When it comes to pigments, we must be no stranger, because we have been in contact with pigments since childhood, the art class teacher is not often let us paint different things with pigments, I want to say that we have been in contact with these since childhood, but how much do you really know about pigments, today we ink with organic pigments manufacturers will tell you about the history of pigments.

The history of human application of pigments is very long, in the early days, the color of pigments was applied to the surface of objects in order to make them beautiful or easy to identify. With the progress of mankind, pigment has become a raw material for spreading culture, art, and recording history in addition to decoration, which can be confirmed by ancient artifacts unearthed from prehistoric human sites. Due to the limitations of ancient human understanding of nature, the pigments used are natural mineral products or simple processing products such as: colored soil, white, soot and so on.

In the two or three thousand years BC, there was a production method of lead white, with people's labor, gradually increased the understanding of matter, and through people's practice and later found that the production of red lead, quite material as industrial production, began in the eighteenth century.

In 1704, the Prussian Disbach discovered the manufacture of Prussian blue, and in the early 19th century, zinc white was discovered, thus replacing the toxic lead white.

After the production of chromium yellow began in 1818, ultramarine appeared in 1828, zinc barium white began industrial production in 1874, and the manufacturing method of Chin white was invented at the beginning of the 20th century, and titanium white has become A main product of quality A in modern white pigments.

Since the development of the dye industry in the 19th century, in this period of more than one hundred years, with the rise of coking and petroleum industry, organic synthetic dyes have developed rapidly, and a variety of organic materials with good light resistance have been industrialized production, because of its bright color and good performance, so in some ways to make up for the shortcomings of inorganic pigments and incomplete chromatography. Paint pigment performance: with outstanding coloring strength and brightness and excellent heat resistance, permeability resistance and good light fastness, all properties are very good.

Pigments are now used not only for beauty, but also to work with paint to protect objects from corrosion. Therefore, the significance of the use of pigments is more important.

In this article, we will uncover the secrets of pigments and explore the origins and history of pigment colors. We will learn about the history of some particularly important pigments that were used to make colors in the past, until the emergence of a new age of synthetic pigments.

black

Organic black pigments are the oldest and most light resistant, can be perfectly preserved for centuries, even thousands of years, soot and coal are the result of burning plant or animal materials, burned vines and grape seeds, burned bones, candle soot, etc., have different gum and tar content, so they can produce a variety of shades of black pigments. One of the most valuable blacks in history was Chinese ink, which was surprisingly easy to lay on paper or silk, and presumably made from soot from the burning of vegetable oils: sesame seeds, or perhaps linen or hemp. The source of the mineral black pigment may be the dark land.

white

Almost all white pigments are mineral and synthetic. White lead is one of the first artificially created pigments in history. It is obtained by sheets of lead oxide, which are poured with grape vinegar and then buried in soil or feces to form a white powder of lead acetate salt. Beautiful and pure white paints based on lead pigments had been popular in Europe since the 4th century BC, however, it was very toxic and as early as the end of the 18th century, lead whites were gradually abandoned as they were replaced by the new pigment zinc white.

yellow

The number of yellow pigments in nature is unusually large, such as ochre yellow, Naples yellow, lake yellow, yellow and realgar, luteolin yellow, turmeric, saffron yellow, garcinia yellow, India yellow, etc., in ancient times the most commonly used yellow pigment is yellow ochre, all natural ochre is alumina, silica and lime compounds, which contain iron impurities, Their tone can be red, brown, purple, brown or even black tones, the color depends on the oxidation state, the role of high temperature, foreign substances impurities, light fast, beautiful color of natural ochre as an earthen pigment, soft tone, relatively opaque.

Pistillate and realgar are two varieties of arsenic-sulfur compounds found in nature, and carrot-colored pigments, ranging from fiery red to orange, were well known in Greece and widely used in Rome under the name "sandarac." In medieval manuscripts, the use of the beautiful bright lemon yellow, golden yellow, orange is also attested, however in the Middle Ages there have been signs of its light intolerance, chemical interaction with lead powder, copper paint and toxicity.

Naples yellow is a yellow inorganic pigment extracted from natural volcanic deposits, with a variety of shades from light yellow to yellow-orange, it has a high light resistance, known as "Naples yellow".

Another beautiful lemon yellow pigment with a green tinge, "luteolin", is obtained from the yellow luteolin of the grassland, which has good light resistance and weak chemical activity.

Turmeric and saffron yellow are yellow pigments from the East, yellow plant extracts and varnishes are very fragile, they color well, but they are not light fast, and fade easily in light.

Garcinia is a lemon yellow pigment obtained from the plant Garcinia genus, a relative of the mango tree, this pigment is gelatinous in nature, it has a good color, transparent, intense color, and has good light resistance.

