What Is Carbonized Bamboo Filament

The first commercially successful light bulb filaments were made from carbonized paper or bamboo.

What is carbonized bamboo filament. It became a true carbon copy of the starting material an all carbon fiber with the same exact shape. Carbonizing has nothing to do with hardness. Except for small detail.

Carbonized bamboo flooring bamboo is often steamed or smoked for long periods of time. Known as carbonization this process lends otherwise light colored bamboo an amber hue which many homeowners prefer to the straw color of natural bamboo. We all learned in our history classes that thomas edison invented the light bulb in 1879 and that the first successful filament was a carbonized piece of cotton thread that burned for 13 5 hours.

To make these filaments pieces of a single bamboo plant was sliced lengthwise into extremely fine strips and bent to their desired hairpin or looped shapes in order to fit into the bulb. When bamboo is carbonized usually in floors is burned to create a blacked look to the top of the surface. This can at times be a faux finish.

Carbon fiber technology makes for incredibly strong creations even forming the fuselage for boeing dreamliners. First bamboo filaments had a square shape because they were cut from larger pieces using a certain process. Today light bulb filaments are not something we think about unless they burn out but their early development is a fascinating story of 19 th century chemistry and materials science.

Later he used carbon paste to adhere the bamboo. It s a similar process to caramelizing sugar which turns dark and gooey after being heated. He electroplated the bamboo directly to the lead in wires to avoid the high cost of platinum clamps.

In any case edison discovered that carbonized bamboo made excellent lamp filaments. Bamboo is a type of grass seen in east asia. Since bamboo consists mostly of cellulose a natural linear polymer made of repeating units of glucose the filament was carbonized when heated.