Steam-activated coal carbon with a wide range of pore sizes. Built for heavy, hard-to-treat organic loads, and for beds that get reactivated and reused.
Coal opens wide, coconut opens narrow — and the molecule you need to remove decides which one wins.
Activation doesn't create pores from nothing — it enlarges what the feedstock already has. Coal's layered, mixed-density structure develops small micropores plus larger mesopores and macropores, so both big and small molecules find somewhere to stick. That range costs some of the very high micropore volume a coconut carbon reaches, but in exchange it gives molecules a clear path into the granule — which is why coal carbon keeps working well in thick, heavily loaded, or coloured streams.
900–1,050
mg/g Iodine
Typical iodine number across the bituminous granular range.
Pore structure is set during activation, and can only be lost afterwards, never gained.
Coal is picked on volatile content, ash and hardness before anything is fired. The seam it comes from sets the ceiling on quality, so it is bought under long-term contract, not on the spot market.
The coal is heated in a low-oxygen atmosphere to drive off volatiles. What is left is a char with the beginnings of a pore structure, and none of the tars that would otherwise clog it.
High-temperature steam eats away carbon from the pore walls, opening them up. Too little burn-off and the pores stay closed; too much and the walls collapse, losing density. The process is held to a tight window.
The finished carbon is crushed, screened to the ordered size, de-dusted and sampled. Every batch is checked for iodine number, hardness and moisture before it ships.
The same activated material, cut differently for how the process will contact it.
Bituminous · steam activated
Crushed and screened granules for fixed beds and pressure vessels. Hard enough to handle repeated backwashing and the wear of thermal reactivation.
Lignite and bituminous blends
Milled fine so it can be dosed straight into a clarifier or batch tank. Contact time is short, and the carbon leaves with the sludge afterwards.
Pelletised · 3 mm and 4 mm
Uniform pellets for gas-phase beds, where keeping pressure drop low and steady matters more than squeezing out the last bit of capacity.
What each property actually governs once the bed is running.
The standard measure of micropore volume, and the figure most specifications lead with. It reflects capacity for small molecules only — not larger ones.
The mesopore indicator. When the target is colour or large organic molecules, this number matters more than the iodine number.
How well the carbon resists wearing down during backwash and handling. It decides how much fine dust is generated and how many times the bed can be reactivated.
Coal carbon carries more mineral matter than shell carbon. Where that matters, an acid-washed grade brings the ash down for sensitive uses.
Sets how much carbon fits in a vessel of a given size — and so the real bed life behind any capacity figure quoted per kilogram.
A trade-off between speed and pressure drop. Finer grains load faster but cost more pressure drop; the vessel design usually fixes the range first.
When the molecules you need to remove are large, or the stream is coloured and heavily loaded. Coal carbon's wider pores catch humic matter, dyes and large organics that a fine-pored coconut carbon cannot reach, and it keeps working as the load rises.
Yes — it is usually the first choice when reactivation is planned. Its hardness and density let it survive the handling, the heat, and the transport losses across several reactivation cycles at a good yield.
Usually not. In effluent polishing and gas-phase work it makes no difference. Where leachable minerals would affect the finished product, an acid-washed grade brings the ash down to a known level.
The common sizes for liquids are 8x30 and 12x40 US mesh. Gas-phase beds use 4x8 and 4x10, or 3 mm and 4 mm pellets where pressure drop matters most. Other sizes can be screened to order.
Every batch is tested before it ships, and the result appears on the certificate of analysis alongside hardness, moisture, ash and screen size.
Send us your stream analysis and operating conditions. We will come back with the grade, bed size and changeout interval your duty actually needs.
