Active carbon can be produced from the seedcake. Active carbon is a form of carbon that has been processed to make it extremely porous and thus to have a very large surface area available for adsorption or chemical reaction. Due to its high degree of microporosity, just 1 g of activated carbon has a surface area in excess of 500 m2.

Activated carbon has many applications, and is used in gas purification, gold purification, metal extraction, water purification, medicine, sewage treatment, air filters in gas masks and filter masks, filters in compressed air, and in many other applications. One major industrial application involves the use of activated carbon in the metal-finishing field. It is very widely employed for purification of elec­troplating solutions. For example, it is a main purification technique for removing organic impurities from bright nickel-plating solutions.

Activated carbon also has environmental applications and is usually used in water filtration systems. Carbon adsorption has numerous applications in removing pol­lutants from air or water streams both in the field and in industrial processes, such as:

• Spill cleanup.

• Groundwater remediation.

• Drinking water filtration.

• Air purification.

• Volatile organic compound capture from painting, dry cleaning, gasoline dispensing operations, and other processes.

In addition, activated carbon has important medical applications, and is used to treat poisonings and overdoses following oral ingestion. Activated charcoal has become the treatment of choice for many poisonings. Tablets or capsules of activated charcoal are used in many countries as an over-the-counter drug to treat diarrhea, indigestion, and flatulence. There is some evidence of its effectiveness as a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome.

A lot of research is going into various types of active carbon in terms of fuel storage to test its ability to store natural gas and hydrogen gas. The inner layer of hydrogen tanks are tubes of active carbon. The porous material acts like a sponge for different types of gasses and the gas is attracted to the carbon material.

Gas storage in activated carbon is an appealing method because the gas can be stored in a low-pressure, low-mass, and low-volume environment, which is much safer then storage in big compression tanks, where the danger of explosions is much higher.

Filters with activated carbon are usually used in compressed air and gas pur­ification systems to remove oil vapors, odors, and other hydrocarbons from the air. The most common designs use a one — or two-stage filtration principle in which activated carbon is embedded inside the filter media. Activated charcoal filters are used to retain radioactive gases from boiling-water reactor turbine condensers in the nuclear industry. The air vacuumed from the condenser contains traces of

radioactive gases. The large charcoal beds absorb these gases and retain them while they rapidly decay to non-radioactive solid species. The solids are trapped in the charcoal particles, while the filtered air passes through.

In the distilled alcoholic beverage industry, activated carbon filters can, for instance, be used to filter vodka and whiskey of organic impurities that can affect the color, taste, and odor. Passing an organically impure vodka through an activated carbon filter at the proper flow rate will result in vodka with an identical alcohol content and significantly increased organic purity, as judged by odor and taste.

More and more products use ultra lightweight active carbon, like tennis rackets, car bodies and so on. The Formula 1 racing car designer McLaren has constructed an ultra light car made of active carbon.