Carbon cartridge filters are widely used throughout the process industries as a practical and cost‑effective way of removing dissolved contaminants that cannot be captured by conventional particulate filtration. While they are often viewed as a simple “polishing” step, activated carbon cartridges frequently play a critical role in protecting downstream processes, ensuring product quality, and meeting regulatory requirements.
This article explains how carbon cartridge filters work, where they are used across different industries, the problems they solve, and—just as importantly—their strengths and limitations.
A carbon cartridge filter is a pressure‑rated cartridge containing activated carbon, typically in one of three formats:
Unlike depth or membrane filters, carbon cartridges primarily remove contaminants by adsorption, not size exclusion. Dissolved molecules adhere to the internal surface of the carbon, which can exceed 1,000 m² per gram.
Activated carbon removes contaminants through a combination of:
Performance depends heavily on:
This makes correct sizing and application knowledge essential.
Problem: Municipal water supplies often contain chlorine or chloramine, which can:
Carbon cartridge solution: Carbon cartridges are routinely installed upstream of RO systems, deionisation units, and sensitive production processes to remove oxidants via catalytic reduction.
Industries:
Problem: Organic compounds can cause off‑tastes, odours, or colour issues in finished products, even at very low concentrations.
Carbon cartridge solution: Activated carbon effectively adsorbs a wide range of organic molecules responsible for sensory defects.
Industries:
Problem: Dissolved organics can interfere with chemical reactions, coatings, inks, or surface treatments.
Carbon cartridge solution: Carbon cartridges act as a final polishing step to stabilise feed water or process fluids.
Industries:
Problem: Oxidants and trace organics shorten the life of membrane filters and resins.
Carbon cartridge solution: Installed upstream, carbon cartridges extend the service life of:
This often delivers a strong return on investment, even when the carbon cartridges themselves require regular replacement.
Problem: Low‑level hydrocarbons or solvent carryover can create safety, quality, or compliance risks.
Carbon cartridge solution: Certain carbons are highly effective at adsorbing hydrocarbons and VOCs from process streams.
Industries:
Carbon cartridges can remove a wide spectrum of contaminants that traditional particulate filters cannot address.
They fit into standard cartridge housings and require no power, controls, or complex instrumentation.
Multiple cartridges can be installed in parallel to handle higher flow rates or redundancy requirements.
For many process streams, cartridge‑based carbon is far more economical than large carbon vessels.
Carbon cartridges are ideal for:
Once the carbon is saturated, contaminant breakthrough occurs. Unlike particulate filters, there is often no visible indication of end of life. Typically they are changed on a volume process basis of 22,000 litres per 10” module, as long as maximum flow rate is not exceeded.
High flow rates reduce contact time and significantly reduce performance. Oversizing is common, but typically the flow rate per 10” module should never exceed 3.8 l/min.
Carbon cartridges are vulnerable to fouling by solids. A prefilter (often 1–10 µm) is essential in most applications.
Spent carbon cartridges must be disposed of appropriately and replaced regularly, which can increase operating costs.
Not all carbons remove all contaminants equally. Incorrect carbon selection can lead to poor results.
In most process applications, carbon cartridge filters perform best when used as part of a multi‑stage filtration strategy:
Treating carbon as a specialist tool rather than a universal solution is key to successful system design.
Carbon cartridge filters are a powerful and versatile solution for solving problems that conventional filters simply cannot address. When correctly specified and supported by adequate prefiltration, they deliver reliable removal of chlorine, organics, taste and odour compounds, and trace contaminants across a wide range of process industries.
However, they are not a fit‑and‑forget technology. Understanding their limitations—particularly around capacity, flow rate, and monitoring—is essential to avoid unexpected breakthrough and process disruption.
Used wisely, carbon cartridge filters remain one of the most effective tools available to process engineers looking to protect equipment, stabilise processes, and safeguard product quality.
If you have any questions on carbon filtration or carbon solutions more generally, then give us a call or send us an email - we’d be more than happy to help.
You can also read more:
PoreFiltration – Making your filtration systems work harder