Carbon Black in Plastics: Pigment, UV Protection and Conductive Grades

Carbon black (C.I. Pigment Black 7, CAS 1333-86-4) is paracrystalline elemental carbon used in plastics as a black pigment, as the UV screen of black polyolefins and, in high-structure grades, as a conductive filler. Because one substance covers three different jobs, the grade and the loading, not the CAS number, decide what a carbon black does in a compound.

Carbon black is registered under REACH in the 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 tonne band and listed on the CoRAP for substance evaluation, absent from the Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern, authorized for EU food-contact plastics as FCM 411 up to a maximum use level of 2.5 % w/w, and on the California Proposition 65 list in one physical form only, as airborne, unbound particles of respirable size. Carbon black is one of 83 colorant pages in our directory of plastic additives, each with the same identity, dosage and regulatory fields.

This page sets out the identity and particle morphology, the absorption mechanism, the properties, the dosage for pressure pipe, geomembrane, food-contact plastics and PET preforms, the 8 applications, the grade decision, the test methods, the dated regulatory matrix, the safety profile, the alternatives a near-infrared sorter can see, and the producers.

The identity, naming and headline regulatory fields of carbon black are listed below.

What Is Carbon Black?#

Carbon black is paracrystalline elemental carbon made by the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbon feedstocks, and it reaches the compounder as a black powder or as beads. It is not a molecular pigment with a defined crystal habit but an assembly of particles at three size levels: primary particles of 10 to 300 nm fuse into aggregates of 100 to 1,200 nm, and those aggregates hold together loosely as agglomerates that run from 300 nm into the millimetre range. Those three ranges are not marketing categories; they are written into the food-contact specification for carbon black in Regulation (EU) No 10/2011, which is how a regulator describes a substance that has no single molecule to describe.

What does that put carbon black next to on a formulation sheet? It is an inorganic black pigment, the reference black against which every other black in plastics is judged. As the reference black, carbon black anchors the inorganic end of the colorants for plastics family, alongside titanium dioxide, iron oxide and the copper chromite spinels rather than alongside the organic pigment classes.

What is another name for carbon black?#

The formal name of carbon black is C.I. Pigment Black 7 (PBk7), and the trade names furnace black, channel black, lamp black, thermal black and acetylene black describe the process that made it, not a different substance. All five share the CAS number 1333-86-4 and the EC number 215-609-9. PBk7 sits with the oxides and spinels among the inorganic pigments for plastics, not with the organic pigment classes, and a specification that names only the process family still has to state a particle size before it means anything.

What is carbon black made from?#

Carbon black is made from hydrocarbon feedstocks burned with too little air, and the process decides the family name: furnace blacks dominate plastics, while channel, lamp, thermal and acetylene blacks serve narrower uses. Incomplete combustion leaves elemental carbon rather than carbon dioxide, and the reactor conditions set the primary particle size and the degree of aggregation.

Grade labels carry that history forward. Ampacet's pipe-compound guidance quotes N550 at a nominal 40 to 48 nm, N330 at 26 to 30 nm and N110 below 20 nm, so the label a buyer sees is in practice a particle-size band with a process behind it. US food-contact law separates the same material by process as well: 21 CFR 178.3297 lists channel-process carbon black and high-purity furnace black as two distinct cleared materials.

Is carbon black just charcoal or soot?#

No: carbon black is a manufactured pigment with a controlled particle size and a purity specification, while charcoal and soot are uncontrolled combustion residues. Food-grade carbon black must hold toluene extractables to a maximum of 0.1 % by ISO 6209 and benzo(a)pyrene to a maximum of 0.25 mg/kg carbon black under Regulation (EU) No 10/2011, and the same regulation fixes its primary particles between 10 and 300 nm. In the United States, high-purity furnace black is held to a total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon content of 0.5 ppm and a benzo[a]pyrene content of 5.0 ppb under 21 CFR 178.3297. Soot carries no such specification and no such number.

How Does Carbon Black Work in a Polymer?#

Carbon black works by absorbing light across a broad band, from the near-infrared through the visible range into the ultraviolet, so the same particle that makes a part black also stops the UV photons that would break the polymer chains. That single mechanism is why the substance appears in three roles in one additives database, with loadings four orders of magnitude apart.

Carbon black does 3 jobs in a polymer, listed below.

