Production

Lead and carbon do not normally combine, even at very high temperatures. Modern literature on lead carbide is almost non-existent.

J. F. Durand reported in 1923 the synthesis of lead carbide from calcium carbide

Calcium carbide

thumb|right|Calcium carbide.Calcium carbide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula of CaC2. The pure material is colorless, however pieces of technical grade calcium carbide are grey or brown and consist of only 80-85% of CaC2 . Because of presence of PH3, NH3, and H2S it has a...

 CaC₂ by treatment with an aqueous solution of lead(II) acetate

Lead(II) acetate

Lead acetate , also known as lead acetate, lead diacetate, plumbous acetate, sugar of lead, lead sugar, salt of Saturn, and Goulard's powder, is a white crystalline chemical compound with a sweetish taste. It is made by treating lead oxide with acetic acid. Like other lead compounds, it is toxic...

 Pb(CH₃COO)₂, but this result was not reproduced. A recent textbook repeats this claim, and describes it as a green powder with formula PbC₂ that is decomposed by hydrochloric acid

Hydrochloric acid

Hydrochloric acid is a solution of hydrogen chloride in water, that is a highly corrosive, strong mineral acid with many industrial uses. It is found naturally in gastric acid....

 HCl to acetylene

Acetylene

Acetylene is the chemical compound with the formula C2H2. It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is unstable in pure form and thus is usually handled as a solution.As an alkyne, acetylene is unsaturated because...

 C₂H₂ and lead(II) chloride

Lead(II) chloride

Lead chloride is an inorganic compound which is a white solid under ambient conditions. It is poorly soluble in water. Lead chloride is one of the most important lead-based reagents...

 PbCl₂.

A compound analyzed as lead carbide PbC₂ has also been obtained accidentally as a thin layer (about 10 μm

Micrometre

A micrometer , is by definition 1×10-6 of a meter .In plain English, it means one-millionth of a meter . Its unit symbol in the International System of Units is μm...

 thick) on the inner wall of a graphite

Graphite

The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...

 crucible that had been used to heat a lead-bismuth

Bismuth

Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...

 eutectic alloy for 100 hours at 1073 K

Kelvin

The kelvin is a unit of measurement for temperature. It is one of the seven base units in the International System of Units and is assigned the unit symbol K. The Kelvin scale is an absolute, thermodynamic temperature scale using as its null point absolute zero, the temperature at which all...

 in a helium

Helium

Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...

 atmosphere.

Pyrophoric lead

Several reports of "lead carbide" synthesis appeared in the early 19th century, and were widely cited and copied into textbooks during the next few decades. In 1820, for instance, a certain John claimed to have sublimated a black carbide of lead from finely divided mixture of lead and charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...

, but this claim apparently was never reproduced. Also in 1820, Berzelius claimed that the pyrolysis

Pyrolysis

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures without the participation of oxygen. It involves the simultaneous change of chemical composition and physical phase, and is irreversible...

 (decomposition by heat) of iron-lead cyanide resulted in a double iron and lead carbide, FeC₄·2PbC₄. In 1823 Göbel from Jena obtained, by pyrolysis of lead tartrate in a closed vessel, a black powder that ignited spontaneously in contact with air, and believed it to be a carbide of lead. This product still provides a popular school demonstration of pyrophoricity

Pyrophoricity

A pyrophoric substance is a substance that will ignite spontaneously in air. Examples are iron sulfide and many reactive metals including uranium, when powdered or sliced thin. Pyrophoric materials are often water-reactive as well and will ignite when they contact water or humid air...

. Shortly thereafter, Proust obtained a similar product from lead acetate and Berzelius obtained one from lead cyanide. However, by 1870 those pyrophoric residues came to be regarded as an intimate mixture of carbon and lead; and the existence of lead carbide was considered unproven.