Heres a definition for ya! Or the difference between the 2.

Ga Grown

Activated Charcoal

Definition
Activated charcoal or activated carbon is an amorphous form of carbon. This means that it has no regular atomic structure, unlike the other forms (allotropes) of elemental carbon: diamond, graphite, fullerenes or nanotubes.
Activated charcoal differs from the familiar charcoal that is used in barbecue grills. Common charcoal contains other organic residues, is much less porous, and has a lower surface area.

Trade names for activated carbon include Norit and Ultracarbon.


Additional Info
Charcoal is obtained by burning wood, nutshells, coconut husks, animal bones, and/or other carbonaceous (carbon-containing) materials. Charcoal becomes activated by heating it with steam to approximately 1000 oC in the absence of oxygen (O2). This treatment removes residual non-carbon elements and produces a porous internal microstructure having an extremely high surface area. A single gram of such material can have 400 to 1,200 square meters of surface area, 98% of it internal!
The chemical nature of amorphous carbon, combined with a high surface area and porosity, makes it an ideal medium for the adsorption and absorption of organic chemicals. Adsorption means that the chemical has an interaction with the surface of the material; absorption is incorporation into a host structure through pores (interstices). To avoid confusion, we can refer to the incorporated material as "sorbed".

Activated carbon can remove organic materials from gas streams or solutions. The amount of material removed depends on the capacity of the activated carbon as well as the affinity of the material for the carbon. Typical uses are to remove odors and volatile organic compounds (VOC's).


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