Smart carbon and stupid people

I love my Brita pitcher. I've sung its praises in this space repeatedly and I'll say it again: I love my Brita pitcher.

Britas, like most gravity-fed water filtration systems, use gravity to pull water through a disc of activated carbon. Activated carbon is pretty much charcoal, it's just a pure form of it that's been treated in order to increase the amount of space between the carbon atoms it's made from.

Traditionally, charcoal is made through a process called pyrolization. In pyrolization, organic (carbon-based) material like wood or agricultural waste is superheated in an environment devoid of oxygen. In the absence of oxygen, the material can't catch fire and instead its volatile compounds evaporate and leave behind the carbon they were once bonded to. There are a variety of chemical and physical processes available in order to bring about this pyrolytic reaction but all of them yield the same result, a highly porous form of carbon.  Its value as a filter comes from two things: the purity of the carbon and the surface area made possible by all of its pores. Get this, a gram of activated carbon can have a surface area that ranges between 300 and 2,000 square meters according to my pals at How Stuff Works.

Carbon filters work through a process called adsorption. That's adsorption with a D and not a B. As water passes through the microscopic pores in the activated carbon filter, specific organic and inorganic chemicals and elements stick to the surface of the carbon. Think of the difference between adsorption and absorption this way. In absorption, material A gets sucked into the volume of material B. In adsorption, material A sticks to the surface of material B. An even simpler way to think of this that's more or less still accurate is when you wipe up a spill with a paper towel, the paper towel absorbs the spill. When you have a dusty floor and you wipe up the dust with a Swiffer, the Swiffer adsorbs the dust. Make sense?

Carbon filters work terrifically and they remove all manner of organic and inorganic stuff from tap water. Over time though, all of the surface area in the filter available for adsorption gets covered over and they stop being effective. You can't really clean a spent carbon filter, so you just replace them every couple of months. Simple and effective, and once again chemistry is your friend.

Well, a well-meaning but highly suggestible internet pal sent me a link to a solution to a problem that I didn't know I had. Apparently, my disposal of spent carbon filters every couple of months is an environmental crime on par with driving a Hummer or burning coal. Please. Anyhow, she sent me to a link to something called Sort of Coal. I don't really want to provide a link back to them but I suppose I owe them that much since I'm about to use a bunch of their images.

Sort of Coal sells pseudo scientific crap and snake oil and they do it in the form of something they call "white charcoal." The charcoal's still black of course, but in a world where reality doesn't matter, a consistent vocabulary must not be too important either.

My well-meaning internet pal sent me a link to this product:

It's what Sort of Coal calls Bottle and Kinshu Binchotan. It costs €68 plus Denmark's 25% VAT. That's €85 ($122.45 US) plus shipping. Oh yeah, carbon filtration doesn't happen by osmosis so it's pretty much ineffective as a filter. Sort of Coal doesn't mention how big the bottle is so I can't figure out the cost per serving. So despite the omission of the bottle size it does tell me this:

Serving and drinking local tap water becomes a pure and beautiful daily experience – with Bottle and Kishu Binchotan, each product is given its perfect complement.

Kishu Binchotan soaks up chlorine from tap water while releasing natural minerals into it. Kishu Binchotan softens the water and improves the overall taste.

What a load of BS. Tap water as a "pure and beautiful" daily experience? It's a frickin' glass of water, not an orgasm. It's not even a filtered glass of water at that.

Sort of Coal goes on to ascribe all manner of nonsense to its pyrolized wood. Here's what's called a Hakutan Tray and it's made from charcoal and plastic.

I have no idea how big it is, but Sort of Coal tells me this:

A decorative, purifying tray, made from cross-sections of White Charcoal set with compressed charcoal powder and resin. White Charcoal is produced by hand and is naturally activated during a controlled burning process. Use a Hakutan tray in the kitchen or living room. Fruit will remain fresh longer when placed on the Hakutan tray. Wipe it clean with a damp cloth. Do not use soap. It remains active for years if exposed to direct sunlight occasionally.

This product is organic and C02 friendly.