• Color: broadband absorption across the visible spectrum, which produces black rather than a hue.
• UV screening: absorption of ultraviolet radiation at and near the part surface, before it reaches the polymer backbone.
• Electrical conduction: a continuous aggregate network in high-structure grades only, covered on a separate page.

How carbon black colors plastic#

Carbon black colors a plastic by absorbing the whole visible spectrum, and the depth of that black, its jetness, rises as the primary particle size falls. A pigment that absorbs uniformly across the visible range returns no dominant wavelength to the eye, which is why PBk7 is the reference black of the Colour Index system rather than one shade among many.

Jetness is an optical result, not a composition. Two compounds at the same loading differ visibly when one carries a 20 nm black and the other a 48 nm black, and again when one is well dispersed and the other still holds agglomerates. Blackness is reported through CIELAB coordinates, the system explained under color measurement and matching of plastics, and a jetness claim without a measurement method behind it is not a specification. Our source library holds no jetness index, tinting-strength or L* value for any named grade, so this page compares blackness qualitatively.

How carbon black protects plastic from UV#

Carbon black protects a plastic from UV by absorbing the radiation at and near the surface before it reaches the polymer, which is why black PE pipe and black agricultural film survive outdoors without an additional UV absorber. Our source library records the function directly for polypropylene: carbon black absorbs the ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise degrade the polymer.

Because the screen works by absorption, its effectiveness follows the particle geometry rather than the chemistry. Finer primary particles present more surface per unit weight and give more UV protection at the same loading, which is the reason a pipe standard specifies both a percentage and a size. PE pressure pipe carries 2.0 to 2.5 wt% carbon black under ISO 4427-1 and EN 12201-1, a loading set by the screening requirement and not by color. Ampacet's pipe guidance states that finer N330 or N110 grades can be needed where the part is exposed for longer than 3 to 5 years. A screening pigment and a hindered amine act at different points of the degradation chain, which the hub on UV stabilizers for plastics sets out class by class.

Why particle size and structure decide performance#

Carbon black never exists as single particles in a compound: the primary particles fuse into aggregates, which is what the industry calls structure, and those aggregates clump into agglomerates that the extruder has to break apart. Aggregates are permanent, since the fusion happens in the reactor. Agglomerates are not, and breaking them is the entire task of the compounding step.

The trade-off runs in one direction. The finer the primary particle, the blacker and more UV-resistant the compound, and the harder the dispersion job, a trade-off Ampacet states explicitly for pipe grades when it recommends N550 for standard service and the finer grades only for long exposure. Structure has the same double effect: a high-structure black builds a network at a lower loading, which is what conductive grades exploit, and the same network raises melt viscosity and resists wetting by the polymer. Dispersion therefore decides whether a loading delivers what the specification assumed.

What Are the Physical and Chemical Properties of Carbon Black?#

Carbon black is a black powder or bead form of elemental carbon that sublimes above 3,500 °C (6,332 °F) and, unlike organic pigments, has no melting point that matters in polymer processing. No thermoplastic process reaches a temperature at which the pigment changes state, so heat stability in a black compound is a question about the carrier resin and the stabilizer package, not about PBk7.

The physical and chemical properties of carbon black are listed below with the source that reports each value.

One property deserves a caution rather than a value. PubChem lists relative density both as 1.8 to 3.51 and as 1.5 to 1.8 depending on the source record, so take the value from the grade data sheet rather than from a database. Surface area, oil absorption number, pH and ash content are the other properties a grade comparison turns on, and our source library holds none of them for pigment-grade carbon blacks.

Which Polymers Use Carbon Black, and at What Dosage?#

Carbon black is dosed in 3 different ranges: parts per million in PET preforms, about 2 to 3 wt% where it has to survive outdoors, and up to the 2.5 % w/w ceiling that food-contact rules set on both sides of the Atlantic. Why does a pigment need 2 wt% when a color pigment needs a tenth of that? At pipe and geomembrane levels carbon black is not a colorant at all but a UV screen, and the level follows the screening requirement of the part specification.

Masterbatch recipes are quoted in percentages and in ratios, which convert through the same arithmetic as PHR (parts per hundred resin), so a 35 % concentrate let down at 5 % and a 19:1 let-down ratio describe the same compound. The table below gives the carbon black level for each polymer or application with the standard or clearance that sets it.

