Activated production at home. Activated carbon (manufacturing)

You can make activated carbon at home using carbon-containing organic components. To obtain a sorbent, you must carefully follow the stages of the technological process. This material can be used in cleaning filters. It is enough to replace the product contained in the cartridges with a self-made one.

Raw materials for the production of activated carbon

In pharmaceutical production, they are created from burnt animal bones, petroleum and coal coke. If you want to get the drug yourself at home, take wood that does not contain a large amount of resinous substances, coconut shells, hazelnuts and walnuts.

It's easy to make charcoal with your own hands from birch, which grows in almost every corner of the country.

Activated carbon from charcoal

People often purchase the product when going outdoors, preparing barbecues and barbecues. This material has almost no different qualities from pharmacological ones; it has absorbent properties and cleans liquids from dirt. But it is better to use material produced by a reliable manufacturer from rocks with a low percentage of resin. If you are not sure of the quality, it is preferable to make it yourself at home.

Activating such a “drug” is not difficult. You can increase the absorption and binding abilities by leaving water with activated carbon for several hours in a well-lit area. In this case, the sorbent will eliminate mechanical debris and chemical compounds, bacteria that are present in the raw liquid.

coconut shell

To make activated carbon, fruit peelings are used. The pulp and milk are removed, and then its hard shell is burned in a special way.

How to make activated carbon?

There are methods that are easy to reproduce at home, especially for residents of rural areas. There are no financial costs required, the technology of each process is easy, and there is no need to search for any chemical components in advance.

Methods

To prepare activated carbon yourself, strictly follow the instructions. I would like to note that such a product should not be used as a medicine. For internal use, it is better to buy pharmacy black tablets that have gone through the necessary purification steps. The price of the medicine is low.

The material can be produced and used at home to improve the performance of water filters.

Physical method

The recipe for this method requires the presence of coconut shells:

1. The raw materials are slowly burned at low temperatures.
2. When the hard shell turns black, transfer it to a liquid medium.
3. A solution is prepared from 1 part water and 1/4 table salt. This method activates the charcoal at home, forcing the pores to open.
4. After a day, the material is washed several times to remove residual sodium chloride.
5. Dry the coal in the oven or in sunlight.

Instead of coconut, sometimes they use walnut or hazelnut shells. In this case, cooking will take less time and cost less. The shell of the exotic fruit is dense, it is more difficult to burn it at home.

Trees of various species

You can make activated carbon using the following scheme:

1. Broken birch branches are placed at the bottom of a frying pan that is no longer needed in the household.
2. Covered with sand.
3. Heat the mixture for 1.5–2 hours until black coals are obtained.
4. The finished material is transferred to a sieve or colander and then kept in a water bath.
5. The cooled pieces are crushed and transferred to a glass container.

If this method seems complicated, it's easy to resort to a simplified one:

1. Pieces of wood are placed in a tin can, which is heated over an open fire until the resin is completely removed.
2. The cooled coal is tied in gauze and kept over boiling water for several minutes.

In addition to birch branches, you can make an activated preparation from linden, alder, aspen, beech, pine, poplar, and spruce. The age of the tree should not exceed 50 years.

Algorithm of actions

To obtain high-quality material, it is necessary to observe several nuances of the production cycle.

Dry distillation of raw materials

The operation is performed at home using:

• open fire;
• blowtorch;
• bake;
• gas stove.

They take dry wood, which is pre-shredded.

The following conditions facilitate the procedure:

1. The raw materials are placed in a small tin container. You need to make several holes in it at the bottom so that the smoke can escape. In this case, the gas generated in the process is burned with a flame, which reduces the risks.
2. The container itself is tightly closed. If this is not possible, it is advisable to make a sand cushion over the wood being processed. In addition, branches need to be burned when there is no access to fresh air. In this case, uniform charring is ensured.

Stop the process when the pieces are completely burnt.

Carbon activation

Typically at home, they resort to a steam bath to open the pores, or to placing the product in boiling water. But the second method has several disadvantages:

1. The duration of the procedure is 20–25 minutes.
2. Coal soot is washed out, which causes a decrease in the absorbent surface.

