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Charcoal?
Can it be used to filter impurities and chemicals from water?
I'm not talking about activated charcoal/carbon, but the stuff you pull out of your fire.
I've saw a few videos and such stating that you can remove pesticides and other chemicals using charcoal from a fire, but I thought it had to be activated to remove impurities.
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RWC - Activated charcoal is nothing more than charcoal that has been processed to increase it's surface area. The short answer to your question is yes it can be used but it is not nearly as efficient as activated charcoal. Even then, activated charcoal will only aDsorb (bond at the molecular level) with carbon based chemicals and chlorine.
I do not believe the stuff about pesticides at all.
If I HAD to use then I would but it's taking a pretty big risk, IMHO.
Here is a pretty good article describing what activated charcoal will remove and what it won't removed. Charcoal from a fire could remove the same stuff but with the drastically reduced surface area it would be terribly inefficient.
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/h2oqual/watsys/ae1029w.htm
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Here's a video that Pict did on makin your own water filter.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Colhane#p/u/13/m8VQk4isaOM
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wilderness outfitters archery also has a good vid on making a survival water filter from stuff you can find in the woods.
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Thanks for the link and I saw Dave's video and pict's too. I guess what I'm wondering is has anyone ever had their filtered water tested to see if it actually does what it's supposed to.
With all due respect, I don't think the filter Dave made would work too well really. The contact time is most likely not long enough to remove chemicals using plain ole charcoal. I do appreciate all his vids though. He seems quite knowledgable.
Most of the info I saw stated you must allow plain charcoal to soak overnight to have effect.
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