The pipe range (2.0-2.5 %) and the geomembrane range (2.0-3.0 %) belong to their own standards and must not be interchanged.

Carbon black in HDPE pressure pipe#

Black PE pressure pipe carries 2.0 to 2.5 wt% carbon black under ISO 4427-1 and EN 12201-1, which is the UV screen that lets an uncovered pipe sit on a construction site before it goes into the trench. Carbon black works there with the antioxidant and processing package described in additives for polyethylene (PE), and it replaces none of it.

The particle size that belongs with that percentage is recorded two ways in our sources, and the standard decides. EN 12201-1 and ISO 4427-1 require an average primary particle size of 10 to 25 nm, in clause 5.2.1 of ISO 4427-1. Ampacet's pipe guidance states that an N550 black at a nominal 40 to 48 nm generally suffices, with finer N330 or N110 grades reserved for exposure beyond 3 to 5 years, but that is North American practice under ASTM D3350, which asks only for a black carrying at least 2 % carbon black and sets no particle size. Of the grades Ampacet names, only an N110-type black falls inside the ISO band.

The compound around the pigment carries its own requirement: a PE pressure-pipe compound has to meet an oxidative induction time of at least 20 minutes at 200 to 210 °C (392 to 410 °F) depending on the application, which carbon black does not deliver. The full pipe formulation, including the OIT requirement, is on additives for plastic pipes.

Carbon black in HDPE geomembranes#

HDPE geomembranes carry 2.0 to 3.0 % carbon black under GRI-GM13 Rev. 16, a wider band than the pipe standard, because a liner is exposed for its whole service life rather than for a storage period. GRI-GM13 fixes the test method as well as the range: carbon black content is measured by ASTM D4218, and dispersion by ASTM D5596, in which only near-spherical agglomerates are counted.

The same specification sets the thermal-stability requirement that sits beside the pigment, at a standard oxidative induction time of at least 100 minutes by ASTM D8117 or a high-pressure OIT of at least 400 minutes by ASTM D5885. The rest of the GRI-GM13 additive requirements are covered under additives for geomembranes and geosynthetics.

Carbon black in food-contact plastics#

In EU food-contact plastics the ceiling is a maximum use level of 2.5 % w/w of the polymer, and carbon black is one of the few colorant-type substances that carry an FCM number at all (FCM 411, Ref 42080). Colorants as a class sit outside the Union list of Regulation (EU) No 10/2011; carbon black, titanium dioxide, zinc sulphide, iron oxide, mica, OB-1 and BBOT are the exceptions.

The entry is a purity specification rather than a migration limit, and carbon black has no SML. Its four specification points are benzo(a)pyrene at most 0.25 mg/kg carbon black, toluene extractables at most 0.1 % by ISO 6209, UV absorption of the cyclohexane extract at 386 nm below 0.02 AU (1 cm cell) or 0.1 AU (5 cm cell), and primary particles of 10 to 300 nm. FCM numbers, group restrictions and the overall migration limit are explained on EU 10/2011. The United States sets the same 2.5 % ceiling under 21 CFR 178.3297.

Carbon black in PET preforms (reheat additive)#

At the other end of the dosage scale, PET preforms take carbon black at 0.1 to 8.0 ppm as a reheat additive, where it absorbs the near-infrared from the oven lamps instead of coloring the bottle. The desirable window is 1.0 to 5.5 ppm and the preferred window 1.5 to 3.5 ppm, at a particle size of 10 to 500 nm and preferably 15 to 30 nm.

In the patent example that established the range, Pengilly's work for Goodyear, US 4,408,004 (1983), 2.5 ppm of carbon black raised the temperature reached in an 80-second heat-up from 201 °F (94 °C) to 215 °F (102 °C) while keeping Hunter haze below 3.0. The competing reheat chemistries are compared on reheat additives for PET preforms, where the trade-off is always absorption gained against clarity lost.

How carbon black is actually dosed: black masterbatch#

Almost no processor meters carbon black powder: it arrives as black masterbatch, a concentrate in a carrier resin that is let down at the press or the extruder. Ampacet gives 35 % carbon black as the North American standard for pressure-pipe masterbatch, let down at 5 to 6.5 %, which is a let-down ratio of 19:1 to 14:1 and puts about 1.75 to 2.3 % carbon black into the pipe.

