Wood

Wood is the main substance in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is mainly formed by the xylem vessels which transport substances that plants need to live. Substances that xylem transports include water and minerals obtained through the plant's roots, as xylem runs from the roots to the stems and leaves.

Different trees make different wood (see picture below): 1. Pine 2. Common Beech 3. Sycamore 4. Oak 5. Birch 6. Sugar Maple 7. Microberlinia 8. African Rosewood 9. Okoumé 10. Common Walnut 11. Brazilian Rosewood 12. Ebony.

HISTORY 

People have used wood for thousands of years for many purposes, including as a fuel or as a construction material for making houses. Buildings like the European Neolithic long house were made primarily of wood.

For certain building projects, like Solomon's temple, wood from the cedar of Lebanon was prized above all other woods. This warm, red wood is free of knots and has a fragrance, which is pleasant to humans, but repels insects, It was in every way an ideal wood for large buildings.

Wood has long been used as an artistic medium. It has been used to make sculptures and carvings for millennia.

Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion, Gothic boxwood miniature

The phrase "chip off the block" means a person who resembles their parent, especially in character. A chip is the same wood as the block from which it comes. The expression dates back to 270 BC when it appeared in Theocritus' Idylls.

The phrase by hook or crook dates from around the 14th century. It refers to a time when the poor were allowed to gather as much firewood from their lord's land as they could rake up from undergrowth with a hook or pull down from trees with a shepherd's crook. It was first recorded in the Middle English Controversial Tracts of John Wyclif in 1380.

Grinling Gibbons (April 4, 1648 – August 3, 1721) is widely regarded as the finest-ever woodcarver working in England. Most of his work was in lime (tilia) wood, especially decorative Baroque garlands made up of still-life elements at about life size, made to frame mirrors and decorate the walls of churches and palaces. His exquisite cascades of leaves, flowers and fruit adorn Hampton Park Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and countless other stately homes and churches.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES 

Wood is the hard tissue beneath the bark of many perennial plants. It is composed of water conducting cells, or  secondary xylem, and gains its hardness and strength from deposits of lignin. The secondary xylem is laid down by the vascular cambium which forms a new layer of wood annually, on the outside of the existing wood and visible when a tree is felled as an annual ring.

The central wood in a branch or stem is known as heartwood and is generally darker and harder than the outer wood; it consists only of dead cells. As well as providing structural support, heartwood often contains gums, tannins, or pigments which may impart characteristic color and increased durability. The surrounding sapwood is the functional part of the xylem that conducts water.

Woods are usually divided into softwood (from conifers) and hardwood (from flowering plants). Softwood makes up about 80% of the world's production of lumber.

Although in general softwoods are softer than hardwoods, this is not always the case. The difference between hardwood and softwood has to do with how they reproduce, not the hardness of the wood. Pitch pine, for instance, which is very dense and hard, is a softwood.

Cuipo wood is classified as a hardwood. However, according to the Janka test, the softest wood in the world belongs to the Cuipo tree, which has a rating of just 22 lbf (pounds-force) making it is drastically softer than Balsa wood which has a higher, but still very low rating.

Cuipo Tree

The hardest wood is said to come from the Australian Buloke (pronounced "Bull-oak") tree, with a huge rating of 5060 lbf. (For reference, a commonly worked with type of wood that is generally considered very hard is Hickory, which has a1820 lbf rating).

USES 

Wood has been an important construction material since humans began building shelters and, houses. Carpenters make houses of mostly soft wood such as pine.

Wood has always been used extensively for furniture, such as cabinets, chairs and beds. For many kinds of furniture carpenters use harder wood such as maple or oak.

Nearly all boats were made out of wood until the late 19th century, and wood remains in common use today in boat construction.

Wood has a long history of being used as fuel, which continues to this day, mostly in rural areas of the world. Hardwood is preferred over softwood because it creates less smoke and burns longer.