In order for the activated product to be of high quality, it is necessary to remove residual moisture.

Drying

The stage depends on the conditions under which the process is performed. At home for final preparation use:

• Fresh air;
• sunlight;
• oven.

To ensure that activated carbon does not lose its beneficial qualities for a long time, it is necessary to follow a number of simple rules.

Storage

If you make a cleansing product yourself, you need to keep it, adhering to the following conditions:

1. Pre-crushed.
2. Pour into a glass container with a tight lid.
3. Place in a cool and unlit place, for example, a refrigerator, cellar.

In this case, the activated product retains its quality for several years. In the absence of optimal conditions, the period of use is limited to months, and sometimes weeks.

Hi all! We continue to fight for the quality of our drinks. The topic of my post today is cleaning moonshine with activated carbon. This method is very effective and is capable of ridding the distillate of 86% of the fusel oils it contains and 92% of the esters.

But if coal is used incorrectly, moonshine can form toxic substances.

Make yourself comfortable, now I’ll tell you everything in detail.

How coal purifies moonshine

There are a very large number of pores on the surface of charcoal, which makes it an excellent adsorbent. It absorbs and retains harmful impurities(sivukha) contained in moonshine.

Fusel oils are hydrophobic substances - they dissolve poorly in water, but they do so well in alcohol. Therefore, in order for the cleaning process to occur more completely, moonshine must be diluted with water to a strength of 15-20%. Then the fusel ceases to dissolve in alcohol and the coal readily absorbs it.

With the right approach, a very high degree of product purification can be achieved. Below is an excerpt from the book “Production of Alcohol Beverages” (A.K. Dorosh, V.S. Lysenko)

Not bad, right? By the way, due to such high efficiency, it is not recommended to carbonate moonshine from fruit and berry mash or mash for jam. Otherwise, you risk losing the taste of such a drink. But for sugar mash this is what you need.

Harmful properties

This cleaning method also has a negative side. With prolonged contact between coal and alcohol, the latter oxidizes with the formation of harmful substances - aldehydes.

I quote again from Dorosh-Lysenko’s book:

It follows from this that the process must be limited in time - a maximum of 20 minutes.

Let's summarize the above: for maximum purification of moonshine from harmful impurities, it must be diluted to 15% strength and subjected to charcoal for 20 minutes.

Update from 04/14/2019: Now, several years have passed since the writing of this article, I would like to add something. Do not strictly adhere to the 20 minute cleaning time limit. It's okay if it takes, say, an hour. Coal filters well from fusel alcohols, including isoamylol, which are known to be intermediate impurities, which are not so easy to get rid of during the distillation process. And you’ll cut off the extra heads during the next distillation. The main message of the article is that coal for sugar moonshine is very good. You need to charcoalize it diluted to 15% with SS, but not for 24 hours, as many advise.

Yes, I almost forgot. After cleaning, the strength may be reduced by about 2 degrees.

Types of coal

In this section I will list the types that are more or less popularly used by moonshiners to clean their drinks.

1. Birch activated carbon(BAU)

Very popular among moonshiners. Sold in shops for winemakers, as well as in specialized stores such as “Russian Chemist”.

1. Coconut (CAU)

As you might guess from the name, it is made from coconut shells.

Also a very popular brand. This is what I recommend for use. According to many sellers, KAU has a higher cleaning ability than birch. You can buy it in the same place as BAU.

1. Activated carbon from the pharmacy.

Everyone has probably seen this and even tried it. You can use it, but there is one caveat. Pharmaceutical charcoal often contains excipients, mainly potato starch and sucrose.

I have heard from fellow winemakers that these additives make moonshine harsher. To be honest, I have never noticed a difference, but just in case I try to use only KAU.

1. Charcoal for barbecue

Some distillers use this too.

Activated carbon for alcohol purification is produced at 800-1000 °C. If the temperature is lower, then resins may remain in it in small but sufficient quantities to spoil the product.

1. Household filters

You can clean moonshine by passing it through a filter jug. He does his job well. True, in some cases there is an increased loss in strength - about 5 degrees.

