Building With Carbon | Green Energy News

February 12, 2006 – Vol.10 No.47

BUILDING WITH CARBON.

Carbon may be getting a bad rap for its involvement in global warming, but it’s really only the carbon that’s drifting around in the air that’s the problem.

Put to work as a building block of many materials carbon is useful stuff. Think wood homes and the endless variety of plastic products including lightweight car parts that help make them more energy efficient.

Carbon, too, being a conductor of electricity, is also found in batteries, some of which may be used in cars of the future.

Koppers, a global producer of carbon compounds and treated wood products, has introduced a new carbon product: carbon foam.

KFOAM (tm), according to Koppers, is lightweight, exceptionally strong, has high thermal and electric conductivity and can be used in a wide variety of applications including fuel cells and batteries. The special website developed for KFOAM includes lithium-ion batteries as a possibility.

Koppers also says KFOAM can be easily machined into shapes and can provide the structure for various applications.

KFOAM is derived from coal tar, a waste product of making coke which is used as a fuel in the steel industry and elsewhere. Visit KFOAM at http://www.kfoam.com/