CO2 friendly? How can something made from partially burned wood and plastic be CO2 friendly? What does CO2 friendly mean anyway? How can a company make a claim like "Fruit will remain fresh longer when placed on the Hakutan Tray" and get away with it? Can they be held responsible for bananas that rot at the same rate that they would on a tray not made from "white charcoal?" If anybody wants to part with €160 ($230.50 US) to find out, let me know how it goes.

The unproven assertions just keep on coming with these people. Check out this:

Welcome to the Hakutan Large. The Hakutan Large is described thus:

Korean White Charcoal stems. White charcoal is made by hand and is naturally activated through a controlled burning process. Hakutan absorbs gases, pollution and odors from the air. It can be placed in your bathroom to regulate humidity, in the living room and kitchen to absorb cooking steam and odours. For generations people in Asia have used it to freshen air and create a better indoor environment. Charcoal is also used in spaces where there is intensive computer use, because it creates natural anions and thus has a positive effect on mental well-being. Keep free from dust. If you refresh it once in a while by placing it in direct sunlight, you can keep the Hakutan active for years. Charcoal should be recycled. White charcoal has a positive effect on the environment even when you dispose of it.

When the time comes to get a new Hakutan, crush it and mix it with soil so plants can benefit from it. This makes Hakutan CO2 friendly

So using this €120 ($172.87) stick of charcoal will have a positive effect on my mental well-being because it releases natural anions. I love how they pair their absurd claims with they mystery of the Orient. I'm not Asian but I think I'd be insulted if I were. But at least they explain how they get CO2 friendly from this.

Some day soon, I promise, we'll have a chat about ions and anions but I think I may have exhausted you guys by now.

Part of me admires the gall of these people to make the claims they do and charge what they do for this useless garbage. A bigger part of me is appalled at how this sort of new-agey clap trap can be lapped up so readily by an uncritical public.

The world faces a host of serious environmental problems that need to be addressed if it's to remain a planet fit for human life. The solutions to those problems will come from the fields of chemistry, biology, physics and their allied scientific disciplines. The mechanisms that underlie the physical world can be understood and that understanding only increases their wonder. Really.

Brrrr!

This is the screen capture of my home page's weather gadget from a minute ago.

It didn't hit 40 degrees today. It's more than 30 degrees below normal for today here and this is without a doubt the coldest I can remember in nearly 20 years of living in Florida. It snowed about 40 miles north of here last night and tonight's due to be even colder. There's a frost warning in St. Pete for tonight and we haven't had a frost in ten years. It's bizarre and I don't like it one bit.

Everyone looks shell-shocked and cold. A lot of the buildings here have no heat and it shows up in the pained faces of my fellow St. Petersburgians. I get it that it's one degree in Fargo and six in Minneapolis. They're used to it and they live in homes with furnaces.

This photo is just wrong. I just found it on the internet. It doesn't look like this around here yet but at this stage of the game nothing would surprise me. All is woe. All is woe!

New year, new stuff from Room and Board

The gang at Room and Board released a number of new items this week and I like to take a moment to fawn over four of them. Room and Board's furniture, carpets, lighting and accessories have a clean and modern aesthetic I like a great deal. There's a bit of Mid Century Modern in all of these pieces but they never cross the line into camp. Their stuff's exceptionally well made and sold at a price point that makes my head spin sometimes.

If you're in the market for new furniture, please don't buy junk. Buy good quality furniture and buy it once. Do your research and I can't think of a better place to start that research than at Room and Board.

This is the Louis Chair and Ottoman.

The Louis comes in five fabrics or can be customized with any of the hundreds of fabrics in Room and Board's collection. The Louis chair sells for $899 and the ottoman $399.

This is the Ventura table.

The Ventura is available in solid cherry, solid maple, and solid walnut. It comes in four lengths and its prices range from $1399 to $1899.

This is the Spill carpet.

The Spill is made from handmade wool felt and is available in the color and pattern shown. Other colors and patterns have other names. Imagine. Out of all of them though, I like the Spill the best. Nothing like a jolt of orange to start the day, right? Anyhow, the Spill comes in two sizes and ranges in price from $2160 to $3,600.

And finally, this is the Adams table.

In the Adams table, Room and Board managed to inject some Mid Century Modern sensibilities into a traditional Shaker form and I love the effect.

