Clean Your Air With Coconuts? Everything You Need to Know About Carbon Filtration
There are two trusted and efficient air cleaning methods. One uses HEPA filters and targets fine particles like dust, pollen, and pet dander. The other method uses carbon filters (like ours made from coconuts!) and targets gasses, VOCs like formaldehyde, and heavy odors.
What is Treated Activated Carbon?
Activated carbon is an extremely porous form of carbon used to purify water and air. Carbon filtration removes harmful particles from our water and dangerous gasses from our air making it safer to drink and breathe.
The material has been specifically processed to give it a porous quality. This method increases the product's surface area, making it strong enough to filter the toughest gasses and odors.
Carbon…from Coconuts?
No, your activated carbon filters won’t smell like coconuts, but coconuts are one of the main sources used to create carbon filters.
Coconut shell carbon filters are safe and effective. Oransi uses the coconut shell base to create our carbon filters. They’re environmentally safe, non-toxic, and effective at removing gasses, smoke, VOCs, and heavy odors.
Carbon Filtration Benefits
Carbon filtration targets smoke, gasses, and heavy odors that are hard to filter.
Air purifiers with activated carbon filters can also filter out dangerous VOCs that come from common household items like:
- Cleaning products and disinfectants
- Paint, paint strippers, and other solvents
- Off-gassing from new furniture, carpets, or wood flooring
- Air fresheners and moth repellents
- Perfumes
- Scented candles with paraffin wax
- Aerosol sprays
- Pesticides
- Gasoline, other stored fuels, and automotive products
Exposure to VOCs can create side effects like eye irritation and headaches, but cleaning these VOCs from your indoor air can help you avoid any exposure and symptoms.
Granular Activated Carbon (GAC)
“GAC” is a common acronym you’ll see when researching carbon filtration. It stands for Granular Activated Carbon.
GAC is ground, granulated, carbon that can be so fine it resembles a loose powder. The product is made by taking solid pieces of carbon and pulverizing it into much smaller grains. The pulverized carbon is then sifted through sieves to separate it into uniform sizes. This allows manufacturers to separate GAC into large, small, and even dust-like activated carbon.
Oransi Air Purifiers with Activated Carbon Filters
We use Granular Activated Carbon filters from coconut shells in our TrueCarbon™ air purifiers.
The first major step is carbonization. The raw material is heated to extremely high temperatures in an environment with very little oxygen. This process leaves behind a concentrated carbon mass of tiny holes and crevices.
The next step is thermal activation, which increases the surface area and porosity. The result is a highly porous material with a unique ability to attract and trap gasses, chemicals, and other contaminants to create a solid filter that outperforms the competition.
The surface area of a carbon filter is the most important factor in determining if the filter will effectively clean the air in your home. Our TrueCarbon filters are over 2" deep of extremely porous material with no air holes like other sheets of carbon filtration.
