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The Mechanism of Activated Carbon Adsorption

The process of activated carbon adsorption is being widely used these days to purify almost anything. People often misunderstand between adsorption and absorption. Most people think that they are both synonyms of each other. But well, actually they are not. Not only that they are not the same, but they differ by a large extent. In absorption, a solid or some other material gets impregnated with a liquid or gas. But in adsorption, particles are never taken inside a solid. Instead, they get accumulated at the surface of the adsorbant.
So, obviously, if the surface area is larger compared to volume, such materials will exhibit a large amount of adsorption. This is what happens in Activated Carbon Adsorption. Carbon is first obtained from organic materials by synthesis. Then this plain carbon is made to undergo many chemical processes like dehydration, oxidation.etc. By doing this, we get a better version of carbon which is highly porous. This carbon is called activated carbon.
The activated carbon thus obtained is further refined to produce many types within it, namely, powdered, granular, polymerized.etc. Generally, granular type is used for activated carbon adsorption in water tanks to purify water. Each activated carbon specimen has a certain capacity beyond which it cannot function as an adsorbant. This threshold value is estimated during the production of activated carbon. The application of activated carbon adsorption can also be implemented on other purifying processes.