Attack of Oxygen Molecules upon Highly Crystalline Graphite

Abstract

THE accompanying photographs (Fig. 1) illustrate an observation made while studying the oxidation of graphite. A thin flake of Ceylon graphite (99.9 per cent carbon) was oxidised during many hours at 900° C. in a stream of oxygen at 1 mm. pressure. (The product is about 50 per cent carbon dioxide and 50 per cent carbon monoxide.) Photomicrographs were taken at intervals ; the two reproduced show the state of the flake when probably more than four-fifths of the original graphite had been oxidised away. In both, the flake is viewed, roughly, perpendicularly to the cleavage plane, A by light reflected from this plane, B by transmitted light.