1. Filtration installation

Coal installations specially designed for distillers. Very effective and convenient for those who operate with large volumes - throw the intake hose and drain hose into a container with distillate and the installation drives the CC through the filter in a circle until you turn it off. But the price of such systems is appropriate.

Instructions for charcoaling moonshine

So, below I will give several methods for cleaning moonshine with coal. As I already said at the beginning of the article, before purification, moonshine must be diluted to 15-20% alcohol. Then distill it again to increase the strength.

The maximum effect can be achieved if you first clean moonshine with vegetable oil.

• Cleaning BAU or KAU

1. Coal is taken at the rate of 10 grams (heaped tablespoon) per 1 liter of sorting.
2. Wash off dust with drinking water.
3. Take an ordinary plastic bottle. Several holes are made in the cork and the bottom is cut off. A piece of cotton wool or a cotton pad is placed under the cork and the required amount of CAU is poured in (if you have washed it well, then the cotton wool is not necessary). Subsequently, I recommend making a simple and convenient charcoal column - instructions here.
4. Well, then the moonshine is poured in and filtered. I run it 3 times.

You can also simply pour the charcoal into a sorting container and shake well. In this case, it is better to double the dosage. Keep the coal in the moonshine for no more than 20 minutes, then filter through cotton wool or filter paper.

• Cleaning with activated carbon from a pharmacy

Everything is the same as during the previous cleaning. Dosage – 45 tablets per 1 liter of moonshine. Crush the tablets before use.

Laboratory analysis of cleaning quality

I present the results of a laboratory analysis of moonshine before and after cleaning with coal.

The analyzes were carried out by a respected member of the Homedistiller forum under the nickname Alexander956. Here link to a post on the forum.

These data confirm what this article is talking about - coal copes very effectively with fusel oils, and the quality of cleaning noticeably increases with strong dilution of moonshine.

Raw alcohol from sugar mash distilled to a temperature of 99 degrees in the cube was analyzed, i.e. almost to the water.

The amount of impurities is indicated in mg per liter of anhydrous alcohol.

Coal regeneration at home

Charcoal can be used several times, but over time it loses its adsorbing properties. In industry it is subjected to regeneration. This can also be done at home. Perhaps not as effective, but still. How to do this is described in the same book by Dorosh-Lysenko. Instructions in the photo below:

OK it's all over Now. Now you know how to properly charcoal moonshine. In combination with this you can get a very high quality and tasty product.

I have plans to write articles about several more cleaning methods, so I suggest subscribing to new articles. I also encourage you to share your experiences in the comments. I'm very interested.

That's all for today.

Bye everyone. Dorofeev Pavel.

This absorbent is often used to cleanse the body during food-borne intestinal infections and similar symptoms. What is activated carbon made from? The following components are used in its production: charcoal/stone and peat, which are heated in specialized containers (up to 100 C). After which they are subjected to further processing - shaping and packaging. Now every person will know what activated carbon is made from.

What was it made of before?

First they burned birch and fruit trees. The resulting coals were treated with steam at high temperatures. But since there was no special laboratory before, the whole process was carried out in a well-heated steam room. So, not most of the birch coals were taken out of the furnace and left in the bathhouse until the activation process began. Such coal had a fairly small weight, but due to its high porosity, its absorbent and absorptive qualities increase. Coal in those days was used as a multifunctional tool. They used it to purify drinking water, low-quality alcoholic products, and treat livestock and poultry. In principle, the latter is hardly any different from its modern use.

What is activated carbon used for:

1. To cleanse the gastrointestinal tract. It is allowed to drink in cases of poisoning by various toxic agents. It reduces the absorption of harmful elements into the intestinal tract by more than 50%.
2. At home it is used as a universal antidote. It neutralizes the harmful effects of alcohol, fatty foods, etc. By the way, experts advise drinking activated charcoal during a hangover, and not during a feast, in order to avoid the opposite effect - increased intoxication. It is also actively used as an effective method for weight loss. To do this, you need to drink 1 tablet three times a day - in the morning, at lunch and in the evening. Consult a nutritionist first.
3. Helps in the fight against gas formation. Therefore, when flatulence and associated colic occur, it is necessary to take charcoal.
4. Stops diarrhea.
5. Prescribed for chronic diseases. Does not allow components that can intensify allergic reactions to be absorbed into the blood. But first you need to consult with your doctor, it is possible that he will have something to add to this.

