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I own a Katadyn Combi water filter. Carbon refill packets for it are expensive. There are many places to buy activated carbon in bulk relatively cheap. Physically it's a trivial matter to buy in bulk and use it in the filter but I'm wondering about the quality of the carbon, the form of the carbon and how suited it is for the filter or anything else I need to be aware of when buying carbon in bulk.

I think you might be in for more trouble than its worth. Activated carbon will come in a powder form, most likely. So then you'd have to open the filters, dump out the old stuff, and hope your system has enough pressure to push through that much carbon.

I would look into some heavy research on the fabrication of carbon filters before I tried to do something like that.

Its sort of like saying "gas is expensive, i think i'll just buy oil on the open market, and refine it at home to make the gasoline."

2008-10-23 21:38:58 by ckm

carbonwaterfilters.net Are you getting the most from your carbon water filter. The proper maintenance and cleaning of these filters is important ...

Dont tell me to search it. Obviusoly i already tried. Please answer if you own one.

If you're going with a whole house water filtration system there are two types:

Automatic Backwash Filter Systems and Cartridge Filter Systems

Automatic Backwash Filter Systems - for use on private well water or municipal supply. Carbon filters for this type of system can range between $339.00 to $449.00

Cartridge Filter Systems - primarily in residential applications

There are three types of cartridge filter systems:

Whole House Cartridge Filter Systems
Whole House Disinfection Systems
Whole House Iron Reduction Filter System 20"

You can find prices for products mentioned in any of these categories at http://www.excelwater.com/eng/b2c/our_pr oduct_wh.php

2009-05-07 10:34:53 by emi1y

Big push to turn from bottled water is great but what about the filters we are using (especially since the trap all those bad things like chlorine, lead, mercury, cysts, flouride etc.....) aren't we just then putting them back in the ecosystem?

The carbon inside them is biodegradable or you could use it for fuel. The plastic housing is probably recyclable only in a few places. Don't worry about the material trapped by the charcoal; the concentrations are miniscule.

2008-04-28 08:43:45 by RehabPT

Yes and no

activated carbon removes chlorine and chloramines (chemicals your water utility puts in water to slow bacteria growth) and activated carbon removes SOME organics. Some of the oils may be removed, but they may quickly saturate the activated carbon bed and pass through. Benzene and toluene are typical organics that are removed to some degree by AC beds.

As to bacteria, in fact activated carbon provides an excellent medium for bacteria to grow. AC is porous and since it is collecting organics, it provides water, food, and darkness. perfect for bacteria. And since you're removing agents that control bacterial growth in the first place, you should expect MUCH higher bacteria counts after an AC bed.

From my decade working with AC beds.

2009-01-29 21:34:31 by yinyang

We recently bought a water filter you install on the sink and it filters the drinking water. I wonder, sometimes the water has little blackk particles on it even though its been used many times. I gather its the carbon? Is it dangerous if we continue to drink it? It smells much better than our normal water and has been working but Im worried about those black things.

A lot of filters of this type are built around activated charcoal, that is carbon that's been treated to have many micropores that can trap and hold pollutants. The filter should not leak charcoal (and this would be a reason to return it for replacement), at least not after initial use. If the residue you're seeing id charcoal, it is pretty much harmless.

However, some filters also impregnate the activated carbon with an insoluble silver salt like silver chloride to act as a bacteriostat. This does not substantially kill bacteria in the water but does prevent its build-up and multiplication in the filter itself.

Silver chloride is toxic, though because it is insoluble, it would be hard to get a lot of it from the filter. Still, since the carbon particles could be carrying silver chloride, that's another good reason to take the filter back to the vendor for replacement.

Remember, by the way, that a carbon filter alone mostly improves taste while removing some potentially harmful chlorinated hydrocarbons in tap water (which arise from the otherwise beneficial chlorination process). It does not make raw water bacteriologically safe. If you're getting water from a municipal system, that's usually not a worry, but if you getting it from, say, a well, you still need to have your well checked regularly for contamination.

2007-01-29 07:28:07 by nikogal2006