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 is a substance created by heating organic matter to high temperature in the absence of oxygen and a charcoal water filter is one that uses charcoal for the filtration process. The organic material commonly used is coconut husks.
There are various properties to carbon, and the one that is important for the purposed of water purification is that it is extremely porous, having huge numbers of tiny holes. This allows the water and it's contaminants to pass through the holes and come into contact with the carbon. The contaminants are chemically attracted to the carbon and so are "absorbed" by it, and don't pass through.
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.
It's so porous in fact that it can have up to 20000 square yards of surface area per ounce of activated carbon. That's really porous.
And as a carbon filter absorbs the contaminants and holds them in the carbon material they gradually fill up and need to be replaced.
An activated carbon water filter works well filtering a wide range of contaminants, but doesn't filter all of them, and for this reason the best water filters use a multi stage water filtration process. Not only is the carbon block, or activated carbon filter used but there is a second stage to the process that removes the contaminants that are not removed by activated carbon filtration.
For instance in the best water filters, there is a 2 stage filtration process. The second stage is used to filter those contaminants not removed by the first, like lead. This is achieved by an ion exchange process where the lead ions are replaced by potassium ions. Potassium is a mineral that occurs naturally in water and is not harmful.
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.
There you have the basics of water filtration by use of carbon, or what is known as charcoal water filters, or activated carbon water filters. The activated carbon is not 100% successful in removing all contaminants, but when used in a 2 stage process designed to remove the contaminants that are left behind by the AC filter, it works exceedingly well. You should expect around 99% of lead to be removed, for example.
Head over to my website if you're interested in finding out more about the worlds best water purifiers.
Charcoal is a substance created by heating organic matter to high temperature in the absence of oxygen and a charcoal water filter is one that uses charcoal for the filtration process. The organic material commonly used is coconut husks.
There are various properties to carbon, and the one that is important for the purposed of water purification is that it is extremely porous, having huge numbers of tiny holes. This allows the water and it's contaminants to pass through the holes and come into contact with the carbon. The contaminants are chemically attracted to the carbon and so are "absorbed" by it, and don't pass through.
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.
It's so porous in fact that it can have up to 20000 square yards of surface area per ounce of activated carbon. That's really porous.
And as a carbon filter absorbs the contaminants and holds them in the carbon material they gradually fill up and need to be replaced.
An activated carbon water filter works well filtering a wide range of contaminants, but doesn't filter all of them, and for this reason the best water filters use a multi stage water filtration process. Not only is the carbon block, or activated carbon filter used but there is a second stage to the process that removes the contaminants that are not removed by activated carbon filtration.
For instance in the best water filters, there is a 2 stage filtration process. The second stage is used to filter those contaminants not removed by the first, like lead. This is achieved by an ion exchange process where the lead ions are replaced by potassium ions. Potassium is a mineral that occurs naturally in water and is not harmful.
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.
There you have the basics of water filtration by use of carbon, or what is known as charcoal water filters, or activated carbon water filters. The activated carbon is not 100% successful in removing all contaminants, but when used in a 2 stage process designed to remove the contaminants that are left behind by the AC filter, it works exceedingly well. You should expect around 99% of lead to be removed, for example.
Head over to my website if you're interested in finding out more about the worlds best water purifiers.
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