Characterization and comparison of oriental ink sticks

The writing brush, ink stick, paper, and ink stone were the four precious things of the studying and recording in oriental world until even nowaday. The oriental paper was comparatively well evaluated in many papers and reviews, but it is difficult to find some scientific reports or reviews about the ink stick. In this paper, the scientific aspect of ink sticks of oriental maine three country(Korea, China, Japan) were evaluated by the physical, chemical and microscopic analysis. The result could summarized as fellows; 1. The Korean lampblack ink stick contains more carbon and less nitrogen and the Chinese ink sticks contain less carbon and more oxygen. 2. The Korean lampblack and cowhide glue contain relatively higher amount of sulphur. 3. The particle size distribution of carbon in the ink stick was not change after grinding in the ink stone. 4. The particle size of carbon and the pore size in the charcoal ink sticks of three country were larger than those of the lampblack ink sticks. 5. The ink solution of the charcoal ink sticks shows high roundness on Hanji while the ink solution of the lampblack ink sticks is spread readily to Hanji surface. 6. The change of whiteness in printing of the ink sticks is notable in thermal treatment.