# Regular charcoal for water purification?



## pawpaw

Not the match-light, obviously. I was thinking of my four-foot piece of pvc, 2" diameter, being filled with coarsely crushed charcoal briquettes. Then letting suspect water trickle through it, filtering it at the end with a fine mesh paint filter, followed by boiling. Any scientists out there?


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## Davarm

I'm not a scientist but I dont really think you would want to use charcoal briquettes, they have binders and other "Junk" in them. 

If you dont have or could not find "Activated Carbon" you would do better using regular hardwood charcoal instead. It would be better than unfiltered water but the activated carbon is best. It has "acres" of surface area(for filtering) per cubic inch where as regular charcoal does not.

I have looked into this in the past, and have found that activated charcoal is not prohibitively expensive or hard to find but it can be bulky to store. 

Good idea though packing a piece of 2 inch PVC pipe though.


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## pawpaw

Yeah, Davarm, come to think of it, I saw plastic jars of it for around $5-$6 at China Mart, in the aquarium supplies. Thanks for reminding me. It's not expensive to just use what was manufactured for that purpose.


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## md1911

pawpaw said:


> Yeah, Davarm, come to think of it, I saw plastic jars of it for around $5-$6 at China Mart, in the aquarium supplies. Thanks for reminding me. It's not expensive to just use what was manufactured for that purpose.


Davarm was very correct. Activated charcoal is made for the purpose. However in a pinch you can make hardwood charcoal.(pm me if you want to know how to make charcoal). Chrush it into verysmall pieces and it will work almost as well. I personeley have tried and used this method it works.


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## goshengirl

md1911, I think it would be great if you posted how you make charcoal on this thread. 

I end up with a fair amount of charcoal when we burn brush/etc. around the property, but I'd love to know how to make it for when the SHTF, for water purposes.

When I get the most charcoal, it's when I've been burning a lot of stuff and have lots and lots of ashes, and I take a log of hardwood and bury it in the ashes and just let it cook in there. The next day there will be charcoal. Is it the burying it in the ashes and slow cooking that makes it work?


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## md1911

goshengirl said:


> md1911, I think it would be great if you posted how you make charcoal on this thread.
> 
> I end up with a fair amount of charcoal when we burn brush/etc. around the property, but I'd love to know how to make it for when the SHTF, for water purposes.
> 
> When I get the most charcoal, it's when I've been burning a lot of stuff and have lots and lots of ashes, and I take a log of hardwood and bury it in the ashes and just let it cook in there. The next day there will be charcoal. Is it the burying it in the ashes and slow cooking that makes it work?


Charcoal is made by building a very hot fire in a shallow pit. You place chunks of hardwood on the fire. Cover them with coals and burry it with dirt. Wait 2 or 3 days and dig it up. The chunks of wood you placed on the fire should be charcoal.

Preaty simple. You can make charcloth much the same way. A tin can with a tight fitting lid. Drill or poke a small hole in the lid. Layer 100% white cotton in the can. Caution do not pack te cotton. Place the can on the fire.. keep the hole clear and when it stops smoaking you have good charcloth.

Hope someone finds this usefull.


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## BillM

As long as you use plain charcol with out any additaves to make it light easy, it will work just fine. The only diffrence between plain charcol and activated charcol is the size . activated charcol is about pea sized chunks. Got a grass sack and a hammer ?


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## Davarm

BillM said:


> As long as you use plain charcol with out any additaves to make it light easy, it will work just fine. The only diffrence between plain charcol and activated charcol is the size . activated charcol is about pea sized chunks. Got a grass sack and a hammer ?


Not quite true, the size portion may be correct but activated carbon is very porous, compared with regular charcoal the activated carbon has many, many times the surface area and hence many times the filtering capacity. I stated that activated carbon has "acres" of surface area as compared to charcoal, that was not much of an exaggeration.

If the filter is not to be used "Long Term" or for extremely large quantities of water, regular charcoal can work adequately.


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## UncleJoe

goshengirl said:


> md1911, I think it would be great if you posted how you make charcoal on this thread.


http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f2/1st-experiment-making-charcoal-woodgas-3786/


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## lazydaisy67

You can get a 3 pound bag of activated charcoal for $6 on Amazon. If you buy 5 bags you get free shipping. I haven't done a TON of price shopping on that so it could be cheaper someplace else. Seems like it would be a good idea to have some on the shelf anyway.


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## Ration-AL

ok I'm no scientist but i will share with you what i know if you need further explanation hit the webs....

from my understanding is that when making your own charcoal from a fire and such you need to use sand in the filter as well , as when you make your own charcoal it is not activated, which means the charcoal has been given a charge to attract the water molecules to it, this draws every single drop of water through the material as opposed to the charcoal we make isn't and if your tube/filter isn't deep enough or your flow rate is to quick or many other things that can happen your water will not be purified all of the way.



> Each piece of carbon is designed to provide a large section of surface area, in order to allow contaminants the most possible exposure to the filter media. One pound (450 g) of activated carbon contains a surface area of approximately 100 acres (40 Hectares)
> 
> This carbon is generally activated with a positive charge and is designed to attract negatively charged water contaminants.





> The action of activated charcoal involves adsorption, not absorption, Adsorption is the electrical attraction of toxins to the surfaces of the fine charcoal particles.












how a sand filter actually works





make sure you watch the youtube video, there's alot more going on then you think in these types of filters , yes the activated charcoal also has a larger surface area but i think there's more to it then that...

either way, that's all stuff i've heard, and i've always just used sand in my filters as well because that's how i was shown to do it, sand ,charcoal,sand,charcoal,sand,charcoal,gravel....I've never done anything different besides just a straight sand filter, i've never made a pure charcoal filter before, don't you get crap in your mouth and have it taste like soot?
it just seems to me packing a bunch of standard charcoal in to a tube and dumping water in there won't really work to well....

how to make activated charcoal
http://wassupcom.1.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=1748


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## pawpaw

I started this thread. I now think any clean charcoal might do in a pinch, but I'll get the bulk. It also occurred to me that I could put about a foot of oven baked sand into the pipe first, to further filter it out the bottom. I heard the romans did that on a large scale. Oven-baked to sanitize it, of course. Realize I'm just experimenting (playing) as part of preps.....
Darn, Ration-AL, I just posted this seconds after you did. Thanks!


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