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How is Charcoal Activated, And What Makes It Different from Normal Charcoal?

Coconut Shell Charcoal Suppliers

Activated charcoal is used as a treatment for poisoning and drug overdose, as it contains toxins. It inhibits more significant toxin release in the body. This type of charcoal absorbs anything coming into its contact, like a sponge. It detoxifies the harmful toxins and poisons from the human body.

The activated charcoal is not the one you use for barbecuing. It consists of chemicals and other substances that harm the skin. Activated charcoal is a powder producing burning wood, bamboo, coal, or coconut shells at extremely high temperatures.

One teaspoon of activated charcoal can have as big of a surface area as a football field. As it has ingredients that make it spongy and processed at extremely high temperatures. In this blog, you will learn how charcoal is activated and what makes it different from normal charcoal.

How is Charcoal Activated?

Charcoal is activated through two successive processes of carbonization and activation; charcoal is transformed into activated charcoal.

Carbonization

This is the heat treatment process, which involves organic elements such as wood, coconut shells, peat, and even bamboo. Such organic elements are heated in an environment that contains very little oxygen.

Because of the scant oxygen, it will not burn but degrade and concentrate in charcoal. During this stage, it removes volatile compounds and leaves a charcoal structure made basically of carbon.

Activation

This forms the real difference. The activation may be physical or by chemical method:

Physical Activation

It involves more treatment of the carbonizing material at high temperatures. This high temperature will generate a large number of pores within the charcoal, hence remarkably increasing its internal surface area. The pores will form some kind of network that increases its ability to catch and retain the molecules.

Chemical activation

It is the treatment of the charcoal with chemical agents such as phosphoric acid, potassium hydroxide, or zinc chloride. These chemicals dehydrate the material, which even at the lower temperature develops the porous structure. In most cases, chemical activation usually creates a different distribution of pore sizes, which is then more suitable for very specific applications, like air filtration or medical uses.

Activated Charcoal vs. Normal Charcoal

Normal charcoal consists of relatively compact particles and therefore a small surface area. As such, it has its mainstream usage as fuel because it can provide a high-temperature burn with sustained heat.

However, the surface area of activated charcoal is as large as 3,000 m2 per gram when considering its micro-, meso-, and macropores. The huge surface area of the activated charcoal effects its capacity to adsorb the chemicals, toxins, and impurities.

Applications

Normal charcoal is normally used for grills, barbeques, and campfires that are mainly employed for their combustion purposes. Supposedly, these should give a continuous, steady source of heat that will last long enough to cook the food.

Activated charcoal has many uses and applications. It is useful in medicine to treat drug overdoses and poisoning incidents. This is also used to filter out pollutants, chlorine, and other organic compounds from water.

Other applications include air purifiers, filtration through gas masks, and industrial filtration systems. There are broad applications in cosmetic products, from face masks to toothpaste, due to its nature of absorbing the toxins.

What Makes It Different from Normal Charcoal?

Activation transforms common charcoal into a multi-purpose and highly effective adsorbent. The activation process maximizes the ability of the charcoal to trap and hold contaminants by greatly expanding the internal surface area.

Surface Area and Pore Structure

Activated charcoal possesses a peculiar structure and endows it with enormous adsorptive capabilities. The pores provide lots of spaces for capture, and the increased surface area has increased the number of binding sites that pollutants can use.

Mechanism of Adsorption

Activated charcoal is adsorbed by a mechanism known as physisorption. In this, the molecules of the substance to be adsorbed stick on the surface of charcoal through physical forces like van der Waal’s forces of attraction. This makes it highly effective in eliminating different kinds of impurities from liquids and gases.

Conclusion

On the other hand, activated charcoal at Coconut Shell Charcoal Suppliers goes through a process that gives it a very large surface area and a porosity structure. It will become extremely efficient as an adsorbent to draw and retain chemicals, poisons, and other contaminants as a result of the change.

While normal charcoal serves as a fuel source rather well, activated charcoal’s wider range of applications in health, the environment, and personal hygiene support its unique multipurpose nature. 

Using activated charcoal should be one of your go-to methods for skin detoxification. The advantages of charcoal are instantly apparent when used correctly and as part of a supportive skin care routine, which is rather astounding for an active ingredient available over-the-counter.

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