Activated Carbon is the general name assigned for a group of porous carbons. The appearance of activated Carbon depends considerably on the process used for the activation of Carbon. The product is typically charcoal black with varying mesh sizes.

Chemical application and strength:
The primary application of granular activated carbon mesh is evident in the process of cyanidation. Cyanidation is the metallurgical process for mining gold from ore that contains cyanide.
The use of physical activation involves hot gases either through carbonization or oxidation. Granular activated Carbon has an appearance just like the name indicates with the higher surface area for adsorption.
Activated Carbon is produced from sources enriched in Carbon. Therefore, the surface structure of activated Carbon is very porous, and it also has a vast surface area. The large surface area with porous structure and attraction forces help in capturing material components that could be recovered later.
The chemical strength of activated Carbon makes it the ideal choice for extracting gold. Furthermore, activated Carbon also finds reliable applications in the removal of contaminating agents from gases and liquids. Activated Carbon is used for purification of water alongside scrubbing pollutants from gases at different industrial processing facilities.
The applications of activated Carbon in the gold extraction process generally involves its direct introduction in the CIL (Carbon-in-leach) or CIP (Carbon-in-pulp) tanks after leaching. The infected gold comes in contact with activated Carbon, and then the gold is adsorbed on the Carbon.
The coconut shell-based granular activated Carbon also has lower susceptibility to attrition due to hardness. Furthermore, the higher levels of activity help in easier gold adsorption.