Carcinogenicity of the Carbon Black Material to Animals and Humans

Carbon black belongs to the category of channel black, acetylene black, thermal black, furnace black, and lamp black. Carbon black is the material created by partial combustion of heavy petroleum items including coal tar, FCC tar, or also the ethylene cracking tar. The said material is a kind of paracrystalline carbon that possesses higher surface area-to-volume-ratio, though less as compared to the activated carbon. This is not at all similar to stain in its much higher surface-area-to-volume ratio and considerably less (PAH) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon quantity. Nonetheless, carbon black is more prominently used as representation compound for diesel dirt especially for diesel oxidation trials or experiments. Carbon black is majorly applied in reinforcing the filler in tires and most other products. Mostly in plastics, the material is more widely used as color pigment.

The present research says that carbon black is more potentially carcinogenic to human beings. Also, short term exposure to high amount of carbon black dust might create discomfort to the upper respiration tract, via the mechanical irritation.

Carbon Black

Reinforcement of Carbon Black:

The largest quantity of carbon black is as reinforcing filler, especially in the rubber items (in vehicle and other tires). While the pure styrene-butadiene gum vulcanization holds tensile strength of less than 2 MPa and insignificant resistance to abrasion, compounding with 50% carbon black in terms of weight eventually improves its tensile strength as well as resistance to wear. Most prominently, it is used in the aerospace sector in the elastomers for the airplane vibration control components for instance engine mounts.

Basically all the rubber-made items, where abrasion and tensile characteristics are essential, carbon black material is majorly used since it gives black color. Where the physical characteristics are not very necessary, the colors apart from black are most preferred. These include the white colored tennis shoes, the fumed silica or precipitated has been replaced for carbon black. The silica-based fillers today are also gaining higher popularity in the market especially for its use in the automotive tires since they offer optimal trade-off for the fuel-efficiency as well as wet handling owing to less loss of rolling. Conventionally, silica fillers displayed worse abrasion characteristics, but the technology has progressively improved to the point where they can suit carbon black characteristics and performance of abrasion.

Carbon Black Pigment:

Carbon black is basically a common pigment that is conventionally created from charring organic products like bone or wood. It usually appears black in color since it imitates the visible component of the spectrum with albedo near zero. The real albedo differs on the basis of the material source and the technique of its manufacturing. This is called by different names that imitate every conventional technique for the production of carbon black. One of the techniques is named as ivory black made from charring bones or ivory, vine black made by charring desiccated grape stems and vines, and lamp black made from the gathering of soot from oil lamps. All of these production techniques were widely used as the paint pigment as pre-historic times, such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and others. Lately, Picasso, Cezanne, and Manet used carbon black pigments in paintings.

In terms of safety, carbon black is regarded as harmful to humans, as stated in one of the statements above. This is thoroughly studied and has enough proof in experiments with animals with chronic inhalation, two intratracheal instillation studies in the rats that presented considerable eminent rates of lung cancer in animals. The inhalation by mice failed to present considerable rate of lung cancer, exposed to them. Hence, besides, animals, the carcinogenicity of the material is also found in humans.