Two constraints travel with that concentrate in the same Ampacet guidance: masterbatches above 40 % carbon black are avoided, because the higher the pigment fraction the harder the dispersion, and the carrier is an MLDPE or LLDPE with a melt index below 20. What to check on a black masterbatch data sheet, from carbon black loading to dispersion rating, is set out on its own page.

Both conventions are handled by the let-down ratio calculator, and the arithmetic matters because the food-contact and drinking-water ceilings sit only fractionally above the pipe loading.

What Is Carbon Black Used For in Plastics? 8 Applications#

Carbon black is used in 8 plastics applications: black masterbatch, PE pressure pipe, agricultural film, wire and cable, automotive parts, food packaging, UV-stabilized polypropylene and PET preform reheat. The list below keeps that order.

• Black masterbatch: the concentrate through which almost all carbon black enters a plastics process.
• PE pressure pipe: 2.0-2.5 wt% as the UV screen of an uncovered pipe.
• Agricultural film: black mulch film that blocks light to the soil and UV to the polymer.
• Wire and cable: black jacketing for outdoor and buried service.
• Automotive parts: the lowest-cost pigment for interior and exterior moldings.
• Food packaging: carbon black under the FCM 411 and 21 CFR 178.3297 clearances.
• UV-stabilized polypropylene: absorption of the UV that degrades the PP chain.
• PET preform reheat: parts-per-million absorption of near-infrared lamp energy.

Wire and cable#

Black cable jackets use carbon black as the UV screen for the same reason black pipe does: the sheath sits outdoors or in a duct for decades and is never repainted. Jacketing is also the one application where a black compound is the default rather than a choice, since the color carries a function.

Our source library holds no cable-specific carbon black loading, so this page states none; the level follows the jacket specification and the compound supplier's UV requirement. Semiconductive shielding layers are a different product built on conductive grades, not on pigment grades. The rest of the jacket package, from flame retardant to metal deactivator, is on additives for wire and cable compounds.

Agricultural film and outdoor film#

Black mulch film is the highest-volume outdoor film use of carbon black, where the pigment both blocks light from reaching weeds and shields the polyethylene from UV. Mulch film is also the largest agricultural film segment: of the 2.8 Mt of global agricultural film demand recorded for 2009 in our source library, mulch took 45 %, greenhouse film 31 % and silage film 24 %.

No carbon black loading for film exists in our sources, and a film has far less wall thickness to screen than a pipe wall. Greenhouse film is the opposite case: it has to transmit light, so it is stabilized with a transparent package instead of a pigment. Mulch, greenhouse and silage films need different additive packages, compared on additives for agricultural film.

Transparent films cannot use a screening pigment at all, which is why UV stabilizers for polyethylene rely on hindered amine light stabilizers and absorbers instead.

Automotive and molded parts#

Automotive parts and UV-stabilized polypropylene are the volume molding uses, where a black part is simultaneously the cheapest color and the most UV-resistant one. Carbon black absorbs the ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise degrade polypropylene, so the pigment and weathering decisions are taken together.

Pigment choice is not neutral for dimensions. A study of pigmented polypropylene moldings recorded relative shrinkage in the flow direction rising from 13.6 % to 22.3 % with a transparent phthalocyanine green masterbatch and from 49.5 % to 58.3 % with an opaque chromium and copper oxide green masterbatch over a 1 to 5 wt% range, though with green masterbatches rather than black, so it shows only that pigment choice changes shrinkage. UV-stabilized PP grades combine the pigment with the packages listed in additives for polypropylene (PP).

Conductive and antistatic compounds#

Conductive grades are a different product from pigment grades: they carry a much higher structure and surface area, and above the percolation threshold their aggregates form a continuous network through the polymer. Conduction then runs by direct aggregate contact and by tunnelling across the thin polymer gaps between aggregates.

Surface area separates the two product families more sharply than particle size does. Nouryon's Ketjenblack EC-300J is quoted at about 800 m2/g BET and EC-600JD at about 1,400 m2/g, an order of magnitude above a pigment grade. Loading levels and grade selection for conductive carbon black are covered on its own substance page.

Where the target is only static dissipation rather than conduction, the same aggregates are used far below the percolation threshold. Carbon nanotubes, graphite and metal fibers compete for the same job among the conductive additives and fillers.

