What is granular activated carbon?

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Granular Activated Carbons are a very versatile group of adsorbents, with capability for selectively adsorbing thousands of organic, and certain in- organic, materials. From medicinal uses of powdered carbons in ancient Egypt, through charred interiors of whiskey barrels, carbon has been activated and used as an adsorbent for centuries. Granular vapor phase activated carbon media was first widely used in WWI military gas masks and, in the years between World Wars, commercially in solvent recovery systems.wood acivated carbon

Granular liquid phase activated carbons achieved their first prominent applications following WWI’, in sugar de-colorization and in purification of antibiotics. Today, there are hundreds of applications — if diverse uses under the general heading of environmental control are counted separately, ongoing applications number in the thousands.

Granular Activated Carbon (activated charcoal) is an adsorbent derived from carbonaceous raw material, in which thermal or chemical means have been used to remove most of the volatile non-carbon constituents and a portion of the original carbon content, yielding a structure with high surface area. The resulting carbon structure may be a relatively regular network of carbon atoms derived from the cellular arrangement of the raw material, or it may be an irregular mass of crystallite platelets, but in either event the structure will be laced with openings to appear, under electron micrographic magnification, as a sponge like structure. The carbon surface is characteristically non-polar, that is, it is essentially electrically neutral. This non-polarity gives the activated carbon surface high affinity for comparatively non-polar adsorbates, including most organics. As an adsorbent, activated carbon is this respect contrasts with polar desiccating adsorbents such as silica gel and activated alumina. Granular Activated carbon will show limited affinity for water via capillary condensation, but not the surface attraction for water of a desiccant.

Granular activated carbon can be produced from various carbonaceous raw materials, each of which will impart typical qualities to the finished pro-duct. Commercial grades are normally prepared from coconut and other nut shells, bituminous and lignite coals, petroleum coke, and sawdust, bark and Other wood products. In general, nut shells and petroleum cokes will produce very hard carbons with a pore structure characterized by.(1) above, coals a (2) type structure in comparatively hard carbons, and wood (3) structure in carbons lacking great crush and abrasion resistance. It should be emphasized that specific production techniques may yield carbons that depart from the norm of a given raw material.

The solid, or skeletal, density of most activated carbons will range between 2.0-2.1 g/cc, or about 125-130 lbs/cubic foot. However, this would describe a material with essentially no surface area and no adsorptive capacity. For GAC, a much more practical density is the apparent density (A.D.), or mass of a given volume of adsorbent particles. This density will be significantly lower than the solid density, due to the presence of pores within particles, and void space between particles. In most commercial GACs, the A.D. variation is between 0.4- 0.5 g/cc, or between 25-31 lbs/cubic foot.

Since granular activated carbons are used in adsorbers of fixed volume, apparent density values can be used to calculate volume activity, which may help determine the work capacity of an adsorber with alternative carbon loadings. For example, assume that carbon A adsorbs iodine to produce a standardized Iodine Number of 1100 mg/g., and has an A.D. of 0.4 g/cc Carbon B has an Iodine Number of 950 mg/g and an A.D. of 0.5 g/cc. Multiplying the A.D. by the weight basis activity value, carbon A has a volume iodine capacity of 440 mg/cc while carbon B has a value of 475 mg/cc. Therefore, carbon B, which has lower activity, might actually do more work and therefore have a longer service life than carbon A of an equal volume. If the price of carbon B permitted filling a given adsorber with the greater weight required, it could thus be the most economical of these adsorbents on a net cost basis.

Since standard activity tests are run with oven dried carbon, it will be immediately apparent why high A.D. values that reflect added moisture will not produce the benefit illustrated above. Similarly, high densities due to significantly low activity levels, or ash or inactive char residue from reactivation, or any non-carbon adulterants will not normally benefit service life nor the adsorbent’s capability to produce highly purified fluids.www.coconutactivatedcarbon.com
 
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