WEBVTT - How Activated Charcoal Works

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff works dot com where

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<v Speaker 1>com slash brain Stuff today for details. I am Marshall

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<v Speaker 1>brain with today's question. What is activated charcoal and why

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<v Speaker 1>is it used in filters? Charcoal is carbon. Activated charcoal

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<v Speaker 1>is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen to open

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<v Speaker 1>up millions of tiny pores between the carbon atoms. These

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<v Speaker 1>pores give the charcoal amazing surface area, maybe a thousand

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<v Speaker 1>square meters or more per gram of charcoal. The word

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<v Speaker 1>ads orb is important here. When a material adds orbs something,

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<v Speaker 1>it attaches to it by chemical attraction. The huge surface

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<v Speaker 1>aery of activated charcoal gives it countless bonding sites. When

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<v Speaker 1>certain chemicals pass next to the carbon surface, they attached

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<v Speaker 1>to the surface and they get trapped. Activated charcoal is

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<v Speaker 1>good at trapping other carbon based impurities organic chemicals in

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<v Speaker 1>other words, as well as things like chlorine, many other

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<v Speaker 1>chemicals are not attracted to carbon at all. Sodium nitrates,

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<v Speaker 1>things like that so they pass right through. This means

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<v Speaker 1>that an activated charcoal filter will remove certain impurities while

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<v Speaker 1>ignoring others. It also means that once all the bonding

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<v Speaker 1>sites are filled and activated charcoal filter stops working. At

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<v Speaker 1>that point, you have to replace the filter. Do you

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