ATTENTION! Activated carbon should not be taken in long courses. It removes useful elements from the body that come with food. First of all, these are microelements and vitamins. Also, when used together with it, the effect of the drug is neutralized. Therefore, be very careful when treating it.

How does activated carbon work?

It removes all harmful substances accumulated in the body through adsorption and absorption. It is important to know that along with harmful elements, it also absorbs carbohydrates, proteins and fats, which the human body needs daily. In addition, it can, like a magnet, attract negative pollutant particles to the positively charged active oxygen contained in it. This process is called catalytic reduction. This means that during treatment they need to take a short break, which will be filled with vitamins by eating fresh fruits, vegetables and meat, according to the instructions of a specialist.

This drug has the following beneficial effects:

1. Firstly, these are detoxification, adsorbing and antidiarrheal properties.
2. Secondly, it removes elements that may contribute to the development of an allergic reaction.
3. And, finally, thirdly, it does not have an irritating effect on the mucous membranes.

It can be purchased in the form of tablets, capsules, granules, powder and paste for preparing a suspension for oral administration.

Indications for use:

• with impaired metabolism;
• poisoning with salts of heavy metals, various medications, chemicals. substances. It is also used in case of poisoning with low-quality (expired) products;
• hepatitis, occurring in acute or chronic form;
• withdrawal syndrome. Typically used for alcoholism.

In cases of increased gas formation and intoxication caused by radiotherapy, this absorbent is also used.

Contraindicated for bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract, colitis, and stomach ulcers. It is not recommended to take activated carbon along with antidote medications, it can adsorb it.

Caution - side effects

As a rule, this can be hypothermia, dyspepsia, low blood pressure, constipation. With the simultaneous use of laxatives and activated carbon, the appearance of loose stools is possible.

Moonshine is not inferior in taste and quality even to expensive strong alcoholic drinks, if it is thoroughly purified. One of the available ways to rid homemade alcohol of unpleasant odors and harmful substances is to clean moonshine with activated carbon. With its help, most of the esters and fusel oils formed during distillation are removed.

Why is carbon filtration necessary?

The distillate produces a lot of by-products that not only worsen the taste of the drink, but also make its consumption dangerous. These are fusel oils, all kinds of aldehydes, ethers, etc. Not all harmful impurities are removed by activated charcoal, but the use of the latter is still necessary. Filtering allows you to remove:

• up to 86% fusel oils
• up to 92% esters

Cleaning moonshine with coal gives this effect due to the presence of pores on its surface, which determine the excellent adsorbing properties of this material.

What kind of charcoal can be used for cleaning

Not all types of coal are suitable for filtering your moonshine. For example, you should not purchase tablets from a pharmacy, since the effect described above will not be fully achieved. The pores of the tablets are too small and are not suitable for absorbing large molecules of fusel oils.

Therefore, it is advisable to clean moonshine with activated carbon at home:

• Using BAU-A (birch activated carbon). You can buy it in specialized stores for distillers or make it yourself
• Using KAU-A (coconut charcoal). We give preference to this particular adsorbent, considering its cleaning ability to be the highest

Amateurs who are just beginning to delve into the intricacies of moonshine often wonder whether it is possible to clean moonshine with charcoal for the barbecue. In fact, this is not recommended. To filter moonshine, you need to use only an activated adsorbent, which regular barbecue charcoal, of course, is not.

Its activation occurs at a temperature of 1000 degrees. If the conditions are not maintained, many harmful substances and carcinogens remain in the product, and eating moonshine, for the purification of which ordinary charcoal was used, is simply dangerous. Therefore, even cleaning moonshine with activated carbon in tablets, rather than specialized birch or coconut charcoal, will be much more effective.

