How does water get filtered while passing through sand, charcoal, etc.?
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Comments are doing this a grave disservice.
Charcoal filters water because it has a lot of surface area which many contaminants stick to. The interaction is actually the same that makes gecko feet sticky. Activated charcoal works many times better than regular charcoal, but regular charcoal can usually filter water in a pinch.
Sand is rarely used to filter water directly except as a way to remove large particles. However, there is such a thing as a biosand filter, where the sand is impregnated with bacteria which eat everything they can digest out of the water. The sand isn’t filtering the water so much as acting as a habitat.
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