What Is Activated Carbon?
Activated carbon, or activated charcoal, is carbon treated to massively increase its surface area. With greater surface area, activated carbon can adsorb far more contaminants than it otherwise could.
Activated carbon can be created by super heating carbon rich materials like wood, fibers, and coal without oxygen. It’s heated a second time in an oxygenated environment while being exposed to nitrogen or argon.
This unique, two-step burning process makes the carbon very porous, which increases its surface area. As water passes through and around the porous surface of activated carbon, many contaminants get pulled in and trapped, leaving your water cleaner.
Activated carbon is widely used because it's cheap and abundant, it’s very simple in the way it works, and it excels at removing some common contaminants like chlorine, which hurt your water quality.
Coconut shell activated carbon is the most common carbon in point of use systems, probably because it removes VOCs, THMs, hydrogen peroxides, hydrogen sulfides, TCE, PCE, detergents, phenols, taste, odor, and other contaminants from water.
Chlorine is the most common disinfectant used in public water systems. While it is very good at killing pathogens in your water, it can dry out your skin and make your water taste and smell like a swimming pool. It also creates dangerous disinfection byproducts.
What Is Catalytic Carbon?
Catalytic carbon is another form of activated carbon, but the two types are not the same. Catalytic activated Carbon goes through an extra treatment step. To make catalytic carbon, the activated carbon’s surface is altered by a high-temperature gas treatment to increase its catalytic properties. The altered surface makes it a catalyst for various chemical reactions, which improve its water filtering abilities. This makes it a better catalyst for promoting and accelerating chemical reactions — helping it to remove more contaminants from water than regular activated carbon.
The advantage of using activated catalytic carbon vs. Activated Coconut Carbon is the Catalytic Carbon has improved chloramine reduction. Where activated carbon struggles, catalytic carbon causes a chemical reaction that turns chloramines into harmless chloride. The addition of KDF55 accelerates the reduction even further.
Similarly, catalytic activity can break down hydrogen sulfides, which cause a bad taste and rotten egg smell in Well water. Standard activated carbon is not as effective here. The addition of KDF85 in combination with the recommended “Centaur” catalytic carbon makes one of the most effective Hydrogen Sulfide reduction systems. As a water filter media, catalytic carbon is a major improvement on activated carbon and is priced accordingly.
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