In the mid-19th century, the secret of the origin of Indian yellow, a warm golden pigment with a unique aesthetic, was revealed, which was the lutein magnesium salt extracted from the urine of camels (according to other sources, cows, buffalo and even elephants), which may have been a urinary stone formed by the animals after eating mango fruit, and by the 20th century, the production of Indian yellow had ceased. This pigment can also be obtained artificially from the SAP of plants, but the pigments based on it are not as good in quality as the natural ones.

red

Among the red pigments since ancient times, the earliest and most important is the mineral pigment "ochre", natural laterite is a fine iron oxide containing aluminosilicate impurities, iron oxide red has a noble natural tone, although they do not have the color of spectral purity and bright tone, so the reddish brown matte color sometimes belongs to the category of brown pigments.

Lead red and vermilion red

The brightness of the color is a prominent feature of pigments of other mineral origin, known as "flame red" as early as ancient Egypt and many countries of ancient Eurasia, with warm tones of lead and vermilion red.

Lead red pigments are made from lead whitewashing under the influence of high temperatures, and coatings based on it have all the known disadvantages: blackening under the influence of sulfur-containing compounds, oxidizing and changing the color of organic pigments, with extremely high toxicity.

Cinnabar is the most common mercury mineral found in nature, and the pigment extracted from it is colder than the bright red red lead, a mineral that has been known around the world since primitive times. From Roman times until 1991, the largest cinnabar deposit was developed near the Spanish city of Almadena. Vermilion will fade over time and take on a gray tint.

Organic red pigment

Organic red pigments have a variety of colors and beautiful, like yellow organic pigments, do not have durability, in addition to their production costs are usually high, including carmine, rubitin red, dragon blood, safflower, seaweed, cloud, sandalwood, purple flower and so on.

Carmine, a striking bright red pigment with high transparency, is obtained from cochineal insects, blood red carmine was brought to Europe by the Spanish in 1510, and for a long time its manufacturing techniques were the most closely kept secret because its trade brought huge profits, until the Dutch began producing carmine in the 17th century. The pigment carmine is extracted from the female carmine, a small insect that lives on the carmine genus of the Mexican cactus genus, and only 1 kilogram of dried carmine can be extracted from 140,000 insects. Carmine has a weak light resistance.

In Europe, even before the import of Mexican carmine, a similar color of carmine pigment was known and sold in Europe, which contained a coloring substance "carmine acid" (also called carmine acid), which was also obtained from dried insects (a worm that lives on Holly trees). The color of Mexican carmine is not as bright as carmine acid carmine, but it is brighter, but since the beginning of the import of Mexican carmine, the value of carmine has been declining, and by the end of the 19th century, only a very small amount has been consumed, and since the 1850s, the true carmine has been replaced by rose madder.

Madder red (Rose madder, Madder lake) is a vegetable dye that comes from the root of the madder plant, which has an excellent magenta hue, high transparency and strength. Wild madder is distributed in the steppes of southern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus and even further away in China, after the German chemists Grebe and Lieberman proposed a cheap industrial method of producing alizarin in 1868. The cultivation of madder stopped, and the coloring substance of madder consisted of light resistant alizarin and rhodopsin with poor light resistance.

Dragon blood is the bright red, orange-yellow or gold-colored gum of tropical plants (for example, covering the fruit of calamus palm trees), and this relatively durable pigment is more commonly used for decorative purposes.

Carthamin is a pigment with a pink tinting substance that has a characteristic golden luster, it is extracted from the petals of safflower and is one of the most expensive pigments along with carmine, but is not light tolerant.

blue

In blue pigments, there are also two categories: minerals with excellent tone and durability and very weak organics.

Natural ultramarine pigment, a pigment that can be compared to any blue with its beautiful deep velvet hue and light resistance, is made of sky-blue stone (lapis lazuli) that was transported to Europe by large caravan routes from Afghanistan, after which precious lapis lazuli was painstakingly processed and up to 3 pounds of pigment could be obtained from 100 pounds of the mineral. The prepared paint is sold by the weight of gold.

As a cheap alternative or counterfeit to expensive ultramarine, pigments often used from another mineral, azurite, are similar in color to expensive lapis lazulis, but this pigment is essentially copper (the bicarbonate of copper is chemically close to the green mineral malachite), is destroyed by sulfur compounds, and it usually turns green over time. In the Middle Ages, copper blue was used much more frequently than in subsequent periods.

Indigo is an expensive blue organic pigment that was imported to Europe by the Dutch around 1645.In India, the pigment was obtained from the juice of the dye bush indigo (L. Indigoferatinctoria) and other tropical indigo plants in the pea family, while in Europe, The pigment was obtained from Isatisinctoria. Indigo It is not light fast, the tone is a little dark, but it is transparent, is neutral to other pigments, the late 19th century, indigo was synthetic.

green

Green copper pigments, the most famous of which is the natural mineral malachite (coal copper) and copper acetate (copper acetate is obtained by the oxidation of copper sheets and acetic acid in the air), however, the chemical properties of copper pigments are very active, easy to fade, in addition to many copper pigments are also toxic substances, there are rich green pigments in nature. But almost no bright, non-fading green color is obtained from organic pigments.

Article source: Gaoyou colorful chemical, Jingyan Chemical