Carbon is an incredibly powerful absorbent. Activated carbon is carbon with a slight electro-positive charge which makes it more effective at attracting chemicals and impurities. Block Carbon filter utilises the benefits of carbon and by packing it densely into a block increases its effectiveness at reducing particles from the water.
Block carbon is not exposed to the problems granular activated carbon (GAC) have, such as:

• Channelling: When water is forced through a substrate of GAC (which has the consistency of sand or coffee grounds) it takes the path of least resistance and makes its own channels through the GAC in the filter. What this means is that the water being filtered may not be in contact with the GAC for enough time to allow complete absorption of impurities to take place. Many impurities may seep through along with the filtered water.
• Bacterial growth: When the water passes through the GAC, some bacteria are trapped in the substrate too. The problem is that these trapped bacteria multiply prolifically in the warm, moist oxygen-containing environment among the grains of GAC. Because the GAC is loose, there is no barrier to keep any bacteria growing inside the filter from coming out with the water pushed through each time the filter is used. Some companies add silver nitrate, a known poison, to the GAC to aid in keeping the bacterial growth down, but this method has limited effectiveness.
• Effectiveness decreases rapidly: Because the amount of GAC is usually minimal in most GAC filters, they quickly become saturated and overwhelmed with normal household usage. The filters must be changed quite often, which also adds to the expense of filter maintenance.

Block carbon is more effective at reducing impurities as it features a number of techniques to ensure it has higher adsorption capacity than GAC. Block carbon water pressure through its compact nature (0.5mircon) to forcefully reduce contaminants to ensure cleaner filtered water. Block carbon filters utilise these filtration methods:

• Mechanical straining: the block of carbon mechanically strains out dirt, sediment, rust, algae, bacteria, microscopic worms, cryptosporidia and asbestos.
• Chemical bonding: as carbon will bond to most chemicals known to man! When water is forced through the solid carbon block, it is forced to slow down and increase the contact time with the carbon, allowing the carbon bonding to take place to remove the chemical pollutants like toxics, pesticides, THM's, chlorine, chlorine, odours, etc.
• Health-providing trace minerals like dissolved calcium and magnesium do not bond to carbon and are allowed to pass through, thereby retaining the health quality and good taste of the water.
• Heavy metals like lead do not bond to the carbon, but are strained out by the pore size of the block - basically like trying to fit a basketball down a hole designed for a ping pong ball.
• Prevention of bacterial growth: Bacteria are strained out and remain on the outside of the carbon block. Therefore, because of the density and lack of oxygen and space inside the block, bacteria cannot breed in the medium.