Physical Reactivation and Chemical Reactivation To help you understand the amount of surface area in discussion here, a 50-gram dose of activated carbon has the same surface area as 10 American football fields. There are two methods, physical and chemical, to activate the charcoal (carbon) in order to make it more porous and increase its surface area, therefore increasing its effectiveness at filtering pollutants. Old pallets seem to work well, as they are seasoned, and are typically dry enough to burn quite well.Ĭarbon works to filter contaminants by trapping chemicals within the pore structure of a carbon particles, so the more porous and cavernous the carbon, the better the toxins will be adsorbed. ![]() Charcoal is made in a fire pit, usually using hardwoods or other organic materials. Charcoal can be defined as a black or dark gray form of carbon, produced by heating organic substances in an inert (still or unmoving) atmosphere. The first raw material needed is charcoal. While this type of demonstration doesn’t stand up to modern scientific procedures, Touery lived through the ordeal because he knew that the poison would be adsorbed by the activated carbon before it entered his bloodstream! As science has continued to advance in the past century, we have gained an incredible capacity to improve upon past discoveries and ancient technologies in order to find even more uses for helpful natural phenomena, and advances in the manufacturing and uses for activated carbon is just one example. ![]() Tourey had been studying activated carbon so he knew that if he also swallowed a powdered activated carbon at the same time, he would walk away from the stunt. It is said that back in 1831, in order to prove the effectiveness of activated carbon as a medicine, Professor Touery of the French Academy of Medicine drank 15 grams of the potent poison strychnine (ten times the lethal dose) in front of his medical peers. While mankind has been using carbon, in one form or another, to purify contaminates and neutralize odors for thousands of years, the process of activating carbon has only gained traction in the past few hundred years. It can also work as a medicine, as it helps to draw toxins out of the body, and it’s still widely used around the world for these cleansing properties. During the westward expansion of the United States (think Lewis and Clark/Oregon Trail times) access to fresh water was limited during the long treks through harsh wilderness so American soldiers used plain lump charcoal to filter swamp water for drinking. (Sorry for the imagery, but there was no way around the term “rotting flesh”, as this is literally what it was used for.) Impressively, ancient sea explorers figured out that scorching the insides of wooden barrels that were used to store drinking water would keep the water safe to drink during long voyages. ![]() and continuing into the 1800s, charcoal was used in hospital treatments in powder form to help reduce the smells produced from rotting flesh. ![]() Specifically, that carbon could be used to control odors and purify water. Our ancestors have known the uses for charcoal and other carbons for a long time. All of these terms can be used interchangeably, however not all carbon is ‘activated’, as we will explore. (All of which are very interesting.) To ensure clarity, whenever you hear the term ‘activated carbon’, it is considered to be the same as ‘activated charcoal’, or ‘active carbon/charcoal’. Activated carbon – you may have heard of it in the past, but you may not know what it is or what it can be used for unless perhaps you have studied medicine, chemistry, or survivalist techniques.
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