Ash (residue)

Sake bottle
MFA# 92.5425

Description

A grayish white to black powdery residue that remains after a substance has burned. The residual ash is composed of noncombustible, or mineral, matter such as Silica, Alumina, iron oxide, Clay, etc. Ash from plant material generally contains high amounts of Lime, Sodium carbonate, and/or Potassium carbonate. Wood ash was the principal source for potassium for several hundred years. Phosphorus was obtained from the ash of animal bones (Calcium phosphate). Ash from sea plants contains high amounts of Iodine.

Ash Quarry

Synonyms and Related Terms

wood ash; bone ash

Physical and Chemical Properties

Density	40-53 pcf

Additional Images

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  Quarried Ash Bed

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  Volcanic Ash Pit

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  Volcanic Ash

Resources and Citations

• Richard S. Lewis, Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 10th ed., 1993

• Boise Cascade Paper Group, The Paper Handbook, Boise Cascade, Portland OR, 1989

• Matt Roberts, Don Etherington, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: a Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1982

• Artists' Pigments: A Handbook of their History and Characteristics, Ashok Roy (ed.), National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Vol. 2, 1993

• The Dictionary of Paper, American Paper Institute, New York, Fourth Edition, 1980

• Bernard Toale, The Art of Papermaking, Davis Publications, Portland OR, 1983

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998