Active Charcoal
Using activated carbon?
Activated carbon is widely used in home filtration systems. It can be used as a stand-alone filter to reduce or eliminate bad odour and taste, chlorine and a wide range of organic contaminants from public tap water (pre-treated or chlorinated) and to significantly improve the quality of drinking water.
It is also used to pre-treat water, as a component of reverse osmosis, to filter out many organic contaminants, chlorine and other substances that damage the reverse osmosis membrane. Filters made of 0.5 micron block-pressed activated carbon are commonly used to filter cysts such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium.
Activated carbon filters generally do not bind dissolved inorganic compounds, such as minerals or water. salts that cause hardness of water, limescale, antimony, arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, fluoride, mercury, nickel, nitrates, nitrites, selenium, sulphate, thallium and certain radioactive elements. To trap these contaminants, a reverse osmosis system is needed (some of which are also trapped by filters containing KDF® 55).
Why Activated Charcoal?
As activated carbon, especially granular activated carbon, does not retain mechanical particles well enough, it is highly recommended to install a pre-filter in front of the activated carbon to filter out mechanical particles. The pre-filter extends the life of the activated carbon filter cartridge by trapping contaminants that would otherwise clog the fine pores of the activated carbon, thus reducing the surface area for adsorption of other contaminants.