How Do Carbon Black Grades Differ? Particle Size, Jetness and Dispersion#

Carbon black grades differ mainly in primary particle size, which runs from below 20 nm to about 48 nm across the grades used in plastics, and in structure, which is what separates a pigment grade from a conductive one. Particle size drives three properties at once and in opposite directions: jetness rises as the particle gets finer, UV protection rises with it, and dispersibility falls.

Structure is the second variable and it is reported as surface area rather than as a diameter. A pigment grade is chosen for blackness at the lowest workable loading, while a conductive grade is chosen for network formation, which is why the two are quoted in different units. How pigment grades are rated for heat and light is set out under pigment fastness in plastics.

The grades used in plastics are listed below with the particle size each source reports and the role it is quoted for.

N-numbers are a rubber-industry grade classification. This page uses them as labels with the particle sizes their supplier publishes; the numbering system itself is not defined in our source library.

Which carbon black grade for outdoor service?#

For outdoor service the decision runs on exposure time: Ampacet's pipe guidance treats an N550 black at 40 to 48 nm as sufficient for standard use, and moves to N330 at 26 to 30 nm or N110 below 20 nm when the part is exposed for more than 3 to 5 years. The same guidance sets the counterweight, because the finer grades are the harder ones to disperse at a given output rate.

Exposure time is a property of the application rather than of the pipe, so one PE100 compound can call for two different blacks. Service-life claims are checked against accelerated weathering tests rather than against particle size alone, since a finer black in a poorly dispersed compound screens less than a coarser black that is fully broken down. Our source library holds no weathering result for a named carbon black grade, so this page reports the supplier guidance and the test route, not a predicted lifetime.

How are carbon black content and dispersion tested?#

Two different tests are involved: ASTM D1603-20 and ISO 6964 measure how much carbon black is in the compound by pyrolysing the polymer under nitrogen, while ISO 18553 rates how well the carbon black that is there has been dispersed. Content and dispersion are independent results, and a compound can pass one and fail the other.

The pyrolysis method has a stated limit: ASTM D1603 is not valid for compositions containing brominated flame retardants or other non-volatile fillers, which leave residue that the method counts as carbon black. The 4 methods that appear in carbon black specifications are listed below.

• ASTM D1603-20: carbon black content in polyethylene, polypropylene and polybutylene by pyrolysis under nitrogen.
• ISO 6964: the international counterpart for carbon black content in polyolefin pipes and fittings.
• ASTM D4218: the content method required by GRI-GM13 for HDPE geomembranes.
• ISO 18553: the dispersion rating for polyolefin pipe compounds, with ASTM D5596 used for geomembranes.

Ampacet rates every masterbatch lot on a 1 to 5 microdispersion scale beside the ISO 18553 rating. ISO 18553 ratings and the microdispersion scales are explained under dispersion testing of pigments and masterbatch.

How Does Carbon Black Interact with Other Additives?#

Carbon black is never the whole stabilizer package: it screens UV at the surface, while the antioxidant system still has to carry the thermal and processing stability, which pressure-pipe compounds prove through an oxidative induction time of at least 20 minutes. The 3 interaction points that decide a black formulation are listed below.

• Antioxidants: carbon black does not replace them, and a PE pressure-pipe compound still has to reach an OIT of at least 20 min at 210 °C (410 °F) under ISO 4427-1.
• Coupling agents: silanes are ineffective on carbon black, which the Gelest coupling-agent literature lists among the poor substrates together with calcium carbonate, gypsum, barytes and graphite.
• Dispersing aids and carriers: dispersion quality rather than loading decides the optical and screening result, which is why masterbatch carriers and dispersing aids exist at all.

A pipe compound that meets its carbon black content and its dispersion rating can still fail its thermal-stability requirement, because the two are separate properties. The antioxidant system is verified through oxidative induction time (OIT), not through the pigment loading, and a silane added for a mineral filler interface does nothing at the carbon black surface.

What Is the Regulatory Status of Carbon Black?#

Carbon black is REACH-registered at 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 tonnes a year and under substance evaluation on the CoRAP list, is not a Substance of Very High Concern, is authorized for EU food-contact plastics up to a maximum use level of 2.5 % w/w as FCM 411, and appears on California's Proposition 65 list only in its airborne, unbound, respirable form. The full matrix, as it stands on 24 September 2026, is set out below.