Wood pulp is wood that has been processed in into a pulpy mass of fibres. Its main use is for making paper, but it's also used to make rayon and other cellulose fibres and plastics. There are two methods of making wood pulp - mechanical and chemical. In the former, debarked logs are ground with water (to prevent charring) by rotating grindstones. The wood fibres are physically torn apart. In the latter, log chips are digested with chemicals (such as sodium sulphite). The chemicals dissolve the material holding the fibres together.

Most paper is made from pine, spruce and eucalyptus.

Sources Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Gizmodo

Petroleum

HISTORY

Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society.

Petroleum was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859 leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well. The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America and around the world quickly grew.

Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Lubbock, Texas

The first petroleum pump was invented by Sylvanus Bowser in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1885. It was used to fill kerosene lamps and stoves.

The American industrialist and philanthropist John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) dominated the petroleum industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at one point controlling 90 per cent of all oil in the U.S. As a private individual, his fortune accounted for more than 1 per cent of the entire American economy.

In the early days, automobile drivers pulled into almost any general, pharmacy or hardware store, or even blacksmith shops in order to fill up their tanks.

The world's first purpose built gas station was constructed in St. Louis, Missouri in 1905 at 420 S. Theresa Avenue.by Automobile Gasoline Co., a subsidiary of Shell of California. The shopkeeper filled a five-gallon can from behind the store and brought it to the customer's car to fill it.

A Shell gas station near Lost Hills, California (U.S.) Wikipedia

Reighard's gas station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, opened in 1909. It is the oldest U.S. gas station still in operation,

The first American drive-in automobile service gas station was opened by Gulf Refining in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on December 1, 1913. The first station specifically designed to sell fuels and other related products, it sold 30 gallons, at 27 cents each on its first day.  It was also the first architect-designed station and the first to distribute free road maps.

In 1919 gasoline surpassed the sales of kerosene and became the top petroleum product sold in the United States.

Britain's first dedicated petrol station opened in November 1919 in Aldermaston, Berkshire. Before this, motorists had to buy fuel in two-gallon cans from chemists, hardware stores, or blacksmiths. The opening of the Aldermaston station marked the first time drivers could pull off the road specifically to "fill up" from a dedicated pump. It was opened by the Automobile Association (AA). Motorists were served by AA patrolmen in full uniform. Initially, the station only served AA members and was run as a non-profit venture.

Oregon placed a 1 cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline in 1919, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.

The 1957 Monte Carlo Rally was cancelled because of a worldwide petrol shortage following the Suez crisis.

FUN PETROLEUM FACTS

The word petroleum is from Greek: petra: "rock" and oleum: "oil".

Even though crude oil can last millions of years underground, gasoline can spoil—it's chemically very different than the original crude oil.

Petroleum. Wikipedia Commons

A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and subjected to both intense heat and pressure.

Petroleum is the most traded physical commodity in the world.

Petroleum supplies 38% of the world's energy and is also used to make petrochemicals.

Proven world oil reserves, 2013. Wikipedia Commons

It is used in manufacturing a wide variety of materials, and it is estimated that the world consumes about 95 million barrels of petroleum each day.

Gasoline was once sold as a cure for lice.

The average U.S. commuter wastes $713 annually on gasoline while sitting in traffic.

If you follow an 18-wheeler closely while driving and utilize its slipstream, you can decrease your fuel consumption by 11%.

In New Jersey and Oregon you cannot pump your own gas because it must be done by a gas station attendant

A 106-mile portion of I-70 in Utah has no gasoline or exits. It is the longest portion of the US Interstate system without services. A station at one end sells about 30 gas containers a week to people who run out on the highway and walk to the station.

Source Nacsonline

Peat

Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation that forms in wetland bogs, moors, mires, and swamps. It is composed mainly of marshland vegetation: trees, grasses, fungi, as well as other types of organic remains, such as insects, and animal remains.

Peat hags at the start of Allt Lagan a' Bhainne tributary on Eilrig. By Sarah McGuire,

The formation of peat is often the first step in the geological formation of other fossil fuels such as coal, particularly low-grade coal such as lignite.

There are about 4 trillion m³ of peat in the world with Canada, Finland, Ireland and Russia all having large deposits. Peatlands between 2-3% of the land surface of Earth, but are thought to contain twice as much carbon as all the world's forests.

