Re: Activated Carbon

"Joe 123" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> One process of making AC is to soak your wood chips in zinc chloride, then
> dry.  Place in a charcoal cooker and then cook.  Ive seen reference to
temps
> from 600F to 1000F.  When charcoal is done subject it to steam washing
grind
> and then pelletize or whatever you want to do with it.  There are also
chems
> that when added to the wood and cooked will make the wood fluffyier and
more
> pourous.  The granular carbons and pelletized stuff seems to be slightly
> inferior to the powder varieties.  The stuff to stay away from is the
> chinese crap but then again how do you tell.
>
> Ive also heard of soaking wood in HCl and doing the same.  I think the
moral
> of the story is everybody has special way to make AC.  Companies like
Calgon
> will contract out to others and give a recipe down to the type of wood to
> use.
>
> So short of soaking your wood in HCland steam stripping the AC, then YES
it
> is made just like a pyro would.   put some wood in the can seal it turn on
> the heat and cook it.
>
>
> AND you all can say what you want but I have made BP out of several brands
> of AC and it was better than any airfloat charcoal I used from pyrotek or
> skylighter.  But I ont think youd catch me paying 10$ ++ per lb at walmart
> or petsmart.   And until you can prove me wrong your just trying to make
> friends with idiots.
>

No, Joe, activated carbon is not made the same way you would make pyro
charcoal. The main difference is the high temperature (about 1200 C), and
the steam, which end up producing a fairly pure grade of extremely porous
carbon, which has an incredibly large surface area, which allows for superb
adsorption rates compared to other filtrates. The "activated" part basically
means it is fairly pure and able to adsorb very small particles. Once the
carbon has been saturated, it must be re-activated, in the case of GAC
(granular activated carbon), or disposed, in the case of airfloat.

When you make pyro charcoal in a retort, cooking at 1200 C would result in
ash. You need an anaerobic environment to do that, and that's not easy to
provide in your average backyard, so re-activating carbon at home is not
likely.

Scotty.