Is carbon black REACH registered, and is it an SVHC?#

Yes to the first and no to the second: carbon black is registered under REACH in the 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 tonne band, and it is absent from the Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern as of 22 September 2026. More than 100 active registration dossiers stand behind the EC number 215-609-9.

Carbon black is also on the Community Rolling Action Plan, a substance-evaluation listing rather than a restriction: a Member State authority examines the dossier and decides whether further information is needed. Registration bands, CoRAP and evaluation are explained on REACH and plastic additives. The outcome of that evaluation is not recorded in our source library and is not published here.

Carbon black has never appeared on the SVHC Candidate List, and it is absent from Annex XIV, so no authorisation is required for any plastics use.

Is carbon black allowed in food-contact plastics?#

Yes, on both sides of the Atlantic, but under a purity specification rather than a migration limit: the EU authorizes carbon black as FCM 411 up to a maximum use level of 2.5 % w/w of the polymer, and the United States clears high-purity furnace black to the same 2.5 % ceiling under 21 CFR 178.3297. Carbon black is one of the few colorant-type substances with an FCM entry at all.

The purity limits run in parallel but in different units. The EU sets benzo(a)pyrene at most 0.25 mg/kg carbon black and toluene extractables at most 0.1 % by ISO 6209, plus the UV absorption check on the cyclohexane extract. The United States sets total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at most 0.5 ppm and benzo[a]pyrene at most 5.0 ppb in high-purity furnace black, and clears channel-process carbon black separately with no numeric limit.

Neither text is an approval of a finished article. How a 21 CFR clearance differs from an approval is explained on FDA food contact rules for plastic additives, so a food-contact dossier needs the pigment producer's purity certificate, not only the loading.

Is carbon black allowed in drinking-water pipes?#

Yes: carbon black is entry 0348 on the European positive list for drinking-water contact materials, with the same 2.5 % w/w maximum use level and the same benzo(a)pyrene limit of 0.25 mg/kg carbon black as the food-contact rule. The positive lists were adopted in Implementing Decision (EU) 2024/367 and apply from 31 December 2026, so a pipe compound placed on the market after that date has to match the entry.

Because black PE pressure pipe runs at 2.0 to 2.5 wt%, the formulation sits directly at that ceiling, so the masterbatch let-down has to be controlled rather than assumed: a 35 % concentrate dosed at 7.5 % instead of 6.5 % puts the compound at 2.6 %, over the limit. Entry 0348 sits on the European positive list described under plastic additives in drinking-water contact.

Does REACH Annex XVII restrict carbon black?#

No, carbon black itself is not restricted under REACH Annex XVII, but entry 50 restricts the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that carbon black can carry into a part. Entry 50 caps each of 8 named PAHs at 1 mg/kg in rubber or plastic components that come into direct, prolonged or short-term repetitive contact with skin or the mouth, and at 0.5 mg/kg in toys and childcare articles, in force since 27 December 2015 under Regulation (EU) No 1272/2013, which names carbon black and extender oils as the sources of those PAHs.

That restriction explains the shape of the food-contact clearances: both texts are written as purity specifications on benzo(a)pyrene and total PAH content because the hazard travels as an impurity rather than as the carbon itself. Entry 50 and the other plastics entries are listed on REACH Annex XVII restrictions.

Is carbon black listed under California Proposition 65?#

Yes, but only in one physical form: the Proposition 65 entry reads "carbon black (airborne, unbound particles of respirable size)", listed for cancer on 21 February 2003. The wording matters for plastics, because pigment bound in a cured or solidified polymer matrix is neither airborne nor unbound, which is the distinction the listing itself draws.

The listing stands unchanged in the OEHHA list edition of 31 July 2026. Listing dates and wordings for every listed pigment are on California Proposition 65, and the same airborne, unbound, respirable wording carries the titanium dioxide entry of 2 September 2011.

Is Carbon Black Safe? Health, Safety and Environmental Profile#

Carbon black has no harmonised hazard classification under the EU CLP Regulation, and every hazard statement attached to it, from the IARC Group 2B classification to the Proposition 65 entry, describes inhalation of the loose powder rather than the pigment inside a finished part. Some notifiers report H319, serious eye irritation, and H335, may cause respiratory irritation, but no classification is binding across the EU.

