[paulb]

Hey guys and girls, first off I'm no chemist by any stretch. But I have a (probably) simple chemistry question. I was looking to make some charcoal via charring some plant matter. In this case, waste wood which I've done before to obtain charcoal to draw with. But I saw that you can also make carbon via dehydrating sugar either via sulfuric acid or by simply heating it. Heating it I did and carbon I obtained. But I noticed something odd (too me), the stuff doesn't adhere to much of anything such as paper, hands or anything else unlike the charcoal I get from burning wood would give me. I'm wondering why? Is it simply too pure a form of carbon for mark making or something?

[Borek]

It is probably both a matter of purity and a matter of structure.

[hmx9123]

Carbon from wood routinely is 'charcoal', which is not plain C.  It has semi-volatile plant matter attached to it, which is why it's used in pyrotechnics.  Trying making black powder with activated charcoal (pretty close to C), and it's horrible.  Make it with regular charcoal, and it's excellent.  Depending on what you burn to make your charcoal, you can get better or worse material.  You can also over-cook charcoal and drive off most flammable organic matter, making closer to C.  Much of what you see with the 'stickiness' of the black on paper are the oils and other materials adsorbed onto the carbon surface that are sticky.  There's whole books written on making charcoal--take a look online and you can read about making your own charcoal.  Should give you some more insight.