How Activated Carbon Works Activated Carbon is extremely porous with a very large surface area. The reason that activated carbon is such an effective adsorbent material is due to its large number of cavernous pores. This provides a large surface area relative to the size of the actual carbon particle and its visible exterior surface.

An approximate ratio is 1 gram = 100 meter square of surface area. The intermolecular attractions in the smallest pores result in adsorption forces. The molecules of the contaminants in the water are adsorbed on to the surface of the Activated carbon by either physical or chemical attraction. The two main reasons that chemicals adsorb onto Activated Carbon are:
A) A “dislike” of water
B) Attraction to the Activated carbon.

Activated carbon adsorption proceeds through three basic steps:

1. Substances adsorb to the exterior of the carbon surface,
2. Substances move into the carbon pores
3. Substances adsorb to the interior walls of the carbon.Many organic compounds, such as chlorinated and non chlorinated solvents, triholmethanes, pesticides and VOC are adsorbed into the inner pores, activated carbon is also effective for removal of chlorine and moderately effective for removal of some heavy metals.

Important Properties of Activated Carbon Iodine Number, Surface area, pore size and particle size distribution are key parameters for effective adsorption of activated carbon. Premium Carbons have a minimum iodine number of 1100, ash content of less than 3% and bulk density of 0.45g/ml.