Peat gatherers at Westhay, Somerset Levels in 1905

The Congo Basin peatland is a 56,000-square-mile swamp — an area larger than New York State — and is considered to be the world's largest tropical peatland.

The Congo Basin peatland has accumulated around 30 billion metric tons of carbon over the last 11,000 years, , the equivalent of 20 years worth of U.S. fossil fuel emissions.

Most modern peat bogs formed in high latitudes after the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age some 9,000 years ago. They usually grow slowly, at the rate of about a millimetre per year.

Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in some countries, including Ireland and Scotland, where it is traditionally used for cooking and domestic heating.

Peat fire

Peat fires are used to dry malted barley for use in Scotch whisky distillation. This gives Scotch whisky its distinctive smoky flavour, often called "peatiness".

Ireland has three peat fired power plants. Using peat taken from Irish bogs, it's more polluting than coal and is so inefficient it is subsided by the state.

Although peat has many uses for humans, it also presents problems. When dry, it can be a major fire hazard, as peat fires can burn almost indefinitely (or at least until the fuel is exhausted).

Olive oil

Olive oil is the juice made by crushing olives. It is considered to be healthier alternative to sunflower oil.

Olives in olive oil

Archaeological evidence shows that olives had been turned into olive oil by 6000 BC in the Middle East..

One of the earliest evidence of the use of olive oil in the Middle East, was unearthed in December 2014, when  organic residue on pottery shards excavated in the Lower Galilee, was found to be olive oil. The vessels were dated around 5800 BC, indicating that it was a diet staple 4,000 years before the time of the biblical patriarchs.

Olive oil in biblical times was made by shaking the olives shaken from the tree then trampling them into the press. The oil was then drained into vats and jars and allowed to settle.

Olive oil was prized for anointing the body in Greece during the time of Homer.

Ancient oil press Turkey By Georges Jansoone  Wikipedia

Olive oil has traditionally been used as fuel and was even used to light the earliest Olympic torch.

There is an artificial hill in Italy, over 100 feet tall, made entirely of empty olive oil pots, carefully placed over a period of 250 years by ancient Romans.

The Italian Calabrian Mafia’s Piromalli clan pulled an elaborate heist involving olive oil, using adulterated and chemically treated oils and labelling their containers as extra virgin. The profit margin of this heist was said to have "three times the profit margin of cocaine."  33 suspects were arrested in February 2017.

Spain became the world’s largest olive oil producer in 2014 taking over from Italy.

Christianitytoday.com

Oil

Oil is a greasy, inflammable chemical substance that usually does not mix with water and has a high carbon and hydrogen content.

Some oils are made from plants and used in foods and for cooking. Plant oils that people use include African oil palm, maize (corn), olive, peanut, soy, and sunflower. There are also animal-based oils such as butter and lard.

Other kinds of oil are made from crude oil (petroleum) which comes from under the ground. Oil wells are used to bring the oil up to the surface. The oil is then transported to refineries where it is distilled into fuel for heating or transportation. Oils from crude oil are also used to make lubricants.

Archaeological evidence has been found of olive oil being used for cooking near Nazareth in present day Israel back in 5800 BC, indicating that it was a diet staple 4,000 years before the time of the biblical patriarchs.

Olive oil was a most important product in the economy of the ancient Hebrews. It was used for cooking, lighting, medicinally and after bathing, the body was anointed with oil.

Olive Oil

The ancient Egyptians used sesame oil, one of the first oil to be used for cooking purposes.

Oil lamps of a crude sort have been known since pre-Roman times.

In 1780 a Genevan physicist and chemist known as Ami Argand devised a much-improved oil lamp. They were first adopted by the well-to-do, but soon spread to the middle classes and eventually the less well-off as well.

Snake oil was introduced to the US by Chinese laborers who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. Derived from the Chinese water snake, snake oil was rich in the omega-3 acids that help reduce inflammation and was quite effective, especially when used to treat arthritis and bursitis.

Clark "The Rattlesnake King" Stanley, sold "100% Snake Oil" in the late 19th and early 20th century. It did not actually contain any snake oil. Hence the term "Snake Oil Salesman".