The 3 elements that make up the safety picture are listed below.

• Classification: IARC Group 2B, possibly carcinogenic to humans, and no harmonised CLP classification; the Proposition 65 listing of 21 February 2003 covers airborne, unbound particles of respirable size.
• Exposure route: inhalation of the powder during handling, which is why masterbatch exists as a dust-free delivery form.
• Purity controls: benzo(a)pyrene at most 0.25 mg/kg carbon black and toluene extractables at most 0.1 % under Regulation (EU) No 10/2011, total PAH at most 0.5 ppm under 21 CFR 178.3297, and the 1 mg/kg PAH cap of REACH Annex XVII entry 50 in skin-contact parts.

The bound-in-a-matrix argument is a regulatory finding: the 2011 Canadian screening assessment concluded that continued use of carbon black, including in food packaging, is acceptable because the pigment is bound in a matrix. That assessment and the IARC classification both reach our source library through secondary sources. Which additives are listed, restricted or merely under evaluation is compared on toxic plastic additives. No occupational exposure limit and no toxicological dose descriptor is held in our source library, so none is published here.

What Are the Alternatives to Carbon Black?#

Carbon black has no equal as a low-cost, jet-black UV screen, so the alternatives are chosen for one specific reason: the part has to be sortable by near-infrared light at end of life, or it has to survive a polyamide melt. The 6 blacks and substitutes recorded in our source library are compared below.

Only rows with a substance page in our substance directory carry data columns; the perylene blacks are named because our source library lists them as alternatives, without property data.

The same Proposition 65 wording covers one other pigment: titanium dioxide (TiO2, Pigment White 6) is listed in the airborne, unbound, respirable form, so the two most-used pigments in plastics carry the same listing for the same physical reason.

NIR-sortable and IR-reflective blacks#

The one property that makes carbon black a problem is the same one that makes it useful: it absorbs near-infrared light, so a black part is invisible to the NIR sorters that separate plastics for recycling. A sorting line identifies a polymer from the NIR light it reflects, and a strongly absorbing pigment returns too little signal to classify.

The APR Design Guide sets the threshold numerically in SORT-S-01: black or dark colors with an L* below 40 or an average NIR reflectance of 10 % or less fail NIR sortability. Ampacet's REC-NIR-BLACK masterbatch is a NIR-detectable black that is COTREP-certified for PP and HDPE rigid packaging, The carbon-black-free blacks that pass a sorter are compared under NIR-sortable black colorants.

The regulatory backdrop is moving in the same direction: the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, applies from 12 August 2026. Sortability is one of several additive decisions covered in design for recycling, and for a black package it is usually the decisive one.

Iron oxide black (PBk11) and copper chromite black (PBk28)#

Iron oxide black and copper chromite black spinel are the inorganic substitutes: both are detectable by NIR sorters, and neither reaches the jetness of a fine-particle furnace black. Iron oxide pigments include Pigment Black 11, the NIR-detectable inorganic black.

Copper chromite black spinel is the high-temperature option, a calcined mixed metal oxide used where the processing window or the service temperature rules out an organic black, and NIR-reflective versions of it exist. Pigment Black 28 (copper chromite black spinel) is the heat-stable inorganic black used in engineering plastics, and its chromium and copper content is what a restricted-substances list examines first. Our source library holds no comparative jetness, heat-stability or dosage figure for either pigment against carbon black, so this page compares them qualitatively.

Nigrosine (Solvent Black 7) in polyamides#

In polyamides the competitor is not another pigment but a dye: nigrosine (C.I. Solvent Black 7, CAS 8005-02-5) dissolves in the melt instead of dispersing in it. Nigrosine is an azine dye mixture, and solubility is exactly what a polyamide compounder wants, since a dissolved colorant leaves no particle to act as a crystallization site or a flaw.

The dye is not inert toward the polymer. Nigrosine (Solvent Black 7) colors polyamides by dissolving in the melt, and it decreases the crystallization rate of PA66 through hydrogen bonding with the polymer chains, which changes the molding cycle rather than only the color.

Titanium nitride and other PET reheat additives#

In the PET reheat role carbon black competes with titanium nitride and other near-infrared absorbers, and the choice is made on the color the additive leaves behind at ppm levels rather than on absorption alone. Every reheat additive buys lamp efficiency with a small loss of clarity, so the comparison is run at equal haze rather than at equal loading.