The mentioned brands BAU-A, KAU-A are already initially manufactured for use in the alcoholic beverage industry. Also note that the “A” in the name means the highest degree of activity of the material. If you purchase brands BAU-B or BAU-V, then keep in mind that they are actually coals rejected in terms of activity during the production of BAU-A. The same must be taken into account when purchasing KAU, when you plan to purify moonshine with coconut charcoal.

How to make your own activated carbon

We will describe how to make activated carbon with your own hands, using wood raw materials, which will be birch logs peeled from bark and finely chopped (into chips about 3 cm long). Charcoal must be prepared with minimal access to oxygen, for this:

1. Prepare a flat jar in which you will cook birch charcoal
2. Punch about 20 holes in it, place the raw materials in it and close it tightly
3. Place the jar on the fire, where organic gases will escape through the holes from the hot coal and immediately burn
4. When degassing stops, remove the jar from the heat and let it cool

1. Activated carbon is wrapped in cheesecloth and placed over a large saucepan half filled with water.
2. Place the container on the stove, where the resulting water vapor will activate our filter material
3. Next, transfer the wet coal into a tin can with holes, which was previously used for degassing, and place it on the fire to remove moisture.

After you prepare the activated adsorbent for moonshine with your own hands, store it only in a dry, tightly closed jar without access to air. Otherwise, the coal will begin to absorb various organic molecules from it, losing its properties.

However, you need to understand that this method of preparation is significantly inferior to the industrial one, where the material is calcined at a temperature of 1100-1200 degrees and treated not with simple saturated, but with superheated steam under a pressure of about 2.5 atm. Naturally, its activity is an order of magnitude higher than that of home-prepared coal for purifying moonshine.

Our advice to you is, don’t save money and don’t waste your precious time, but just buy high-quality coal, it’s not expensive at all.

Recipe for filtering moonshine with coal

It is correct to charcoal moonshine before the second distillation, since for high-quality purification of alcohol it must be diluted to 15-20%. This requirement is due to the fact that fusel oils are highly soluble in concentrated alcohol and in this case it is almost impossible to capture them by filtration.

On the contrary, if the alcohol is diluted, the solubility of this harmful impurity decreases significantly, which makes it possible to adsorb up to 86% of this component on the surface of the filter element, for example, when cleaning moonshine with activated carbon tablets.

As already noted, it is better to use coconut charcoal to clean moonshine, although birch charcoal is also good for these purposes. The process can be carried out in two fundamentally different ways:

• flow-through purification of moonshine through a carbon filter element
• pouring coal directly into the environment to be cleaned

Purification of moonshine by flow filtration

The first recipe will require some available materials, for example, a jug for filtering water, into which you will need to pour the adsorbent. You can also make a filter yourself, for example, from a plastic bottle. To do this, the bottom is cut off, holes are made in the cork, and the neck is filled with cotton wool.

The filter material should be laid out in the following proportions:

• homemade coal requires about 50 g per liter of filtered solution;
• BAU-A you need to put about 12 g per liter of moonshine.

Moonshine can be passed through the filter element made several times, but the result will be worse each time, so it is better to change the carbon after each filtered batch. It is recommended to wash the amount of filter material required for the process with water to remove coal dust, which will also have to be removed from the filtrate later.

Filtration by adding coal to moonshine

If purification of moonshine with coal is carried out in the second way, i.e. by pouring it into alcohol, then the filter element is taken at the rate of 50 g per 1 liter of distillate. Drink producers with many years of experience often recommend infusing the resulting mixture for 1-2 weeks to filter moonshine at home, shaking it periodically. Next, the drink settles for another 5-7 days and is filtered through a thick cotton filter.

However, such an approach to purifying an alcoholic drink contradicts scientific facts indicating that only during the first 15-20 minutes of such treatment the content of aldehydes hazardous to health decreases, reaching a minimum value by the 20th minute.

Therefore, it is better to use coal for half an hour, then you need to remove it or, if necessary, repeat the procedure with a fresh portion of the adsorbent.

