Activated charcoal

Ian Loughead <ian_tkos [at] hotmail__com> writes

>Does anyone have any information on how long activated charcoal
>lasts?

Activated charcoal or carbon filters will last until it is fully
absorbed which will depend on the gasses in your environment. You
can use paper indicators, industrial sniffers or simply your nose to
tell when to change the filters. Most people have noses that at two
hundred times more sensitive than the mechanical sniffers! When the
air in your scrubbed area begins to smell, it's time to change the
carbon filters.

They can be replaced and or recycled. We use a vendor / manufacturer
named Farr Filter <URL:http://www.farrco.com/>

Carbon filters can be added to your existing HVAC air handlers or
they can be used in stand alone air filter systems. We use both
types in our vaults to scrub the air of out gassing from film, tape
and other media materials. When people enter our vaults who have
asthma, allergies or other breathing disorders, after a few minutes
a big smile comes over their faces and they want to stall all day.
The charcoal filters really work. (We also use room-scale Molecular
Sieve filters to scrub the air for selective gasses such as acetic
acid for film base decomposition)

David Wexler, President
Hollywood Vaults, Inc.
Preservation-Quality Storage for Film, Tape & Digital Media
742 Seward Street,  Hollywood California  90038-3504 USA
323-461-6464,  800-569-5336
Fax: 323-461-6479,  805-569-1657

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:51
                Distributed: Tuesday, December 15, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-12-51-004
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