Why Charcoal?Charcoal has been used to remove impurities from water for hundreds of years by many different cultures. In conjunction with boiling the filtered water, charcoal has been found to be effective in removing chemicals, odors, and colors from water. Charcoal can also be manufactured in impoverished nations, so there would be no need for the filters to be imported.
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"For many of us, clean water is so plentiful and readily available that we rarely, if ever, pause to consider what life would be like without it."
-Marcus Samuelsson
How do Charcoal Water Filters Work? |
Charcoal is made up of carbon and ash from organic materials. Carbon is a porous material that can remove various impurities from the water by absorbing them into itself. As contaminants pass through the charcoal with the water, they bond with the carbon. As a result, the contaminants do not leave the filter along with the newly cleaned water.
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What Contaminants are Removed From the Water? |
Charcoal and carbon filters are able to effectively remove many chemicals from contaminated water. These chemicals include chlorine, radon, and various others. Charcoal filters can take pesticides out of the water, and are also able to remove color and smell. However, these filters are not able to remove all impurities. Inorganic contaminants, for example, cannot be removed using this method of filtering.
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Our Test Results:
TurbidityTurbidity is the level of cloudiness in water. The standard measurement of turbidity is based off of Formazin Standard Cuvette with a turbidity measurement of 100 Nephelometric Turbidity Units or NTU. This provides a base result from which results can be interpreted. The dirty water that we used (pictured on the right) had a turbidity reading that was too high for the sensor to even calculate, and is therefore above 660 NTU. After the water was filtered one time it had a NTU of 13.8 (pictured on the left). After a second run through the filter, it was at 10 NTU. Tap water out of the sink had a reading of 0 NTU.
pHpH is the measure of how acidic a substance is. Seven is the neutral pH, any reading lower than this is considered to be acidic, and any that are higher are basic. Healthy drinking water should have a pH around 6.5 to 8.5. After being filtered, the water had reached an ideal pH for drinking water with a result of 7.7.
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