On August 27, 1859 petroleum was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.

The March 18, 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill off the south-west coast of the United Kingdom, was at the time the world's worst oil spill. The estimated 25–36 million gallons (94–164 million liters) of crude oil that spilled into the ocean gave lift to the emerging environmental movement.

On June 3, 1979, the oil rig named Ixtoc I, owned by the Mexican government-operated oil company Pemex, suffered a blowout and began leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The exact cause of the blowout was a failure in the drilling equipment, which led to the uncontrolled release of oil and gas from the well.

The wellhead remained uncapped, and efforts to stop the leak were initially unsuccessful. It took almost nine months to fully cap the well and stop the flow of oil. During that time, an estimated 3.3 million barrels (140,000 metric tons) of crude oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico, making it one of the largest oil spills in history at the time.

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, owned by Transocean and leased by British Petroleum (BP), experienced a blowout while drilling an exploratory well called Macondo in the Gild of Mexico.

The blowout caused a massive explosion on the rig, resulting in the loss of 11 crew members' lives and the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon two days later. The incident led to the release of an estimated 4.9 million barrels (approximately 210 million gallons) of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry

The Deepwater oil spill had devastating environmental, economic, and social consequences. The oil contaminated large areas of the Gulf of Mexico, affecting marine and coastal ecosystems, including fisheries, coral reefs, and wetlands. It caused the death of numerous marine animals, including birds, dolphins, sea turtles, and fish, and harmed their habitats.

Americans spill 180 million gallons of used oil per year, most of which ends up in waterways.

Whale oil was such an effective lubricant that within three years of the 1972 US whale killing ban, yearly automotive transmission failures had climbed from under 1 million, to over 8 million.

The word "essential" in "essential oil" doesn't mean "important," but rather "the essence of". So oil of clove smells like clove, capturing the "essence" of the plant, and therefore can be called an essential oil.

"Oil" is the favorite word of people building online dating profiles in the U.S. states of Texas, Oklahoma, and North Dakota.

In Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, oil is cheaper than water.

Christianitytoday.com

Fuel

The word ‘gasoline’ doesn’t come from ‘gas’. It comes from Cazeline Oil an early form of gasoline, that was used for lighting in the nineteenth century. John Cassell (1817-1865) the English founder of the publisher Cassell & Co., was the first to sell it commercially.

Oregon placed a one cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline on February 25, 1919, becoming the first US. state to levy a gasoline tax.

During the penultimate days of the Second World War, Germany was so short of fuel that a newly developed jet had to be pulled onto the runway by cows.

In  World War 2 the US Navy added poison to their torpedo fuel, as the torps were fuelled with Ethanol (Alcohol), and too many sailors were getting hammered on "Torpedo Juice" - a mixture of two parts torp fuel and three parts pineapple juice. They changed poisons after too many sailors went blind.

A revolutionary early 1960s Chrysler Turbine car, of which only 50 were built, defied fuel limitations by running on a diverse array of sources, excluding leaded gasoline. To emphasize its versatility, this remarkable vehicle journeyed from Mexico to the United States on a diet of tequila, further demonstrating its adaptability in France, where it successfully combusted the essence of Chanel No. 5.

Apollo 11 only had 25 seconds of fuel left when it landed on the Moon.

NASA’s Crawler-Transporter gets .0067 mpg, making it the worst gas mileage of all self-propelled land vehicles in the world.

The US Department of Defense uses more fuel in a year than the country of Sweden.

If you follow an 18-wheeler closely while driving and utilize its slipstream, you can decrease your fuel consumption by 11%.

Some bears in Russia are hooked to jet fuel due to the leftover kerosene and gasoline containers in far-east regions.

Airlines all over the world are flying 10% slower than they did in 1960 (to save on fuel costs).

There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world.

A blimp flying an entire week consumes the same amount of fuel as a 767 commercial jet uses to move away from the gate.

When on fire, methanol (the fuel used in race cars) has invisible flames and no smoke.

Ethanol

Ethanol is a flammable, colorless chemical compound.

