steelmaking, various high-power and ultra-high-power artificial graphite electrodes made by sintering and high-temperature graphitization of natural graphite or coke were developed, which greatly improved the steelmaking process. Later, with the development of electric power, electrolysis and machinery industry, various carbon electrodes, brushes and electrode pastes using carbon conductivity and lubricity were also used in aluminum smelting and caustic soda production.

graphite electrode

In view of its surface and pore structure characteristics, bone charcoal (containing 10% carbon), charcoal, etc. have been used from ancient times to absorb odor, remove variegated color, as well as anti-corrosion, waterproof and medicinal. At the beginning of the 20th century, activated carbon has been industrialized production, and today's powdered, granular, spherical, and fibrous activated carbon is playing an increasingly important role in environmental protection such as air purification and wastewater treatment. Carbon black production developed in the 19th century, but also in explosives, printing inks, coatings, electrodes and other materials play an irreplaceable role, and in the modern life of essential rubber, it is necessary to use carbon black as a reinforcing agent and filler. The consumption of carbon black in this regard is almost half of the rubber consumption, and carbon black for rubber accounts for 94% of the total carbon black consumption. I'm afraid it's hard to run on car wheels without carbon black!

In the second half of the 20th century, based on the development of carbon science, high density, high purity and high strength graphite, pyrolytic graphite, flexible graphite, glass carbon, isotropic carbon, high performance carbon powder and diamond film used in nuclear reactors were produced consciously by using the characteristics of small and light carbon atoms, neutron radiation resistance and large binding energy. These carbonaceous products have been gradually developed and applied. In particular, carbon fibers with high strength, high modulus and light weight have been rapidly developed and used as reinforcing agents to strengthen resins, metals, ceramics, etc., so that various composite materials have been widely used in aerospace, aviation and other industrial and sports products. It can be said that without the development of carbon fibers, there would be no aerospace industry today.

Based on the further deepening of the understanding of the particularity and diversity of carbon, through the comprehensive utilization of its physical, chemical, optical, electrical, magnetic and nuclear physics and other comprehensive characteristics, a variety of new carbon materials can be used for nuclear fusion, semiconductor device manufacturing, lithium ion battery electrodes and so on. Through new molding methods such as self-sintering, material compounding, plastic molding or template carbonization, and vapor deposition, carbon products with different dimensions and shapes and new carbonaceous substrates, such as mesophase pellets, diamond-like films, fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, are obtained. With the overall progress in the manufacture, characterization and physical and chemical properties of nanomaterials, new discoveries, new achievements and new applications of fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and other types of nano-carbonaceous materials are emerging, and the development of carbonaceous materials is also changing with each passing day. In recent years, the research and development of graphene has once again pushed special carbon-based materials to a new climax. Scientists predict that this material will set off a huge technological revolution in research fields such as computers and medicine. These new forms of carbon such as fullerene, carbon nanotubes and graphene and their new functions are likely to contribute to the replacement of "silicon" by "carbon" in the field of microelectronics within this century.

Artificial carbon heart valve that opens and closes 70-80 times per minute and discharges 70 mL of blood each time

graphite decelerated nuclear reactor

Since ancient times, coal, coke, carbon black, activated carbon, graphite electrode, pencil and carbon film switch, natural diamond, artificial diamond, artificial diamond film, people almost everywhere with contact. After the 19th century, with the development of organic chemistry with hydrocarbon as the main constituent element, human beings not only produced tens of millions of organic substances including medicines, dyes, paints and other necessities of life, but also developed three synthetic materials with carbon as the main chain-plastics, rubber and synthetic fibers, these synthetic materials have created a colorful new world for people and greatly improved the living standards of human beings in terms of food, clothing, housing and travel.

In 1989, "Science" (Science) magazine began to create "(The Molecule of the Year)" column, the year's most influential molecules, this element is also known as "star molecules". The year 1990 was chosen for synthetic diamonds, so that year was therefore known as the Year of the Diamond. In 1991, carbon 60 (C60)(also known as buckyballs (Buckyballs), fullerenes (Fullerenes), etc.) was given. In only six years of "molecular of the year" selection, carbon won twice in a row. Since 1996, the column has been changed to the Breakthrough of the Year, that is, the top ten scientific achievements of the year, and the application of graphene was listed in 2009. Based on the discovery of zero-dimensional fullerenes and one-dimensional carbon nanotubes and the separation, identification and classification of two-dimensional graphene, the researchers of these three carbon materials won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the 2008 Kavli Nanoscience Prize and the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. All of the above shows that in the past three decades, human beings have further accelerated the understanding, research and development of various types of carbon allotropes, and have made great progress, and these advances will be widely used by human beings. The specificity of carbon can open up unlimited prospects.

Today, carbonaceous materials and various carbon compounds have become indispensable materials for human production and life. In view of the diversity of carbon compounds, coupled with its unique performance, many forms, abundant resources, good biocompatibility and carbon materials processing and manufacturing of low energy consumption and stainless corrosion, easy recycling and conversion characteristics, the future development speed will be accelerated, and the development of carbon materials will be further accelerated. Traditional carbon materials continue to be produced, new carbon materials are more mature, functional materials (especially nano-carbon materials) will be vigorously developed, and the synthetic chemistry of carbon will be further developed. No wonder many scholars believe that the 19th century was the Iron Age, the 20th century was the era of silicon, and the 21st century may be the era of carbon!

Boeing 787 airliner with 35 tons of carbon fiber reinforced composites

100GHz transistors made of graphene

This article is from Wang Maozhang Science Net blog.
Link address: http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-526286-420996.html