Carbon

Carbon can bond to itself in chains and rings of almost any length, which is why it forms more compounds than any other element and is the backbone of all living things. Pure carbon comes as soft graphite or hard diamond. Most of the carbon industry uses comes from oil, natural gas and coal.

In the television, carbon forms the skeleton of almost every plastic and organic chemical: Ethylene, propylene, benzene and the liquid crystal molecules themselves. Burned with too little air, oil turns into carbon black for the black matrix. As coke, carbon pulls the oxygen out of iron ore to make pig iron, and with coal and wood chips it frees metallurgical-grade silicon from quartz.