Carbon is one of the most important non-metallic elements. Antoine Lavoisier named it from the Latin word 'Carbo', meaning coal, because carbon is the main constituent of coal. The earth's crust contains only 0.032% of carbon (320 parts per million by weight) as carbonates, coal and petroleum, and the atmosphere has only 0.03% of carbon dioxide (300 parts per million by weight). Yet carbon is present in our muscles, bones, organs and blood, and without it plants and animals could not exist. So Carbon Chemistry is also called Living Chemistry.
1. Discovery of Carbon – Milestones
Carbon has been known since ancient times as soot, charcoal, graphite and diamonds, but ancient cultures did not realise these were forms of the same element.
| Year | Scientist | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| 1772 | Antoine Lavoisier (French) | Burnt a diamond in a closed glass jar by focusing the Sun's rays with a giant magnifying glass; the weight of the jar was unchanged and the diamond formed carbon dioxide. Concluded that diamond and charcoal are made of the same element – carbon. |
| 1779 | Carl Scheele (Swedish) | Showed that graphite also burns to form carbon dioxide. |
| 1796 | Smithson Tennant (English) | Established that diamond is pure carbon, not a compound; equal weights of charcoal and diamond give the same amount of carbon dioxide. |
| 1855 | Benjamin Brodie (English) | Produced pure graphite from carbon, proving graphite is a form of carbon. |
| 1955 | Francis Bundy (American) and co-workers, 'General Electric' | Showed that graphite can be transformed into diamond at high temperature and pressure. |
| 1985 | Robert Curl, Harry Kroto and Richard Smalley | Discovered fullerenes – atoms arranged in soccer-ball shapes. |
| 2004 | Kostya Novoselov and Andre Geim | Announced graphene; used adhesive tape to detach a single layer of atoms from graphite. |