Titanium nitride and the other NIR absorbers are compared on IR absorbers and reheat additives, where the reheat-specific grades are separated from the solar-control ones.

Who Manufactures Carbon Black? Grades and Suppliers#

Three producers cover most of the specialty carbon black used in plastics: Cabot, Orion Engineered Carbons and Birla Carbon. Each sells into the polymer market differently, from pigment powders and beads to finished masterbatch and conductive compounds, and the grade names below are the ones our supplier source library records.

Company data come from our supplier source library. Grades and certifications must be confirmed on the producer's current data sheet.

Buyers should ask for three documents rather than a grade name: the grade's primary particle size, the PAH and benzo(a)pyrene certificate for any food-contact or drinking-water use, and the dispersion rating of the masterbatch. Plant locations, grade ranges and regional producers are listed under carbon black manufacturers and suppliers.

No price figure appears anywhere on this page, because our source library holds no sourced price for carbon black. Feedstock and grade effects on cost are tracked on carbon black price, where the drivers are separated from the quotations.

How Does Carbon Black Fit into the Wider Pigment and Filler Picture?#

Carbon black is the highest-volume pigment in plastics and at the same time a minority use of the substance itself, because only about a tenth of world production is used as a pigment at all. The Colour Index treats it as one generic colour name among many, while the plastics industry treats it as two products that happen to share a CAS number, a colorant and a UV screen.

At rubber loadings carbon black stops being a pigment and behaves like one of the fillers for plastics, which is where the boundary between the two additive families sits: at pigment levels a particulate solid is doing an optical job, and at rubber levels the mechanical and volumetric effects dominate. That boundary explains why claims travel badly between the rubber literature and a plastics data sheet.

Why 9 out of 10 tonnes of carbon black never reach a plastic#

About 70 % of world carbon black production goes into tyres and a further 20 % into other rubber goods, which leaves roughly 10 % for pigment use across inks, coatings and plastics. Plastics take a fraction of that tenth, which is why plastics-grade specialty blacks are a separate product line rather than a sales channel for tyre grades.

US food-contact law allows carbon black up to 50 % in rubber articles for repeated use under 21 CFR 177.2600, against a 2.5 % ceiling in plastics under 21 CFR 178.3297, a twentyfold gap between the two materials for the same substance. At 50 % the carbon is a structural component of the compound; at 2 % it is a screen.

Carbon black volumes and where plastics sit#

Global carbon black consumption was 13.2 million tonnes, worth USD 13.7 billion, in 2015, the most recent figure our source library holds. No plastics-only tonnage is recorded, so the plastics share cannot be stated beyond the 10 % pigment fraction that covers inks and coatings as well.

The European picture comes from the registration data rather than from a market report: carbon black is registered under REACH in the 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 tonne per year band, which is the volume manufactured in or imported into the EU across all uses. Neither figure supports a growth projection, and none is made here.

Is carbon black conductive?#

Only in high-structure, high-surface-area grades: those form a continuous network above the percolation threshold, while a pigment-grade carbon black at colouring levels leaves the compound insulative. Unfilled PE and PP sit at a surface resistivity of 1e15 to 1e16 ohm, antistatic compounds at 1e9 to 1e13 ohm, and anything above 1e14 ohm counts as insulative in Ampacet's banding. The antistatic, dissipative and insulative bands are defined on surface resistivity.

Is carbon black a UV stabilizer?#

Carbon black is a UV screen rather than a UV stabilizer in the chemical sense: it absorbs the radiation before it reaches the polymer instead of intercepting the radicals that UV has already created. That is why it works at percent levels rather than at the tenths of a percent typical of a stabilizer, and why the pipe standards write it in as 2.0 to 2.5 wt%. The screening function is documented for polypropylene and for polyethylene in outdoor service.

Does carbon black make plastic stronger?#

In our source library carbon black has 3 documented functions in plastics: color, UV screening and, in special grades, electrical conduction. Mechanical reinforcement is not among them. Reinforcement is a rubber function, obtained at loadings up to 50 %, an order of magnitude above any plastics loading recorded here, and no reinforcement figure for a thermoplastic is held in our sources.