Powdered varieties of Activated Carbon are used in liquid phase application  primarily

 for removal of undesired colour, smell and other impurities inmany types of industries

including basic drugs, fine chemicals, glucose, sugar, electroplating plasticizers and so on.

Quite often, powdered carbon is washed with acid and then, repeatedly with water & dried

to minimize  impurities like soluble ash-iron, heavy metals etc. Activated Carbon is

invariably used in a batch process at the penultimate stage of  manufacture of a product.

A pre-determined quantity of activated carbon is added to a solution and after stirring for

a certain contact time mostly at elevated temperature carbon is filtered out or settled to

get a sparkling colour free solutions from which product is recovered.  it is pertinent to

mention that use of powdered activated carbon apart from decolourising imparts several

other benefits like longer shelf life

, truer, and bolder crystals, closer melting and boiling points etc.