Bruce Guo Jun 20, 2019:

You are doing an amazing job and I appreciate your working attitude so much!

Frank Szmulowicz, Ph. D. (asker) Jun 20, 2019:

@Bruce Guo: Yes, it is summer black. The answer is right, but the question was wrong; my apologies. As it oftens happens, we often translate terms that had already been translated from other languages. Here, it may have been from Korean into Chinese into English. As I investigated further, I noticed that the order of the compounds in the patent (channel black, furnace black, lamp black, and summer black) is identical to that in the wikipedia article on "carbon black:"At the same time, "carbon black"has several subtypes:
Carbon black (subtypes are acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum products such as FCC tar, coal tar, or ethylene cracking tar." It makes sense, then, that we are talking of thermal black. The ultimate target language is Polish, and I have no problem translating this term into Polish - sadza termiczna - if anyone happens to ask the same question in the future. Thank you for your help, Bruce.

Bruce Guo Jun 20, 2019:

Yes, well done. But it's impossible to be Xia dynasty black as in this case 夏黑 is actually a sentence, and the whole sentence is "夏朝汉人崇尚黑色服饰（The Chinese people of the Xia dynasty preferred black costume）". it means the Chinese people of the Xia dynasty preferred black costume.

https://baike.baidu.com/item/汉族/130605?fr=aladdin

色,各有崇尚,一般是夏黑、商白、周赤、秦黑、汉赤、唐服色黄,旗帜赤,到了明代,取法周、汉、唐、宋,定为赤色为宜。

商白：the people of the Shang dynasty preferred white costume;
周赤：the people of the Zhou dynasty preferred red costume;
秦黑：the Qin dynasty also preferred black costume.

Frank Szmulowicz, Ph. D. (asker) Jun 20, 2019:

I found that 夏 also stands for the Xia dynasty, and that there is a distinctive black that is associated with that dynasty. Is it possible that there is a carbon compound (a dye) that was used during that time - i.e., a Xia dynasty black? As a further shot in the dark, is it conductive?