If you've read about the problems with drinking contaminated water you might be getting interested in water filtration. You will have heard of charcoal water filters or carbon water filters or even activated carbon water filters. What are these water filters?
Charcoal water filters are filters that use charcoal to remove the contaminants in water during the filtration process. Charcoal is carbon that is created by heating organic matter in the absense of oxygen to high temperature. Commonly coconut husks are used for the organic material.
Charcoal is quite porous and absorbs many compounds in it's pores and it is this quality that is relied on for successfully filtering the water. That's why charcoal is used in gas masks, it absorbs things quite easily, both from gases and liquids. The pores are tiny holes made in the charcoal, or carbon, and the contaminants are absorbed into the charcoal. This is achieved by means of chemical attraction, because a wide range of organic compounds are attracted to carbon.
What then, is activated carbon? Activated carbon is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen in the manufacturing process to result in a much higher percentage of pores. In other words it is more porous than ordinary charcoal. The best charcoal water filters use activated carbon.
In fact it is so porous that it can have anywhere up to 20000 or more square yards of surface area for each ounce of carbon. Now that's really porous.
Because the carbon filter absorbs contaminants it slowly fills up with these contaminants, so needs to be replaced periodically.
An AC filter works fine for filtering most contaminants, but not all. And for this reason the best water filters on the market do not rely solely on an activated carbon filter. Those that rely only on AC have some shortcomings.
And in the very best water purifiers available there is no reliance on AC filtering only, because very good it is not sufficient on it's own. There is a second stage to the filtering process and this stage is used to filter contaminants that the first stage leaves behind, like nasty lead. And the removal of lead is achieved by an ion exchange process replacing lead ions with harmless potassium ions.
And there are two extremely dangerous potential water contaminants, cryptosporidium and giardia, and these must also be removed by the best filters. This is done by use of an extremely fine filtration process.
So although carbon filtration, or what can be known as charcoal or activated carbon water filtration, isn't 100% successful in removing all contaminants, when used in conjunction with a second stage filtration process targeted at the contaminants not removed by the carbon, it works extremely well. If there is lead in your water, and there is in the water of most Americans, you can expect around 99% of it to be removed.
I spend time discussing the worlds best water filters on my website. - 30289
Charcoal water filters are filters that use charcoal to remove the contaminants in water during the filtration process. Charcoal is carbon that is created by heating organic matter in the absense of oxygen to high temperature. Commonly coconut husks are used for the organic material.
Charcoal is quite porous and absorbs many compounds in it's pores and it is this quality that is relied on for successfully filtering the water. That's why charcoal is used in gas masks, it absorbs things quite easily, both from gases and liquids. The pores are tiny holes made in the charcoal, or carbon, and the contaminants are absorbed into the charcoal. This is achieved by means of chemical attraction, because a wide range of organic compounds are attracted to carbon.
What then, is activated carbon? Activated carbon is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen in the manufacturing process to result in a much higher percentage of pores. In other words it is more porous than ordinary charcoal. The best charcoal water filters use activated carbon.
In fact it is so porous that it can have anywhere up to 20000 or more square yards of surface area for each ounce of carbon. Now that's really porous.
Because the carbon filter absorbs contaminants it slowly fills up with these contaminants, so needs to be replaced periodically.
An AC filter works fine for filtering most contaminants, but not all. And for this reason the best water filters on the market do not rely solely on an activated carbon filter. Those that rely only on AC have some shortcomings.
And in the very best water purifiers available there is no reliance on AC filtering only, because very good it is not sufficient on it's own. There is a second stage to the filtering process and this stage is used to filter contaminants that the first stage leaves behind, like nasty lead. And the removal of lead is achieved by an ion exchange process replacing lead ions with harmless potassium ions.
And there are two extremely dangerous potential water contaminants, cryptosporidium and giardia, and these must also be removed by the best filters. This is done by use of an extremely fine filtration process.
So although carbon filtration, or what can be known as charcoal or activated carbon water filtration, isn't 100% successful in removing all contaminants, when used in conjunction with a second stage filtration process targeted at the contaminants not removed by the carbon, it works extremely well. If there is lead in your water, and there is in the water of most Americans, you can expect around 99% of it to be removed.
I spend time discussing the worlds best water filters on my website. - 30289
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