Water treatment plants treat water with chlorine and chloramines that create cancer-causing by-products
An activated carbon filter has remarkable taste, odor, and chlorine reduction capabilities. coalactivatedcarbon.comWater treatment plants treat water with chlorine and chloramines that create cancer-causing by-products. These disinfectants linger in your drinking water, tainting it with a chemical flavor. Carbon clears water of organic compounds that make your water taste or smell bad. Contaminants adhere to the surface of a carbon filter, and only clean water flows to your house.
What are carbon filters?
Carbon filters, like all water filters, are barriers that capture substances that contaminate your drinking water. Ancient Egyptians were the first to discover carbon's detoxifying powers. Carbon is still used today to remove contaminants from water, making foods and beverages taste and smell better.
How does a carbon filter work?
Carbon filters remove contaminants through adsorption. Absorption soaks up particles like a sponge to water. Adsorption adheres particles to a surface like a piece of Velcro. Organic compounds bond or stick to the surface of a carbon filter because water and contaminants are both polar compounds that attract one another.
Carbon filters are extremely porous and have a large surface area, making them effective at reducing bad tastes, odors, and other particles in water. A carbon filter acts as a parking lot with pores for parking spaces for contaminants as water flows through. The tiny pores are measured in microns. The smaller the micron, the finer the filtration. Low flow rate and pressure give contaminants more time to park or adhere to the carbon. The more contact time water has with the surface of a carbon filter, the more efficient the filtration.
What is a charcoal filter?
You'll often hear carbon filters referred to as charcoal filters. However, carbon filters are not made of the same type of coal used to grill burgers.
What's inside a carbon filter?
- Bituminous coal
- Wood-based media
- Coconut shell media
Of the three types of filter media, powdered activated carbon salecoconut shell carbon is the most renewable. This type of carbon is made from the shell of a coconut rather than the meat inside, so it doesn't cause allergic reactions or flavor water. Wood-based carbon is made from burned wood ground into a granule and resembles what the ancient Egyptians would have used. Bituminous coal used less frequently today since traces of arsenic have been discovered in the media.