Activated carbon
Highly porous carbon made from coconut shell, coal or wood; the workhorse adsorbent for drinking water, PFAS, mercury, gold and food purification.
Commodity chemicals · Other inorganics · No. 12
- Single chemical
- Feedstock: Oil, gas or coal
- about 3 Mt a year (indicative, basis: $6.6 billion / about $2,000-2,500/t average value); HS 380210 world imports 690,807 t in Jan-Sep 2025 (ICC)
- 5.0 t CO₂e per t
- HS 380210
One gram of charred coconut shell hides up to 1,500 square metres of surface, and it is cleaning the world's water.
Chart: Illustration: Activated carbon
Where it comes from
Chart: Map of where it comes from
Coconut shells, coal or wood are charred, then blasted with steam at about 800-1,000 C, burning tunnels that give each gram 500-1,500 m2 of surface.
Three things to know
- Activation opens 500-1,500 m2 of pore surface per gram, enough to trap PFAS, mercury, chlorine and even gold.
- Sri Lankan coconut-carbon export prices jumped from about $3,000/t in January 2025 to over $4,300/t by October as shell charcoal ran short.
- India exported $306 million in 2024, third after China and the US, with the United States as its top buyer.
The journey
- 1 Raw materialCoconut shell, coal, wood or peat
- 2 CarbonisationShells charred in pits or kilns
- 3 ActivationSteam at 800-1,000 C opens pores
- 4 SizingGranular, powdered or pellets, sometimes impregnated
- 5 Use and reuseSpent granules reactivated, powder discarded