First of all, Activated Charcoal is widely used in emergency departments to treat many types of toxic ingestions. Its use significantly prevents the absorption of many toxic drugs and other poisons if given early post-ingestion. It has saven many lives for centuries. Charcoal is carbon. Most often this charcoal is produced from hardwoods and coconut shells. Activated charcoal is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen to open up millions of tiny pores between the carbon atoms. When a the Active Charcoal adsorbs toxins, it attaches to it too itself by a chemical attraction. The huge surface area of activated charcoal gives it countless bonding sites. When certain chemicals pass next to the carbon surface, they attach to the surface and are trapped. It has a strong attraction for organic chemicals, therefore this type of carbon is the universal adsorbing material for most pesticides.
Activated charcoal is the ideal water filter because it removes toxins from the water without stripping the water of salts and important minerals. Water pollution is any human-caused contamination of water that reduces its usefulness to humans and other organisms in nature. Pollutants such as pesticides, fertilisers, and hazardous chemicals often find their way into our water channels. When our water supply is contaminated, it posed a great threat to humans, animals, and plants’ health unless it goes through a costly purification procedure.
Even studies has shown the adsorption in tap water, where the Active Charcoal is very efficient for the purification of polluted water. It has also been useful for reducing chlorine in water with the same mechanism as when it traps pesticides. Many other chemicals are not attracted to carbon at all, such as sodium, nitrates, etc. they just pass right through. This means that an activated charcoal filter will remove certain impurities while ignoring others. This is an important effect, because it using the Active Charcoal for water filtration will keep all the good micronutrients. Essential minerals you’ll find in drinking water are zinc, sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, calcium, and bicarbonate.
Athletes usually drink more water than regular people, which means they would over time get more toxins in their bodies. It could therefore be a good idea for them to have filtered Active Charcoal water with them to practice.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234593/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32278992/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21459402/
https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/activated-charcoal-purify-water.html
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es60004a004
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259175684_Adsorption_of_pesticides_onto_activated_carbons_ADSORPTION_OF_PESTICIDES_BY_ACTIVATED_CARBON