Institutions and companies from Spain, France, and England have launched a project called CARVOC (Innovative Ecological Activated Carbon Filters for the Removal of Volatile Organic Compounds), which aims to produce ecological activated carbon filters from hemp waste. These filters can be applied for the treatment of atmospheric emissions, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or accidental discharges of toxic industrial gases.
The ultimate goal is to obtain filters capable of adsorbing chemical substances emitted by highly polluting industries and to integrate them into industrial filtration systems and products intended for the purification of volatile organic compounds.
The filters will be manufactured from hemp waste derived from agriculture and industrial processing, a novel, natural, and sustainable raw material, as hemp comes from a sustainable crop with beneficial environmental characteristics that other plants do not offer, and whose waste has interesting advantages for the preparation of activated carbon (a porous material with a large surface area that can adsorb a wide variety of substances, both gaseous and liquid).
As of today, 60% of the world’s activated carbon production comes from mineral coal. Activated carbon is a very useful technology for the removal of pollutants from a wide range of sectors, both in atmospheric emissions and in liquid waste.
Through various methods, efforts will be made to obtain activated carbons with suitable porous textures to retain gases and vapors, which can act efficiently in reducing pollutants. Thanks to the valorization of a natural waste, such as hemp, the current import rate of activated carbon, which is 26%, can be reduced through competitive production of these materials and their application for the removal of volatile organic compounds.
The initiative, funded by the European Commission, has a total budget of 1.5 million euros and will conclude at the end of 2014.
