Nowadays, purchasing a filter for any purpose is quite simple. The question is different - they need to be changed often enough, and therefore, these are additional costs. So the question often arises of how to make a carbon filter with your own hands.
What are
First you need to figure out what filters are. Surely every house has a jug with a replaceable cartridge for water purification. The main component in such cassettes is charcoal. Less often, they also use additional substances to soften water or remove excess impurities. However, such filters are quite noticeably different in price from conventional ones. In addition to water filters, there are air filters that should work to clean the air in the room. Most often they are installed in workshops with production where toxic waste is possible. However, in our time in cities, these filters are also becoming a necessity.
The benefits of filters
Why filters are useful, you can talk for a long time. Their main function is cleaning. Whether it is water or air, or moonshine, the filter should, in the opinion of those who use it, remove all the harmful and leave only the useful. In fact, it’s impossible to remove everything at once. As a result, you need to purchase devices with several stages of cleaning. So what remove the filters? Water mechanically removes dirt, pieces of rust from the water supply, improves taste and quality, and fights with an unpleasant odor, if any. Coal helps fight some living organisms that can be harmful. As an excellent natural absorbent, it is able to retain many harmful bacteria, but not all. Do not rely only on the miraculous properties of charcoal. For example, he is not able to neutralize radiation, remove heavy metals or salts. Using a filter for cleaning moonshine, it is worth considering that not all fusel oils will be completely removed.
Buy or make a filter
So, a purchased filter requires regular replacement with a new one. This is due to the fact that over time, dirt accumulates in the cassette, which will gradually seep into the filtered water and make it worse in quality than that which comes from the water supply. Extra costs make you think about how to make a carbon filter with your own hands. If you have the skills to make any devices, then you can think about how to assemble a certain design that will save the family budget and not harm your health. However, it is worth calculating how economical it will be.
What is useful
In order to make a carbon filter with your own hands, you will need a container that is not a pity to donate for a good purpose (for example, a five-liter plastic flask), oddly enough, fine gravel, river sand, charcoal, as well as gauze, cotton wool and lutrasil. Some masters persistently suggest replacing cotton wool and gauze with synthetic material, for example, synthetic winterizer. This is due to the fact that synthetics are more durable, but at the same time its filtering qualities are no worse than that of natural materials. In addition, a stationery knife, a drill with a thin drill, emery paper for cleaning irregularities are useful.
Pure water is the key to health
When starting to manufacture the simplest water filter, you need to remember that it also has its drawbacks. Inexpensive materials will also have to be changed, and quite often. In addition, improper assembly of this design can lead to poor water quality. And this will nullify all the efforts made. If you still dare to make a carbon filter for water with your own hands, you need to start with the lid. In it, you need to make several holes of small diameter with a drill. To smooth out irregularities. Then you need to cut off the bottom of the bottle. Then, inside the bottle, gauze, cotton wool or synthetic winterizer is placed on the lid. You can do it all at once, but it will not greatly affect the quality of the water, but it is capable of retaining water inside the filter.
The next layer is desirable to separate from the previous additional barrier. Some use a coffee filter. Others propose to cut out a circle of plastic of plastic diameter so that it covers the previous layer, and make a lot of small holes in it. Having smoothed the irregularities on a home-made grid, you need to lay the coal. This can be activated charcoal from a pharmacy or self-made from birch firewood. Such coal will definitely cope with its task and will not add unpleasant odors and harmful resins to the water. It is desirable to separate the next layer from coal again, since it will be sand. Ordinary sand can mix with coal and finally clog the filter, so it is advisable to use quartz. Then gravel or zeolite is laid. Above, a cotton cloth is sometimes used for the roughest and most primitive cleaning. However, experts strongly recommend replacing the natural fiber fabric with lutrasil. The first filtered water must be drained, as it is not suitable for consumption.
Such a filter is able to purify a small amount of water. Its main disadvantage is the speed of cleaning. And this filter cannot be used for a long time - it gets dirty too quickly.
Down with the smell and smoke
The next item that often worries city dwellers is air purification. Finding such a device in free sale is still very difficult. So again, you have to think about how to make a carbon filter for air with your own hands. If it is available, for example, in an extractor hood, then you need to see if it is disposable or reusable. If reusable, it will be enough to open it, remove the used charcoal, rinse thoroughly, dry and fill up a new filler. If it’s disposable, you’ll have to buy a new one or assemble a charcoal filter for exhaustion yourself.
All components are assembled again. This can be a standard hood for hoods, into which a structure is inserted from two mosquito nets connected to each other with activated carbon sprinkled between them, worn to the state of granules or powder, depending on the density of the grid. Some suggest using sieves with metal mesh of various diameters. In a sieve of a larger diameter, pour coal, press it with the bottom of a sieve of a smaller diameter and fix it well with sealant. And install this design into the hood housing. A feature of such a filter is that the density of its absorbent will have to be adjusted to the power of the exhaust fan. Since a too thick and dense layer may not allow enough air to pass through, a thin and rare layer will not be able to cope with its cleaning functions.
How to make a carbon filter for ventilation with your own hands can be guided by the following instructions. For its manufacture, two pipes of different diameters, plugs, mesh, agrofibre and coal are used. Holes are drilled in the pipes. Then each is wrapped with mesh and agrofibre. The inner pipe is installed in the plug exactly in the center and is fixed with glue or other means. A larger pipe is installed later and also fixed. Between them coal is filled. It remains only to put on another cap on top. The filter is ready.
Pure as a tear
How to get around this topic filtering Russian folk drink? To make a carbon filter for cleaning moonshine with your own hands can be done by analogy with a water device. The principle of work is the same. Moonshine is poured into an inverted bottle with absorbents embedded in it and passively expressed in a prepared container. However, sand and gravel in this case will have to be removed.
To clean the moonshine, experts recommend buying special coal. It is made from birch wood or coconut by pyrolysis and is able to retain a large number of fusel oils. However, when collecting a charcoal filter for moonshine with your own hands, you need to consider that plastic in this situation plays the role of an oxidizing agent. It is better for this purpose to use a glass container or a stainless steel flask. Better yet, get a pre-made filter. In terms of costs, it is not much different from homemade. But much less trouble with the collection of the necessary materials.
Home appliance protection
Making a carbon filter with your own hands is quite simple. If you need to filter out a little water for drinking or a little more in reserve, then this seems real. But protecting home appliances with homemade filters has not yet succeeded. For such a scale, more durable materials are needed. A plastic bottle is definitely not suitable, as well as a PVC pipe. In this situation, you will have to rely on specialists who have developed and manufactured functional structures that can protect home appliances from dirt in the water.
To summarize
So, to make a carbon filter with your own hands is not difficult. Anyone can handle this. However, this method should be used as a last resort, since such devices made at home by inept craftsmen can do more harm than help with water treatment. The desire to save and save the family budget can lead to more tangible costs in case of possible poisoning with water passed through such filters.