Carbon

• carbon from a Latin word carbo meaning coal.

• Charcoal is known by early humans with examples dating back to at least 28,000 years ago One
of the oldest charcoal paintings is a picture of a zebra, found at the Apollo cave in Namibia,
Gabarnmung in Australia. And also used around 3750 BC in Egypt, they use charcoal for
reduction of metal oxide.
• The 4th most abundant element in the universe and can be found in all known life forms

Uses of carbon

• Used in metal smelting, steel, graphite pencil, diamond, purification and filtration, insufflation
gas in surgeries, basis for AMU, extensively used in organic chemistry to form bonds between
carbon atoms resulting in long carbon chains (ex. Fats, proteins and DNA) and hydrocarbons.

It has 3 natural occurring isotopes C 12 and 13 are the stable isotopes and C 14 being radioactive

C-12 being the most abundant isotope making up about 98.93% of all-natural carbon on Earth. The main
reason why C-12 is abundant is because of triple-alpha process where a star fuse together 3 alpha
particles creating carbon nuclei.

C-13 makes up about 1.1% of all-natural carbon on Earth

C-14 makes up 0.0000000001% (1x10 -10%) of all-natural carbon on Earth. C-14 is radioactive because of
the imbalance in the ratio of protons and neutrons in the nuclei causing it to go through beta decay
turning a neutron into a proton creating nitrogen 14