Activated charcoal air purifier benefits are almost countless. And they all revolve around our individual and collective health. “Bad” air can be broadly divided into two groups — what we can smell and the “invisible” that we can’t smell. The air we can smell may be pleasant to some but decidedly unpleasant to others with sensitivities. But generally, bad odors are generated from decomposing matter [flesh or vegetable].
Common bad odors
Some common internet search phrases for odor problems include “best air purifier,” “wound odor,” “vaginal odor,” “stinky urine,” “stinky feet,” “cat urine odor remover,” “dog mouth odor,” “how to get rid of fridge smell,” “how to get cigarette smoke smell out of house [car],” “smelly compost bin” … “water smells like rotten eggs,” “sulfur odor” … “bad breath halitosis” on one end and “farting” [flatulence] on the other. “Why does my gas smell so bad?”
Can bad smells make you sick?
Your nose knows. We have been chemically wired to steer wide of bad odors so we don’t get sick. But, bad odors should also drive us to search out and eliminate the cause — damp, rotting leaves around our house, food slowly rotting on our kitchen countertop or in our fridge, or in our gut from poor digestion, mold in the basement, dead mice in the attic… Prevention is always better than cure, but when it comes to bad air, treatment needs to be immediate, and especially when dealing with “invisible” toxic gases which is another charcoal air purifier benefit. For instance, a root cellar with no ventilation can easily turn into a deadly pool of heavy carbon dioxide, produced from rotting vegetables, displacing vital oxygen, and endangering anyone who enters unsuspectingly. Installing proper ventilation is the first answer, but hanging simple coconut granular charcoal bags that can adsorb huge volumes of carbon dioxide is a second layer of prevention.
Charcoal air purifiers from simple to tech wonders, down through history.
The first recorded use of charcoal for medicinal purposes comes from Egyptian papyri around 1500 B.C.E. The principal use appears to have been to adsorb the unpleasant odors from putrefying wounds and from within the intestinal tract. Of course, by then Egyptian morticians had learned that burying dead people in layers of charcoal and sand eliminated the gagging smell of decomposing corpses [by inhibiting bacterial action on the dead flesh]. Even in the modern day, this remedy is still practiced in some places, while the use of activated carbon cloth (ACC) incorporated into body bags is a new application. One Department of Highways [a customer of ours] regularly sprinkles activated charcoal over roadkill until they are able to dispose of the carcasses.
Smelly wounds
Nepal (1999) While I lived at a remote health clinic, one grandmother brought her little grandson for me to see. I had noticed him often. He was not mischievous like some of the others. He was shy and quiet, but he was obviously in pain. His grandmother pointed to the bandage on his leg. The local community health worker had attempted to pack the hole in his calf with gauze. I assumed the boy was supposed to go back to have it redressed, but he didn’t, and the sore had abscessed. It was quite infected and smelled rotten. As I removed the bandage and the gauze, the tissue sloughed off, leaving a 1 1/2 inch-deep hole. After cleansing the wound, I packed it with activated charcoal powder and placed a charcoal poultice over that. He was told to come back the next day, and he did. The odor was gone along with the pain! With a new dressing each day, the wound quickly healed. The grandmother was most grateful.
One afternoon a man arrived with his hand bound in rags. The man had been in India, where he had been caught stealing. His fine was to lose one of his fingers. At some point, the wounded hand became infected, and he ended up losing another finger. At this point, his hand looked and smelled as if gangrene had set in. We understood from our translator that the man lived some distance from us and would not go to the hospital. Realizing it was unlikely the man would return for further treatment, we emersed his hand in a mixture of water and charcoal powder. After an hour of soaking, the pain and odor were noticeably gone. He was instructed on how to bathe and treat his hand, and then sent on his long walk home. End of story. There was no need to lose his second finger. The remedy was right at hand, and he didn’t have to steal to pay for it.
During the American Civil War, field hospitals were choked with grim war casualties. To quench the stench of death and gangrene, plates of charcoal power were distributed among the wards.
X-ray burn odor
Doctor Agatha Thrash [former Medical Examiner for the State of Georgia] relates this case of an overdose of X-rays:
“We had a patient who had a large, deep ulcer (twelve inches in diameter) due to an x-ray burn on his back. The burn was from an overdose of x-rays used for treating a skin cancer. The ulcer became infected and foul smelling. His entire house smelled of the ulcer, despite the most fastidious care. We started dressing the ulcer by sprinkling dry charcoal from a saltshaker on all the moist areas before applying gauze. Instantly the odor vanished from the ulcer, and gradually left the house. Although the patient eventually succumbed to the radiation sickness, he and his whole family were grateful for the charcoal.”[1]
It has long been shown that the foul-smelling wounds caused by the bacteria Bacillus pyocyanase can be dissipated in one treatment by the use of charcoal [2]. The same holds true for all kinds of infected animal wounds.
