How does activated carbon work?

        There are two adsorption means existed in activated carbon, and they are physical adsorption and chemical adsorption.

        Physical adsorption takes place in the course of removing contaminants from liquid and gas stream. The multi-pores structure provides activated carbon with a large surface area, which results in contaminants being collected by activated carbon very easily. Attractive force is existed among all molecules as likely as magnetic force among magnets. As a result, the molecules at the surface of pore walls have many attractive forces which work to attract the molecules of contaminants through to the pore channels. It should be pointed out that for molecules of contaminants to be adsorbed, they must be smaller than the size of carbon pore opening so that they can pass into the carbon pores and accumulate. Now that you can imagine why we are always using different raw materials and conditions of activation to produce varieties of activated carbon with different pores structure, aiming to make our products suitable for different applications.

       Apart from physical adsorption, chemical reactions can occur on a carbon surface. Activated carbon not only contains carbon content but also has a little hydrogen content and oxygen content on its surface, which exists in the form of chemical combinations and function masses, including Carbonyls, Hydroxyls, Phenols, Esters, Quinones and Ethers, etc. These oxidizing agents and complexes on the carbon surface can take chemical reactions with the matters that are adsorbed by carbon. The following is a typical example: during the water treatment process, activated carbon can take reactions with chlorine in water and convert the chlorine to chloride. What's more, the chlorine is removed and there are no objectionable tastes and odors in water any more.