Montanero ... a bit more information on charcoal. It seems that the 2 advantages of charcoal is that it has a tremendously high porosity and it does quite a good job of absorbing organic chemicals. The high porosity means that it has a high "active surface area" - which simply means that even a small amount of charcoal has a lot of internal sites where chemicals can attach to the surface. Although basic charcoal will work, companies often take it and subject it to further processing. This produces "activated charcoal" which has even higher porosity, and it also has a special surface treatment that increases the ability of chemicals to bind to the surface.

Besides water filtration, charcoal is used medically (medicinal charcoal) to absorb poisons from the stomach and intestines. Doctors give it to patients for that reason.

I have been looking to see if i can find any information about charcoal produced by burning different kinds of woods. I have been wondering about whether the charcoal from a certain type of wood might be superior. I am just curious about how best to produce useful charcoal from a campfire. But I haven't found any good sources of info yet.

cheers,
Pete #2