Pencil thereby pushing a new tip to the top. Invented by Harold Grossman for Empire Pencil Company in 1967 and subsequently improved upon by Arthur D. Little for Empire from 1969 through the early 1970s; the plastic pencil was commercialised by Empire as the "EPCON" Pencil. These pencils were co-extruded, extruding a plasticised graphite mix within a wood-composite core. Residual graphite from a pencil stick is not poisonous, and graphite is harmless if consumed. Although lead has not been used for writing since antiquity, lead poisoning from pencils was not uncommon. Until the middle of the 20th century the paint used
Lead of primary production in either a blast furnace or a rotary furnace, with the essential difference being the greater variability of yields: blast furnaces produce hard lead (10% antimony) while reverberatory and rotary kiln furnaces produced semisoft lead (3–4% antimony). The Isasmelt process is a more recent method that may act as an extension to primary production; battery paste from spent lead–acid batteries has sulfur removed by treating it with alkali, and is then treated in a coal-fueled furnace in the presence of oxygen, which yields impure lead, with antimony the most common impurity. Refining of secondary lead is similar