To find the origins of carbon, we need to make a 200 to 300 millions years jump back to the end of the so called “carboniferous” primary era. The Earth was then looking like a vast greenhouse: covered with marshes and luxuriant vegetation enveloped in a hot and wet climate.

Some soils collapsed, vegetable remaining accumulated, fermented and was buried under sediments. This process, repeated many times resulted in a superposition of deposits in an atmosphere charged with carbonic gas which in turn created solid and combustible substances with a high percentage of carbon in the following chronically order: carbon, lignite and peat. These layers formed like a cluster or, more often, like veins intercalated between other sedimentary formations. The discovery of carbon is relatively recent; it was still unknown three thousand years before Jesus-Christ, whereas men already exploited the rich resources of the subsoil. According to Théophraste, the Greek blacksmiths used it as from the fourth century before our era. But it is certain that coal was already known in our country at the time of the Roman conquest. But only the Gallic exploited coal at that time. Probably also the Chinese, who knew carbon well before our era.

Sampling and Analysis on Activated Carbon Services