I O N Carbon black is used in the manufacture of inks, paints and lacquers, and hundreds of other commodities. However, the single industry that requires many times more carbon black than all the others combined is the rubber industry. The rubber industry's most important product is the automobile tire, which may contain 30 to 90 pounds of carbon black per 100 pounds of rubber. The carbon black reinforcement is probably the most important item contributing to the long life of the tire. Without carbon black, the development of the automobile would have been drastically retarded.
Fuel oil is burned with an excess of preheated air in the combustion chamber.
The combustion gases enter the reactor from combustion chamber forming a thermal cracking and combustion system with the oil spray and vapours. The combined heat from the hot tunnel gasses and combustion of a portion of the feedstock oil by the excess air decomposes the remaining oil to carbon and hydrogen. When the reaction has reached a desired point, quenching with water spray stops it. Partially cooled smoke is then passed through oil and air preheaters, and reactor boiler to recover a portion of the sensible heat. The carbon black is filtered from smoke by special designed fibber glass filter bags.