From the way it's marketed, you'd think activated charcoal was some kind of miracle powder.
It's best known as a treatment for poisoning, like if a kid accidentally swallowed some cleaning supplies, or for filtering water.
But activated charcoal has made its way into all kinds of stuff, like teeth whitening products, cosmetics, and that black ice cream from your Instagram feed last summer.
Now, I hate to break it to you, but it's probably not the magical health supplement that some people claim it is.
Charcoal is a black residue that forms after you burn something with lots of carbon in it, like coal or coconut shells.
To make activated charcoal, also known as activated carbon, you treat charcoal with heat and oxygen, or with certain acids and bases.
These chemical reactions can rearrange the carbon atoms to form lots of tiny pores.
So activated charcoal has a huge surface area.
In fact, just one gram of it can have from 500 to 1500 square meters of surface area.
That's as much as a globe more than four stories tall!
