Chemical Adsorption

Activated Carbon Filters are rarely used alone to purify the air, but they are often used in conjunction with other filters. Activated carbon and charcoal filters excel at adsorbing odors and gases and neutralizing smoke, chemicals, and fumes. "Adsorb" is not a typo; "adsorption" occurs when materials attach through chemical attraction. Activated carbon has been treated with oxygen, opening up millions of pores in the carbon. There are so many of these tiny pores that one pound of activated carbon has a surface area of 60 to 150 acres. This huge surface area makes it ideal for adsorbing gases and odors. These chemicals and gases are too small to be trapped by a HEPA filter, but they bond to the enormous surface area in the activated carbon. The bigger the carbon filter, the more chemicals it will be able to absorb and the longer it will keep on working. When it's full, it can't adsorb any more and has to be replaced. Impregnated carbon filters contain an additional chemical (a "chemisorbent") to eliminate certain chemicals like VOCs by rendering them harmless or trapping them within the filter media. The Airpura C600 Activated Carbon Filter offers both particle and smoke filtration removing harmful airbore chemicals and gases from your indoor air with both HEPA-barrier and carbon bed filtration. The Airpua C600 air purifier features 26 lbs of specially blended carbon in a 3" deep carbon bed for great chemical, VOC, and smoke abatement. The Austin Air HealthMate Plus HM 450 Air Cleaner offers a superior gas filtration system to remove a wide range of chemical vapors through a 4-stage filter containing 15 pounds of Activated Carbon impregnated with Potassium Iodide and over 60 square feet of True Medical Grade HEPA.