Eli5: How is Charcoal activated and what makes it different from normal charcoal?

Question

I’m trying to see if I can make my own activated charcoal diy, from bonfire charcoal and if it is equally as good as the purchased activated charcoal.

In: 817

Answer 1

Literally it’s just powdered charcoal, the “activated” thing is advertising nonsense. Powdered charcoal has many more surface areas that can work to clean things than larger chunks do. Think of a broom having a lot of bristles versus just a few for sweeping, so to speak.