These experiences should teach us that we don’t have to wait until some rogue odor gags the entire household. The remedy can be as simple as hanging bamboo charcoal bags here and there around the house to capture strong cooking smells, lingering pet odors, stinking piles of grungy gym clothes, overpowering scented laundry soap… or in the fridge for strong onion or fish smell. One simple practice used in Korea is to place or hang ornamental charcoal bamboo stalks around the house.
Whole house charcoal air purifier — activated charcoal air cleaners for home applications
With central heating and air conditioning, bad air is almost instantly shared with every room in the home, unless activated charcoal filters are installed to capture and remove the volatile gases and chemicals. If your home environment is exposed to musty smells or volatile gases leaching from building materials like carpets, and insulation, or cleaning
chemicals like scented laundry detergents then you might want to invest in some charcoal air duct cleaner filters.
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- Purify your space
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- Charcoal air filters in space suits
If you live on the International Space Station [ISS] or on a nuclear submarine, life is dependent on activated charcoal to recycle and revitalize used air over and over. At $8,000 to $10,000 per pound of payload to blast air and water into space, activated charcoal is a crucial component in extending the lifespan of these vital elements. Also, imagine floating around in outer space in a space suit, and you pass gas, and for as long as you are out there, there is NO escape. Ah, but contingency scientists already had a plan — “Toot Trappers” made from activated charcoal. Those flatulence sufferers back on earth [and their good neighbors] now have their own simple remedy: “Totally Scents-Less®.” These thin, light weights [made from Carbocloth® activated carbon cloth] can knock out the ugliest of the ugly. Underwear pads, pads for office chairs and long distant truckers, discreet pads for airplane seats, and for female odors, are a considerate choice while you experiment with other lifestyle/dietary solutions.
Water smell
Water can taste bad and it can also smell bad. Check out our article on DIY Charcoal Water Filters for simple solutions for removing chlorine smell, sulfur odor, and more.
Charcoal for body odor
When European explorers pushed west, they noticed some of the plains Indians using charcoal to help with indigestion and gas. Body odors known to be mitigated by activated charcoal include bad breath [halitosis], vaginal odor [vaginitis], stinky feet, stomach gas, flatulence, trimethylaminuria (TMAU) also known as fish odor syndrome or fish malodor syndrome and even stinky urine.
A charcoal air purifier can remove pet and livestock odors
Parvo virus in puppies is a serious viral disease that leads to GI deterioration and is often recognized by its very unpleasant stench. It has been reported that activated charcoal given orally as a slurry quickly reduces the strong odor. This would suggest [no clinical proof] the activated charcoal, to whatever degree, binds the endotoxins which are the source of the gut deterioration.[3]
Dogs are notorious for bad breath. Have you tried charcoal dog biscuits? They definitely help. Cat urine is a strong competitor! In place of masking the odor, go one step farther and eliminate it with granular activated charcoal mixed in with the kitty litter. Charcoal works!
Activated Charcoal has been clinically shown to adsorb endo/exo toxins in tetanus, tuberculosis, diphtheria, dysentery, Vibrio cholerae and Escherica coli.
Deadly invisible air
The deadliest air we are routinely exposed to is on the streets and highways of every city in the form of invisible carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO). These “invisible” gases sicken thousands and kill hundreds every year. Thankfully more and more car manufacturers not only include activated charcoal filters under the hood, but also charcoal air purifiers in the passenger compartment to clean out the swamp of CO2 and CO and smog we swim through on the highways every day. From diesel fumes from the 14-wheeler in front of you, to the dead skunk in the middle of the road, to roadside chemical factories. What else?
New home construction, sick house syndrome, and home renovation work are other primary sources of sick air. Otherwise beautiful, comfy, expensive homes are often polluted with formaldehyde and other toxic volatile compounds off gassing from laminated woods, new carpet, vinyl flooring. Is it any wonder more and more people suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)?
Nuclear powerplants
In March 2011 a tsunami struck the east coast of Japan and also demolished much of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Because of our business ties to Asian charcoal manufacturers, we learned that the Japanese government was actively buying up large reserves of activated charcoal — coconut activated charcoal to be specific. Why? To help mitigate the radioactive contamination spreading out from the crippled nuclear generators. As with all boiling-water reactors (BWR), activated charcoal filter beds (10 to 12 tons) are used to retain radioactive gases from the reactor turbine condenser before it is pumped out into the atmosphere. The fires were causing the giant filters to release their stored-up radioactive contaminants. While folks on the US west coast were panic buying bottles of potassium iodide tablets (as a possible antidote from 131I and 133I exposure), why did the media never mention coconut activated charcoal has been known to be an effective decontaminant of radioactive fallout since 1908? Learn more about Charcoal and Radioactive Poisoning
In fact, activated charcoal really came to fame during the World Wars from its use in military gas masks as a powerful adsorbent of deadly chemical agents. It’s still used in modern gas masks. With the development of Activated Carbon Cloths (ACC) came HAZMAT suits and military Nuclear Biological Chemical (NBC) suits. The woven activated carbon fibers are quilted into the combat gear. ACC face masks that weigh less than an ounce can suck up toxic gases faster than cumbersome standard-issue gas masks[4]. More amazing, some of these charcoal cloth masks are impregnated with silver and, together with the ACC, are shown to kill and bind a host of deadly microbes to their surface.
