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Archive for November 22nd, 2009

Are Charcoal Water Filters Any Good?

November 22nd, 2009 Peter Abertoning No comments

If you’ve read about the problems with drinking contaminated water you might be getting interested in water filtration. You will have heard of charcoal water filters or carbon water filters or even activated carbon water filters. What are these water filters?

Charcoal is a substance created by heating organic matter to high temperature in the absence of oxygen and a charcoal water filter is one that uses charcoal for the filtration process. The organic material commonly used is coconut husks.

Charcoal has various properties, primarily that it is extremely porous and this is what is necessary for successful water filtration. These pores allow water, and contaminants, to pass through and for the contaminants to be absorbed by the carbon by means of chemical attraction, because many carbon based or organic compounds are chemically attracted to carbon.

That is what charcoal, or carbon, water filters are. So what are activated carbon, or what is known as AC, filters? These filters use a form of carbon that is way more porous than normal carbon, and this is created during the manufacturing process.

It’s so porous in fact that it can have up to 20000 square yards of surface area per ounce of activated carbon. That’s really porous.

You need to replace the filters occasionally in an AC water filter because the filter gradually clogs up with contaminants as they are absorbed by the carbon.

An activated carbon water filter works well filtering a wide range of contaminants, but doesn’t filter all of them, and for this reason the best water filters use a multi stage water filtration process. Not only is the carbon block, or activated carbon filter used but there is a second stage to the process that removes the contaminants that are not removed by activated carbon filtration.

And in the very best water purifiers available there is no reliance on AC filtering only, because very good it is not sufficient on it’s own. There is a second stage to the filtering process and this stage is used to filter contaminants that the first stage leaves behind, like nasty lead. And the removal of lead is achieved by an ion exchange process replacing lead ions with harmless potassium ions.

And the second stage of the best water filters removes tiny organisms that remain in the water after stage 1 like giardia and cryptosporidium through the use of an extremely fine filtration process. These are the most dangerous water contaminants.

There you have the basics of water filtration by use of carbon, or what is known as charcoal water filters, or activated carbon water filters. The activated carbon is not 100% successful in removing all contaminants, but when used in a 2 stage process designed to remove the contaminants that are left behind by the AC filter, it works exceedingly well. You should expect around 99% of lead to be removed, for example.

I spend time discussing the worlds best water filters on my website.

Would you like to learn more about the Best Water Filters? Or about Charcoal Water Filters? Visit Peter’s Website the Best Drinking Water Filters.

Start Benefiting From The Advantages Of Residential Solar Energy

November 22nd, 2009 Gilbert Hernandez No comments

Everyone can benefit from the advantages of residential solar energy, but the tricky part is taking the time and understanding where to get started. The sun is a renewable resource meaning that it will never run out and so the great thing is that even if everyone in the world were to rely on solar energy, there would still be more than enough to go around and we would never have to worry about tapping out this resource as we do with fuel and coal. There are some terrific advantages of residential solar energy and the most important thing is that not only do these advantages of residential solar energy benefit you if you start using it but also it affects the rest of the world. These are the basic steps to creating a solar energy system of your own.

Of all the different advantages of residential solar energy, one of the most talked about has to do with the environment and how beneficial solar energy is because it does not contribute to problems like global warming. The reduced cost of energy that is also renewable is just one of the great advantages of solar energy.The best idea is to get a list ready that tells you all the necessary supplies needed in order to begin building. Just make sure that you read through the plan carefully and do not miss any steps or supplies because you don’t want to get started only to find out that you are missing something.

Residential solar energy also helps with the reduction of unwanted byproducts. Producing energy by burning up our coal resources not only adds a great deal of waste into our environment but adds to the global pollution problem that we are dealing with today. By using kerosene lamps and other fuel sources that give off fumes less and using solar energy improves our air quality.The advantages of solar energy are truly incredible and everyone should be taking advantage of them.

High quality materials are essential if you are interested in in getting the true advantages of residential solar energy systems.There are some people who are still on the fence about whether or not to make the change. Since solar energy comes to us for free there is never a need to worry about running out like there is with kerosene lamps or diesel generators.Neither are true and it is really simple to set up a residential solar energy system in a home.

As you can see, those tips are very powerful, and before we continue, I just want you to know that you can find some great resources in the resource box below this article.

Take a look at some of the advantages that residential solar energy has in store for you!