Saturday, March 24, 2012

Lump Charcoal and its Uses

In my online studies, I came across a very interesting household substance, namely charcoal, that has a number of amazing uses that I had never known before. Though lump charcoal and activated charcoal aren't the same as the charcoal you buy in a bag for grilling, they are still made in similar ways. Activated charcoal is a form of carbon charcoal that is processed in such a way that it becomes very porous and is able to absorb hazardous toxins and other things that are suspended in the air and water, or that are in the human body. I had always heard that most water filters used charcoal as a means of filtration, but I had never known that there was a special form of charcoal called lump charcoal that could be activated in order to provide maximum filtration.

Lump charcoal is not the same charcoal you get in a barbecue charcoal bag at your local grocery store. Lump charcoal is made often from hardwood, through a process of flash heating, known as pyrolysis, where the wood is burned very intensely for a very short period of time, removing almost all traces of water and other substances and leaving only the lightweight carbon char behind. Lump charcoal can then be further activated by undergoing a process that makes the carbon more porous and able to absorb chemicals and organic material. Even in just its lump state, charcoal still provides very good filtration. A company in Japan creates lump charcoal from oak hardwood to be used raw, and as is for water filtration. It's either scary or amazing to think that a once growing tree limb can now provide water filtration for up to three months!

Lump charcoal is an amazing substance for water filtration. But it also has many more uses. It was amazing to discover that people have been using activated lump charcoal as a medical supplement for many years now. In the next section we'll talk about how ingesting activated lump charcoal can help cure a number of unwanted symptoms in the human body.

As we discussed earlier, activated charcoal is not at all the same as the charcoal bought at your local grocery store. Don't eat grocery charcoal!! Activated charcoal is also edible and can even save lives in some cases! Hospitals have been using activated charcoal for many years as an emergency method to absorb poisons where victims have either mistakenly eaten poison or have attempted suicide. The activated charcoal absorbs compounds quicker than anything else and in many cases, has been responsible for saving lives.

Other than that though, activated charcoal is available in pill form as well. Though many of the claims are unverified, proponents of medical activated charcoal claim that the charcoal absorbs toxins and detoxifies them and promotes overall wellness in the human body. Some people have also claimed that activated charcoal supplements have the ability to reduce flatulence if they're taken after a meal. Some studies also indicate that activated charcoal actually absorbs fat and cholesterol, and thus can be a major asset in the fight against heart disease.


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