Title: carbon electrode
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - carbon electrode
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.C00829
Status: current

Definition
An electrode for an electrical application. In its green state it comprises granular carbon material bound with pitch. The granular carbon material may be either needle coke, fine-grained or isotropic coke or reclaimed graphite powder. Electrodes for use in steel production can only be manufactured from needle coke, and the green electrodes are fired at temperatures above around \(2800\ \rm{K}\) to produce highly graphite electrodes. The other granular carbon materials may be used for aluminium electrodes where the duty is not so severe, and the green electrodes are generally fired to lower temperatures.

Note
In both cases it is essential that the granular carbons and the pitch binders used in the production of the green electrodes have a low sulfur content as the release of sulfur during the high-temperature firing can lead to the production of significant porosity.

Related Terms
- coke: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01142
- granular carbon: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/G02682
- graphite: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/G02684
- graphitic carbon: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/G02689
- graphitization heat treatment: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/G02692
- isotropic: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/I03353
- isotropic carbon: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/I03354
- needle coke: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/N04095
- pitch: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04677
- porosity: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04762
- puffing: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04941

Source
- PAC, 1995, 67, 473. 'Recommended terminology for the description of carbon as a solid (IUPAC Recommendations 1995)' on page 480 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199567030473)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C00829/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C00829/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C00829/xml

Citation: Citation: 'carbon electrode' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.C00829
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Accessed: 2026-04-19T00:56:04+00:00