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- Activated charcoal in military and hospital masks
21st century misc. uses for charcoal air purifiers:
- Hospitals — charcoal air scrubbers to capture hospital odor, rogue aerosols, and laser plume.
- Hybrid/electric cars — to capture H2S to increase efficiency.
- Sound systems — filter out “dirty” background noise.
- EMF filters — capture and minimize EMF exposure.
Dentists — International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicologists (IAOMT) promotes the use of ACC masks when working with mercury amalgam fillings.
- Photo labs and artifact preservation — solvents and chemicals.
- Ostomy bags — with charcoal to control odor.
- Nail and Hair Salons — consider the hundreds of chemicals.
Charcoal air purifier — Smell, what smell?
Are charcoal air purifiers worth it? Definitely! Do charcoal air purifiers help with dust? Only if they include HEPA microfilters. Do charcoal air purifiers work for mold? More so if they include ultraviolet light. Today, charcoal air purifiers have come a long way from Egyptian mummies and Civil War hospital wards. Today, there are hundreds of charcoal air purifiers for thousands of applications. Darling dizzy perfume parlors, beauty hair and nail salons, smoke eaters in restaurants; commercial/industrial HEPA filters; computerized air handlers in mega greenhouses; NBC air filtration in military tanks and armored personal carriers; electric fuel cells; charcoal air scrubbers for coal-fired and nuclear power plants … As one developer prophesied, “A thousand applications today, a thousand and one tomorrow!”
charcoal home air purifiers for thousands of bad odors and allergens."/>For the average homeowner, there are scores of attractive and efficient air purifiers. There are distinct designs and strategies, including ozone, ultraviolet light, microwave, ACC, carbonized resin beads … and, not least, granular activated charcoal. You know, with all the options, if the US Navy uses granular coconut-activated charcoal in nuclear submarines, they have counted the costs. So, don’t go cheap. A portable activated charcoal air purifier for home or office use should accommodate at least, 18 to 20 pounds of granular activated charcoal made from coconut shell. A charcoal air purifier benefits countless thousands every day — MCS and allergen sufferers, the families of smokers, artisans working in acrylics and metals, inner city dwellers, or anyone exposed to daily toxic traffic. Are you living downwind from an animal feedlot, nuclear power plant, pharmaceutical plant, or some mega wildfire a thousand miles away? A quality activated charcoal air purifier can turn polluted dead air into pristine alpine breezes. Activated charcoal cleans, recycles, and vitalizes the air we breathe.
From space stations to fuel cells, from hospitals to homes, from tetanus to toes, charcoal’s reputation is built on an unshakeable foundation. There is no man-made product throughout man’s history that can hope to catch up to the successes of this little giant. With the astronomical discovery of C60 in 1985, charcoal research has been launched into a stellar orbit. The ability of these concentrated charcoal components to trap and retain gases and other chemicals at such enormous ratios, as one researcher said, “Can only be described as extraterrestrial in origin.”[5]
Charcoal is working around the world around the clock.
Is there more?[6]
John Dinsley is the author of “CharcoalRemedies.com The Complete Handbook of Medicinal Charcoal & Its Applications“. John and his wife Kimberly are owners of Charcoal House LLC offering the most diverse line of activated charcoal products anywhere. Their business motto is “Purify Your World®” They also travel together domestically and internationally conducting workshops on the prevention and treatment of common diseases using simple natural remedies.
[1] CharcoalRemedies The Complete Handbook of Medicinal Charcoal and Its Applications, John Dinsley 2022 edition p. 149
[2] Muck, O, Behavior of Animal charcoal in Respect to Lesion Caused by Bacillus Pyocaneus, Muenchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, No. 6, p. 297, February 8, 1910
[3] Activated Charcoal has been clinically shown to adsorb endo/exo toxins in tetanus, tuberculosis, diphtheria, dysentery, Vibrio cholerae and Escherica coli.]
[4] As of this article, carbon cloth masks do not offer the same degree of seal protection to the face and eyes as do the standard military masks
[5] Luann Becker*, Robert J. Poreda**, and Ted E. Bunch***, *School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii; **Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester; and ***Space Science Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center, Fullerenes: An extraterrestrial carbon carrier phase for noble gases, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences US, vol. 97, no. 7, pp. 2979-2983, March 28, 2000
[6] Charcoal Remedies p. 139