USP grade ethanol for laboratory use.

One of the alcohols that is most often found in alcoholic drinks, it is also known as ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol.

Ethanol is used as a solvent, an antiseptic, a fuel and the active fluid in modern (post-mercury) thermometers.

70% Ethanol is a more effective disinfectant because pure alcohol on a single celled organism triggers coagulation (clot) preventing it from penetrating deeper into the cell wall rendering it dormant but still alive. The water in 70% ethanol allows it to penetrate before it can clot.

In Brazil, ethanol fuel made from sugar cane provides 18 percent of the country's fuel for cars. Because of this, Brazil does not have to buy oil from other countries.

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year.

If you add 250ml of ethanol to 250ml of water, you get less than 500ml of liquid. This is because strong hydrogen bonding draws the different molecules closer together, and because ethyl molecules interfere with any open spaces in the water, causing them to pack closer together.

You would need an area three times the size of the continental United States to replace one-third of the United States’ oil requirements with ethanol.

Diesel

The name diesel is given to an engine invented by a German named Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913) in the late 19th century.

Rudolph Diesel had the idea to develop an engine which relied on a high compression of the fuel to ignite it. He took his inspiration from watching a lecture where there was a demonstration of a Malaysian fire starting technique called the 'fire piston' which creates flames through air compression.

Diesel first came up with a design for his engine in 1892 and, subsidized by the Krupp company, constructed a ‘rational heat motor’, demonstrating the first compression-ignition engine in 1897. Diesel was granted US Patent No. 608,845 on August 9, 1898, for his engine.  He unveiled his engine at the World Fair in 1900

Diesel's original 1897 engine on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany. Photo by Chris Thomas 

A diesel engine can also be made to run on vegetable oil made from old cooking oil. This type of fuel is called biodiesel. This is not a new idea. Rudolf Diesel demonstrated his diesel engine in the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) using peanut oil fuel.

Rudolf Diesel was lost overboard from the steamer Dresden while on his way to London on September 29, 1913. His disappearance and death remain a mystery to this day. There are several theories about what happened to Diesel. One theory is that he fell overboard accidentally, perhaps while pacing the deck at night. Another theory is that he committed suicide. Diesel was known to have been struggling with financial problems at the time, and he may have been feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. Shortly after Diesel's disappearance, his wife Martha opened a bag that her husband had given to her just before his ill-fated voyage, with directions that it should not be opened until the following week. She discovered 200,000 German marks in cash.

On October 10, 1913, a Belgian sailor aboard a North Sea steamer spotted a body floating in the water; upon further investigation, it turned out that the body was Diesel's. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, and the crew did not retain it aboard because of heavy weather. Instead, the crew retrieved personal items (pill case, wallet, I.D. card, pocketknife, eyeglass case) from the clothing of the dead man, and returned the body to the sea. Three days later, these items were identified by Rudolf's son, Eugen Diesel, as belonging to his father.

Rudolf Diesel

The first diesel locomotive took to the rails in Germany in 1912.

The first US diesel-power passenger car, a Cummins powered Packard, was built in Columbus, Indiana in 1930.

To promote the diesel engine, Cummins Engine Company owner Clessie Cummins mounted a diesel engine in a used Packard Touring Car and set out from Indianapolis, Indiana for New York's National Automobile Show. The first diesel-engined automobile trip was completed on January 6, 1930.
The 800-mile trip used 30 gallons of fuel, which cost $1.38, and showed that diesel was a viable option as an internal combustion engine.

The world's largest diesel engine is currently a Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C Common Rail marine diesel, which produces a peak power output of 84.42 MW (113,210 hp) at 102 rpm.

When he invented the Diesel engine, Diesel envisioned local communities growing crops to run their engines and making themselves entirely self-sufficient. Today, virtually all diesel engines run on petroleum from the ground by multinational oil companies in a globalized market.

Each year, National Biodiesel Day on March 18th commemorates the birthday of Rudolf Diesel on March 18, 1858.

Heating oil is diesel fuel. It is dyed red to indicate that it is not legal to burn in a diesel vehicle because the red dye indicates that there were no road taxes paid with it.

