Powdered varieties of Activated Carbon are used in liquid phase application primarily for removal of undesired colour, smell and other impurities in many 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.

Granular activated carbons are mostly made from Coconut Shells on petroleum coke, bituminous coal or lignite. Granular activated carbon is used in continuous process in areas like water treatment (drinking & effluent water), removal of mercury from effluents or alkali cells, solvent recovery, gold recovery, removal of odour, gas masks, as catalyst carrier, for decholorination of water, purification & separation of gases, kitchen hoods, dry cleaning etc.