Abstract This article aims to explain the mysterious phenomenon of black smoke formed in the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons, which is usually referred to in the study of organic chemistry. This black smoke is actually one kind of black carbon whose name is soot. Its structure is based on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and it is possibly formed from clustering of resonance-stabilized radicals by radical-chain reactions. In fact, black carbon has extremely vital significance in environmental science, combustion chemistry, organic chemistry, and so on. So this article is expected to provide a supplementary for the present textbooks and learning of organic chemistry.
YAO Qiu-Li, WANG An-Jun, JIA Jia. Unveiling the Mystery of Black Smoke Formed During Incomplete Combustion of Hydrocarbons[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, 2021, 42(2): 97-100.