Title: granular carbon
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - granular carbon
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.G02682
Status: current

Definition
The term granular carbon is equivalent to coarse particulate carbon. This is a carbon material consisting of separate particles or grains which are monolithic, on the average larger than about \(100\ \unicode[Times]{x3BC}\rm{m}\) in diameter, but smaller than about \(1\ \rm{cm}\).

Note
Although limits of size cannot be exactly defined, coke grains obtained by grinding belong to coarse particulate carbon for grain sizes above ca. \(100\ \unicode[Times]{x3BC}\rm{m}\), or to fine particulate carbon for grain sizes below ca. \(100\ \unicode[Times]{x3BC}\rm{m}\). colloidal graphite obtained by grinding of natural graphite is a typical extra fine particulate carbon. Industrial carbon materials (such as electrodes) are made with fillers composed of coarse particulate carbon (coke grains) and fine particulate carbon (flour), and sometimes even colloidal carbon, carbon blacks or soot). They are therefore polygranular materials.

Related Terms
- carbon blacks: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C00824
- carbon material: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C00841
- coke: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01142
- colloidal: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01172
- colloidal carbon: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01173
- fillers: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/F02363
- graphite: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/G02684
- natural graphite: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/N04088
- particulate carbon: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04433
- soot: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/S05768

Source
- PAC, 1995, 67, 473. 'Recommended terminology for the description of carbon as a solid (IUPAC Recommendations 1995)' on page 491 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199567030473)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/G02682/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/G02682/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/G02682/xml

Citation: Citation: 'granular carbon' 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.G02682
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Accessed: 2026-04-19T00:54:09+00:00