Ref. Nr.

29/2007
Page 1/2

How Carbovet traps toxins ?

1st : Induced dipoles
The carbon atom has an electron cloud. This cloud gives some temporary dipoles (see below).

electron
+

And when two atoms are near, you

observe an attraction like that:

+
+

+ C - + C -

These dipoles are fluctuating , so they do not stay stable in time. These temporary dipoles set up an induced
dipole and this, multiplied x times in the carbon structure rises to Van der Waals force.

2nd : Charcoal
Figure 1: Structure of charcoal

Normal charcoal contains graphitic

fragments and disorganised
material (figure 1).

Ref. Nr.29/2007
Page 2/2

Carbovet contains at least 85% of carbon atoms and due to this it is creating a lot of induced dipoles.

Charcoal

C
C
C
Van der Waals force

C
C
C
C C
C

Toxin
C

C
C

C C
C CC
C

C C

Attraction of a toxin, due to Van der Waals depends on :

the surface area (depending on the molecular weight),
the bond types (creating some strong forces)
the polarisability of the molecule
A toxin is trapped by charcoal because of van der Waals forces and specific interactions .

3rd : Pores
The specificity of charcoal is in its huge quantity of pores. These pores are also of different sizes. Carbovet is a
non activated charcoal with a small adsorbing surface (115-150m2/g) and the part of small pores is really poor.
This is why the small molecules have less chance to be trapped by charcoal. The toxins are trapped thanks to
this variety of pore sizes.

Medium size pore

= medium size
molecule

Large pore =
small
molecule

+C-

+C-

+C-

+C-

Low attraction

+C-

+C-

+C-

+C-

Attraction

Polarisable molecule as mycotoxin or enterotoxin

Small pore =
large
molecule

+C-

+C-

+C-

+CExclusion