Removing coal dust

Next, we’ll look at how to clean moonshine from coal dust in order to make the distillate, which has become cloudy after filtration, as transparent as possible. Let us immediately note that this procedure is not mandatory, since the dust mentioned is not harmful to health and does not in any way affect the taste of the drink. However, to improve the appearance of an alcoholic drink, you can use a good ashless filter.

These elements are made from 95% pure cellulose and are filter paper cut into circle shapes. For example, you can use a “White Tape” filter, which is characterized by a high filtration rate and good ability to screen out coarse particles in a solution such as coal dust.

Reusing a filter

Those who are just beginning to learn the intricacies of making homemade alcoholic beverages often do not know whether the same cleaning element can be used to filter different batches, and also how many times this is allowed.

In fact, this is not worth doing, if only because when the pores of the coal are saturated with harmful substances, it loses activity. Moreover, with further use, the adsorbent begins to release these substances back, that is, after its use you will no longer get a filtrate, but a solution saturated with aldehydes and fusel oils.

But if you are using used coal, then before purifying the moonshine, the material must be reactivated. To do this, it is treated with a 2% solution of hydrochloric acid, thoroughly washed with water, dried and re-calcined. However, for high-quality filtration it is still advisable to use fresh, industrially produced ones.

Activated carbon (Carbonis activati) has been known since very ancient times. Mentions of it are found even in ancient Indian scriptures, where it is recommended to pass water through coal to purify it. The beneficial qualities of coal were also known to the ancient Greeks, who used it to purify not only water, but also beer and wine.

In Ancient Egypt in the 15th century BC. e. charcoal has already been used for medicinal purposes. In Europe, the adsorbing properties of coal were noticed only in the 18th century. It was then scientifically established that charcoal can absorb gases and discolor liquids. In the next century, charcoal began to be used in France to decolorize sugar syrups.

However, mass industrial production of activated carbon began only at the beginning of the 20th century. The first batch of powdered coal was produced in 1909. In Russia, activated carbon was used to filter water from Borjomi mineral springs.

During World War I, the Army introduced gas masks that used activated carbon made from coconut shells.

Nowadays, activated carbon with high adsorbing capacity is made from coconut shells. Activated carbon is an odorless, tasteless black powder that is insoluble in common solvents. Currently, there are many types of activated carbon, which are widely used in various areas of life, including in medicine.

The drug is obtained from wood by dry distillation. For this purpose, trees of various species are used: beech, birch, pine, linden, oak, spruce, aspen, alder, poplar.

In accordance with the above order, the adsorbing capacity of charcoal made from these tree species decreases.

You can make your own activated carbon. For this purpose, tree trunks no older than 50 years are used. The wood must be cleared of bark, knots and core. The logs prepared in this way are burned on the fire until the fire disappears. In the fire, there will be hot coals in place of the wood. Typically, potatoes are baked on such coals or kebabs are cooked.

Now you need to select larger coals from the fire, shake off dust and ash from them and place them in a pre-prepared container, then close them tightly. When the coals in the bowl have cooled, they can be taken out and, again cleaned of coal dust, crushed in a mortar to not too fine granules. Then the resulting cereal must be sifted. Activated carbon is ready for use.

Trees used to produce activated carbon:

To get the best quality activated carbon, you need to remove the coals from the fire and place them in a colander. After this, the hot coals are treated with steam, for which you need to hold a colander over a bowl of boiling water. You cannot put coals in water. When the coal has completely cooled down, you need to crush it and put it in storage.

It should be stored in a closed container, placed in a dry place, away from substances that produce gases or vapors. In air or in a place with high humidity, the adsorbing properties of activated carbon are significantly reduced.

Carbon produced in this way can be used to filter water or alcoholic beverages.

Due to its high adsorbing capacity and high surface activity, activated carbon is widely used in the treatment of diseases. It is used for acute poisoning with alkaloids or salts of heavy metals, food intoxication, dyspepsia, flatulence, increased acidity and hypersecretion of gastric juice, as well as for infections and diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (gastrointestinal tract), accompanied by processes of rotting and fermentation.

Practical publication “Treatment with activated carbon”