NATURAL GAS. 
59 
DEFINITION OF CARBON BLACK. 
In the American trade the term “ lamp black ” is usually understood to be a 
soot deposited by the smudge process and made from oil, rosin, or some other 
solid or liquid raw material, whereas “ carbon black ” is the term applied to a 
black deposited by actual contact of a flame upon a metallic surface . 1 
WASTE IN CARBON BLACK MANUFACTURE. 
Carbon black is now made by the wasteful process of incomplete 
combustion of natural gas. That is, the gas is simply burned in the 
open and the flame impinging against a metal plate makes the black 
deposit known as carbon black. From 1J to l\ pounds of carbon 
FIG. 19. — LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF GAS PIPE COUPLER SHOWING 
FOUR POSSIBLE LEAKAGE JOINTS.. 
black are made to each M cubic feet of gas burned. The only 
product obtained is the carbon black, and this utilizes only a very 
small percentage of the total carbon content of the gas. 
The total annual quantity of natural gas used for carbon black 
manufacture is more than 26,000,000 M cubic feet. This wastes 
about 10 times as much gas as was used in the city of Louisville, or 
the equivalent of one-eighth of the domestic natural gas consump- 
tion in the United States. 
Dr. J. B. Garner, of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, 
Pittsburgh, Pa., has demonstrated that with correctly designed ap- 
pliances the yield of carbon black can be made three times as high 
1 U. S. Geological Survey Statistics. Natural Gas in 1916, p. 662. 
