the manufacturing process to change the inherent surface chemistry of the black. The amount of chemically-bonded oxygen on the surface area of the black is increased to enhance performance characteristics. Use in lithium-ion batteries Carbon black is a common conductive additive for lithium ion batteries as they have small particle sizes and large specific surface areas (SSA) which allow for the additive to be well distributed throughout the cathode or anode in addition to being cheap and long-lasting. Unlike graphite, which is one of the other common materials used in chargeable batteries, carbon black consists of crystal lattices that are further apart and promotes Li+ intercalation because it allows more pathways for lithium storage. Carbon black has a low density that allows for a large volume of it to be dispersed so that its conductive effects are applied evenly throughout the battery. Furthermore, its arrangement of randomly distributed graphite-like crystals improves battery stability because of the decrease in the potential barrier of lithium intercalation into graphite, which ultimately affects the performance of cathodes. While carbon black is lightweight and well dispersed throughout the battery and increases the conductive performance of batteries, it also contains oxygen containing hydrophilic functional groups that can cause side reactions to occur in the battery and lead to the decomposition of electrolyte. Graphitization (heating) of carbon black can thermally decompose the hydrophilic functional groups and thus increase the cycle life of the battery which maintains the conductive abilities of carbon black while mitigating the damage that can be caused to batteries by carbon black. Half cells created with heavy graphitization, light graphitization, and no graphitization showed that the cell created with heavy graphitization had a stable cycle life of 320 cycles, the cell with light graphitization showed a stable cycle life of 200 cycles, and the cell with no graphitization showed a stable cycle life of 160 cycles. Safety Carcinogenicity Carbon black is considered possibly carcinogenic to humans and classified as a Group 2B carcinogen because there is sufficient evidence in experimental animals with inadequate evidence in human epidemiological studies. The evidence of carcinogenicity in animal studies comes from two chronic inhalation studies and two intratracheal instillation studies in rats, which showed significantly elevated rates of lung cancer in exposed animals. An inhalation study on mice did not show significantly elevated rates of lung cancer in exposed animals. Epidemiologic data comes from three cohort studies of