Talk:Bone char

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Chemistry Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemistry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of chemistry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChemistryWikipedia:WikiProject ChemistryTemplate:WikiProject ChemistryChemistry Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Food and drink Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Food and drinkWikipedia:WikiProject Food and drinkTemplate:WikiProject Food and drinkFood and drink Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Food and Drink task list: edit history watch purge To edit this page, select here Here are some tasks you can do for WikiProject Food and drink: Help bring these Top Importance articles currently B Status or below up to GA status: Agaricus bisporus (i.e. mushroom), Beef, Bread, Curry, Drink, Food, Ham and eggs, Soy sauce, Sushi, Yogurt Bring these Top Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Beer, French cuisine, Sugar Bring these High Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Apple, Burger King, Fish Participate in project-related deletion discussions. Delete unrelated trivia sections found in articles. Please review WP:Trivia and WP:Handling trivia to learn how to do this. Add the {{WikiProject Food and drink}} project banner to food and drink related articles and content to help bring them to the attention of members. For a complete list of banners for WikiProject Food and drink and its child projects, select here. Provide photographs and images for Category:Wikipedia requested images of food Consider joining this project's Assessment task force. List any project ideas in this section Note: These lists are transcluded from the project's tasks pages.

Char isn't pure black... lysdexia 02:53, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not entirely convinced that bone char is "no longer commonly used" in sugar refinement. I have seen several sources that claim it is still in fairly widespread use, even in the United States. In particular, most C&H sugar is supposedly processed using bone char -- at least one page even includes a reply from C&H. Of course, these sources may not be reliable, but the information (factual or not) seems to be fairly widespread.
See Google: "C&H" "bone char"
and Google: sugar "bone char"

Rikus 06:52, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)

This statement was based on my conversation with a sugarcane processing researcher in the USDA's Agricultural Research Service. She works closely with the sugar industry. Secondary sources on industrial practice often lag FAR behind actual pratice. ike9898 23:49, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the statement on pareve/kosher labels and bone char is false or misleading, since it suggests that the sugar does not come into contact with the bone char. See http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2007issue4/VJ4_2007-Sugar.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.57.25 (talk) 13:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

This 2007 article indicates bone char in common use. This 2018 article says "There’s no doubt that giant sugar refineries could easily switch filter components to vegan materials. But vegans and people concerned about this sort of thing haven’t yet reached the numbers required to convince the sugar companies to make the switch." -- Paleorthid (talk)

I can't really add this in, since it's original research, (and I'm not sure how accurate the information is anyway) but I'll put it here, in case anyone can find a verifiable source. A while ago, I contacted CSR, a major Australian sugar company, with an inquiry about whether their sugar is refined using bone char (since I'm vegan, this was important to me). They replied that they did not use bone char, and that the use of bone char in the manufacture of sugar in Australia ceased quite a few years ago. --Qirex 14:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

I did some searching for a reliable source on this subject, and found one source, "Vegetarian Network Victoria", that did some comprehensive research and came up with the conclusion that no refineries in Australia used bone char. I'm not sure if this source qualifies as reliable enough, but I'll include it anyway, since everywhere else I've seen supports its conclusion. -kotra (talk) 02:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Would like to know the animals used for bone char in the US.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.134.236.202 (talk) 01:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Could someone please insert a redirect to this page from a search for "animal carbon"? (I don't know how to do this) Currently a search for "animal carbon" shows "carbon" as the top result. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.70.177.242 (talk) 04:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)  Done Tomásdearg92 (talk) 06:32, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Please don't revert the removal of cs iw until the issue is resolved.--Ancient Anomaly (talk) 21:14, 23 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Project Osprey, I have a bone to pick with you (Har de harr, I couldn't resist the pun, sorry.) about your most recent edit summary on this page: "Break into sections, remove websites as references, better sources are required". I welcome the call for better sources, but the journal Desalination and Thorpe's Dictionary of Applied Chemistry can hardly be called that. Unfortunately, the removals have left claims suddenly uncited.

Anyway, it turns out the 1812 patent mentioned was actually "for a method of refining sugar* by the means of ... charcoal", and not bone char. An 1815 patent "for effecting the same purpose by means of ... charcoal produced from the burning of bones" was united with the former. - Carpmael, William Law Reports of Patent Cases, Volume I. - Beaumont and Others v. George, A. Macintosh, London 1843, p. 294. Hopefully this counts as WP:RS, but I can search for the original patent if needs be.

Is the article in Desalination notable? Personally, I'd append the reference and change "but present high adsorptive capacities for copper, zinc, and cadmium" to include a mention of cobalt adsorption. Then again, I'm something of an inclusionist.

While I agree that the other two sources aren't factually useful (one being a sentence long and the other a journal in name only), the "Vegetarian Journal" does show that the use of bone char can be a concern for Vegans/vegetarians.

I hope I'm not seen as petty or unhelpful, I just think the edit was overzealous. Yours, Tomásdearg92 (talk) 16:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hello. I appreciate you concern, I feel I should start by saying that this is work in progress and I intend (well, hope) to add quality secondary references later on. Regarding your specific concerns: The version of Thorpe's Dictionary of Applied Chemistry cited was nearly 100 years old; which I considered outdated. The article in Desalination referred to bone char produced from pig bones, which I believe to be a minor product as the majority is made from cow bones. Regarding the vegans/vegetarian issue, I intend to focus in on this. This article regularly appears in the top 10 of most popular chemistry articles (see here) and I can only assume that vegans/vegetarian are a major driver behind this - we may as well give them the information they're looking for. Project Osprey (talk) 18:03, 20 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank's for the information, I see you've added significant depth and detail to the article over the last three days. I find it astonishing how high this page tends to rank, I would never have thought it was so contentious/popular a subject. If I can be of use, I'll certainly try and help with this page - but I'll hold off until you're finished with the overhaul. Tomásdearg92 (talk) 13:19, 22 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

• Feel free to edit whenever, I'm not possessive over pages. A lot of what I've added may benefit from a second pair of eyes, it's close to WP:MEDRS, plus anything about fluoridation tends to a lot of crazies interest. Project Osprey (talk) 23:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Bone char is also used in the color case hardening process.q 2600:1700:9481:2FC0:517B:272D:D28F:C8D6 (talk) 09:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

So, I am currently doing some research on a school project on the thermolysis of a bone. I am trying to find it out all by myself but I am quite puzzled on where the carbon exactly comes from. Could anyone offer a bit of help? 2A02:A420:48:91BC:2:2:8ED0:4D45 (talk) 16:02, 23 February 2024 (UTC)Reply