Activated Carbon - can it be regenerated?

[FenceFurniture]

I have a stainless steel compost bin for use in the kitchen, and in the lid threre is a layer of a material that looks like Scotch Brite that has activated carbon in it. This keeps the odour right down (can't small anything, but opening it up just now it sure was smelly!).

The unit came with a couple of spare pads, but of course when they are used I won't be able to get replacements (I guess Aldis would rather have me purchase a whole new unit).

Is there any way to clean or reactivate the existing ones when they no longer work properly? Heat them up to 250 deg again or something? There are different methods for activating carbon, and of course i have no idea how these pads were done in the first place.

This is the wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon).

Cheers
Brett

[Master Splinter]

Yes...and no.

Yes, it can be done, but unless you have an airtight furnace handy, the set-up costs will be horrible. You can get it by the kilo for less than $10.

What does the pad look like? Activated carbon pads are sold in pet stores for filtering aquarium water, or you could knock up a small holder for a handful of activated carbon granules.

See also: GPI-601 Activated Carbon 3kg with filter bag aquarium filter medium | eBay (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/GPI-601-Activated-Carbon-3kg-with-filter-bag-aquarium-filter-medium-/180745440253?pt=AU_Pet_Supplies&hash=item2a15448bfd)

Some of the stores that sell hydroponics and grow lamps for errrr... 'orchids' also sell activated carbon, so the smell of your 'orchids' won't attract a raid attention from the All Flowers Promptly people.

[FenceFurniture]

Thanks MS, yes i might need to go to a Pet store. Had a look on ebay, but it was from England, and an inch thick (current is 6?mm)

[mach70]

Yes it can be re-generated, but mostly done in large quantities.

Where I use to work (Gold plant) the carbon is used to attract the gold out of the cyanide solution and is then stripped with Hydrochloric Acid to get the gold.
After a while the carbon becomes "loaded" and does not absorb the gold any more so it is sent away for further stripping to get the gold off it and then the carbon can be re-generated.

Last lot I sent away approx 20 tonnes.

New carbon as used in the gold industry is approx $1300 for 550kgs.

Cheer

Shawn

[rsser]

Another option to control the stink would be a drop or two of Nilodor in the pad. We've used this when the cat got incontinent in her old age and it works really well. The local supermarket stocks it.