Again, if you're in the market for furniture, don't buy junk. Research like crazy and then buy the best you can afford and buy it once. If you have to buy something on impulse, but a pack of gum at the check out. Furniture purchases should be agonized over for months. Or in my case, years.

A trip to New Ravenna

via Flickr

Across the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis, MD sits the Delmarva Peninsula, so named for the three states that divide it. There's the whole of Delaware on the eastern side. It's flanked by Maryland to the west and the bottom 70 or so miles of that spit of land make up Virginia's Eastern Shore.

via Flickr

US 13 runs down the spine of the Eastern Shore and to drive south on it is to leave behind the pace and the hassles inherent in living in the rest of the northeastern US. The miles pass wide expanses of fertile fields dotted with pine and oak flatwoods. Ocassional, orderly towns come into view and there's a Spartan efficiency to them.

It's clear that for a lot of these towns, their best years are behind them. There's no real sense of loss that's readily apparent though. History runs very deep on the Eastern Shore, and that kind of history leaves a people with the steely resolve that even though the good times are in the past, they'll come back.

About two-thirds of the way down the peninsula sits the town of Exmore, VA; and in what was once an Arrow shirt factory, New Ravenna Mosaics and Stone creates some of the most beautiful work in glass and stone available anywhere.

New Ravenna Mosaics and Stone is the largest employer in Northhampton County. The 100 people who arrive at that old shirt factory every morning are artisans in every sense of the word and their workplace is an atelier much more than something that could be called a factory.

Sara Baldwin founded New Ravenna in 1991. She started as an artist with a passionate vision to bring beauty to the world through the medium of stone tesserae. That vision still burns as brightly as ever and her enthusiasm, her love, for the medium infuses everything about New Ravenna.

While it's true that New Ravenna utilizes an impressive assortment of water jets, tumblers and wet saws; at the end of the day they create their art the way mosaicists always have. Someone considers a piece of stone, cuts it into the shape she needs and then sets it in place. Repeat 10,000 times.

19 years ago, New Ravenna started out as a woman with a vision. 19 years later, New Ravenna is 100 people with a shared vision.

Look through their entire collection on their website and follow New Ravenna's latest developments through Sara Balwin's blog. Oh, and if you ever find yourself in Exmore, VA; stop in for a visit. If you can't make it to Exmore, you can find a bit of New Ravenna's Exmore at distributors far and wide.

Claudio Silvestrin presents i Frammenti

That's a sheeted mosaic tile believe it or not.

I registered to attend this year's Coverings recently, that's the tile and stone industry's big trade show. I sat it out last year and in anticipation of this year's show I've been digging through my library and revisiting all the cool stuff I saw the last time. That's where the Petracer's and the Dune posts came from last week.

As amazed as I was by those two offerings, what will always stand out to me from that show was the Brix booth. Brix is another tile company based out of Modena but to call them a tile company doesn't begin to do them justice. Brix is a design company that expresses itself through tile is a better way to describe them.

One of Brix's coolest products is a tile series developed for them by the architect/ designer Claudio Silvestrin and the series is called i Frammenti. Frammenti means fragments in Italian and the name fits.

The series gets its name from the 5mm pieces of porcelain it's made from. Each piece is a nearly perfect half centimeter by half centimeter by half centimeter cube and they are bound together on a flexible, silicone mesh. The combination of the small sizes of the individual pieces and the silicone backer make for a mosaic tile that's inherently, amazingly flexible. Because it's porcelain, it can be used indoors or out, and in wet and dry areas. The Brix booth at Coverings in 2008 featured a series of columns and other rounded shapes that were covered in i Frammenti mosaics and I'd never seen anything like it.

This product and the rest of the products made by Brix are available worldwide through better showrooms. I go to trade shows like Coverings as often as I do in order to keep on top of what new. The Italian manufacturers never fail to disappoint. And that's just the Italian manufacturers who come to the US to show off their wares. One of these days I will make to to Cersaie, in Bologna. Just as an FYI, Cersaie is the international version of Coverings though from what I understand it's in another league all together.

In the meantime, you can find more information on i Frammenti and the rest of Brix's offerings here, here and here.