A gallon of diesel will carry a tonne of freight 246 miles by rail, or 88 miles by road.

Source Edn.com

Coal

In Britain during the Middle Ages there was a prejudice against coal as domestic fuel. However a shortage of wood in some areas meant that it came increasingly into use by the 1400s..

Anthracite is the most metamorphosed type of coal  It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest calorific content of all types of coal except for graphite.

Anthracite coal was first experimentally burned as a residential heating fuel in the US on February 11, 1808, by Judge Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on an open grate in a fireplace.

Anthracite coal

The world's first coal-fired power station, generating electricity for public use, was built at number 57, Holborn Viaduct in London, by Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Light Company. Holborn Viaduct power station began running on January 12, 1882.

Holborn Viaduct Power Station

Some of the first vacuum cleaners were coal powered.

Titanic's engines burned 600 tons of coal per day. 176 men worked around the clock to shovel it in by hand. 100 tons of ash was also ejected into the sea each day.

"Breaker boys" between age 8-12 were employed to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week to separate impurities from coal in the US. Despite public disapproval, the practice of employing children in this line of work lasted for decades, only finally ending in the 1920s.

The Great Smog of London in 1952 was caused by using coal as the main source of heat and was responsible for the deaths of around 12,000 people.

Kellingley Colliery, known affectionately as the "Big K," was a deep coal mine in North Yorkshire, England. It was the last deep coal mine in the United Kingdom to close, shutting down on December 18, 2015. The decline of coal mining in the UK was due to a number of factors, including the increasing cost of extraction, the rise of cheaper alternatives such as natural gas, and environmental concerns about the industry's impact.

The US reached peak coal mining employment in 1923, when there were 883,000 coal miners employed in the US. Today, there are only 50,000 coal miners in the US. Nevertheless, the US produces about 50% more coal than it did 100 years ago.

Since 1983 the world top coal producer has been China. In 2011 China produced 3,520 millions of tonnes of coal – 49.5% of the world coal production.

Most coal formed before fungus could break down trees. After fungus evolved to do so, coal became far less likely to form naturally making it a true non-renewable resource.

Nylon is made from coal and petroleum.

Each train car of coal loses up to 3% of its load, a literal ton of coal, as dust when it is traveling from the mine to the power plant.

Australians use nearly twice as much coal per person than Americans and five times as much as the rest of the world.

Coal makes up about 40% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions from fuels.

Almost 70% of world steel production depends on burning coal.

Charcoal

Charcoal is a black, porous form of carbon, produced by heating wood or other organic materials in the absence of air.

Pixibay

Charcoal is made from wood by heating it in airless space in high temperature. The wood will not burn, but instead turn into charcoal.

Charcoal has been used for drawing since prehistoric times when pieces of charred wood would have been used.

The discovery of charcoal by the ancients allowed people to build smokeless fires, and charcoal was used widely in temperate climates. The two-story houses of the Athenians, for instance, were heated only with a brazier, or dish, of burning charcoal.

Charcoal was traditionally produced by burning dried wood in a kiln, a process lasting several days. The kiln was either a simple hole in the ground, or an earth-covered mound.

Charcoal had many uses in earlier centuries. Because of the high temperature at which it burns (2,012°F), it was used in furnaces and blast furnaces before the development of coke.

A secret room under the Medici Chapel is covered in charcoal sketches by Michelangelo, who lived there for three months while in hiding from the Pope.

Henry Ford, father of the automobile, is also father of the charcoal briquette. The motor mogul created the briquette from the wood scraps and sawdust from his car factory. E.G. Kingsford bought the invention and put the charcoal briquette into commercial production.

Some trucks in North Korea are powered by burning charcoal because the price of oil is too high for most citizens.

Activated charcoal made from coconut shells is the odor absorbing agent in odor- eating shoe liners.

One gram of activated charcoal has approximately 1,000 square meters of surface area.

Gunpowder is a mixture of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre (potassium nitrate).

Source Hutchinson Encyclopedia © RM 2013. Helicon Publishing is division of RM