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I have been playing around with lampblack recently, and one property that I particularly like in them is their Hydrophobicity. It's interesting to watch water drops just bouncing off the surface.

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I reasoned that this was because lampblack was carbon, which is hydrophobic. I wondered if Graphite could also repel water since it was also made up of carbon. I took a pencil and made a thick patch of graphite on a paper and placed a water drop on it. But I couldn't see any hydrophobicity.

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Why is it that the lampblack repels water whereas graphite doesn't; even though both are made up of carbon?

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the lampblack contains partially-burned hydrocarbons which are strongly hydrophobic.

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