What are pigments?

What are pigments? - An answer from biology

• The word "pigment" actually comes from Latin. There "pigmentum" simply means color or dye.
• In the biology the term is used for all coloring substances occurring in plants, animals and humans. Mostly these are colored bodies deposited in certain cells.
• Pigments are made up of tiny granules that are insoluble in water. In nature, they can be organic, but also inorganic in nature, such as in the calcareous skeletons of some sea creatures such as corals (so-called. Mineral paints).
• Examples of such pigments are primarily the green chlorophyll of plants, but also the yellow-orange carotenoids. The melanin, a brownish color, formed in the skin cells by solar radiation, is one of the pigments and determines the skin color.
• Pigments can be found in a wide variety of tissues, in body fluids, but also in special pigment cells, which are also called chromatophores.
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Making colors yourself - that's how it works with pigments

Before paints were industrially produced in tubes and bottles, painters all had to ...

• Natural pigments are made from colored, naturally occurring biological materials (safflower, purple snail), but also from minerals, ores (reddish pigments) and sands (e. B. Ocher).

Artificial pigments - not just an imitation of nature

• Most of the pigments used today are, however, manufactured artificially, i.e. industrially through chemical reactions. The main reason was and is above all the high demand, which could not and cannot be adequately met with natural pigments (example: purple from the purple snail).
• Many naturally occurring pigments can be produced industrially. Discovered by chance (!) By the chemist Runge in the 19th century. In 1834 he isolated the aniline from coal tar, from which aniline black was obtained.
• Examples of inorganic pigments that are known are titanium white (titanium dioxide), cobalt blue (a special cobalt oxide-aluminum mixture) or carbon black.
• Examples of organic pigments are azo dyes or special organic metal complexes.
• Luminous pigments (for fluorescent security coatings) or luster pigments (for metallic effects or cosmetics) also belong in this industrial area.