Things activated carbon can filter?

[ChristinaP]

Hello, I'm a high school student and I have to design my own experiment but I need some help. I am making my own activated carbon and testing how well it filters water of impurities by dying some sort of chemical, putting it in water, filtering the solution through the activated carbon, and testing the remaining solution using a spec 20 to see how well the carbon filtered it. My question is, what are possible chemicals that I can dissolve in the solution that the carbon can filter out, and what type of dyes would work well to dye this chemical? Your help is EXTREMELY appreciated!!! Thank you!

[alpha2cen]

I think methylene blue is good for this experiment. First we make methylene blue solution, and pass it through the activated carbon filter.

To obtain good result, methylene blue concentration, water flow rate and active carbon amount should be controlled.

More lower flow rate experiment than your guessing provides you good result. Methylene blue effective diffusivity is very small through the pore in the carbon.

Edited January 20, 2011 by alpha2cen