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Coconut Shell Based Activated Carbon
The use of activated carbon to remove harmful impurities like organic contaminants from water has been practiced since Roman times. Activated carbon is a carbonaceous adsorbents with extensively developed internal pore structure. Activated carbon is extremely porous with a very large surface area, which makes it a powerful adsorbent material. This large surface area relative to the size of the actual carbon particle makes it easy to remove large amounts of impurities in a relatively small enclosed space. An approximate ratio of surface area is one square meter per gram. The two mechanisms by which the chemicals are adsorbed onto activated carbon are either it ‘dislikes’ water or it attracts…
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A “Salty” Restaurant that Cleans Air
When we think of salt, we think of it as a seasoning. But for an Iranian restaurant group, salt was the main material for a new kind of eco-friendly building. The “Salt” Restaurant of Shiraz is located in the southern Iran, where the walls, tables and even the stairs were covered with a salty coating. To our surprise, this layer of salt helps clean the polluted air of the city. Inspired by local and naturally occurring salt caves of the region, the group wanted to create a design that reflected the area’s distinctive salt mines and Marharloo salt lake of Shiraz. They stated, “In this particular case, the walls, structural…
