Organic Revolution
30th June 2005, 06:44
Most military gas-mask filters contain a substance known as "activated charcoal." It's the key active ingredient. Now... you could buy this over the counter at a drug store, but it's expensive, and it's probably animal charcoal. Now... charcoal falls under "activated charcoal" when it is heated at 200c or above (twice the boiling point) in an atmosphere of either (a) carbon dioxide, or (b) water. This leaves a lot of options, but the simplest...a) Take a piece of bread. (b) slap it on a fairly hot pan. © Leave it until the side away from the pan starts to turn golden-brown. The crust, rising steam, and the like traps CO2 and H2O in the matrix of the bread. Scrape out the blackened bits, grind to a powder, and let air for a few hours. Why let air for a few hours? Because - it's absolutely saturated with benzene - great for meth cooks, but bad for your health. Once the excess benzene has evaporated, you have a fine, black, powdered activated charcoal. (a) Ghetto method - grab a styrofoam cup, poke holes in the bottom, glue a coffee filter over, fill with activated charcoal, stick another coffee filter on top - and you're good to go, will filter most active substances. (b) SuperMask - like the ghetto method, but use an organic vapor mask (hardware & painting supplies) instead of a coffee filter. These things will stop most gas attacks anyways (including CN/CS/OC), so the "two ounces of activated charcoal" just means that your mask has a FUCKLOAD of overkill. have fun ;)
edit:If ya wanna get all fancy, you can grind it up REALLY fine, force it through a filter, and let it evaporate, creating your own little round black filter disks that you can change in and out - this is how most do it. You're getting less active filtration (less charcoal than if you were breathing through a whopping pile of it), but you can whip up a thousand little circles, pass 'em out, exchange 'em when one gets saturated, etc...
... how to knock out gas masks=Saline spray.&nsbp;&nsbp;The ions in the salt will saturate and deactivate the charcoal.
edit:If ya wanna get all fancy, you can grind it up REALLY fine, force it through a filter, and let it evaporate, creating your own little round black filter disks that you can change in and out - this is how most do it. You're getting less active filtration (less charcoal than if you were breathing through a whopping pile of it), but you can whip up a thousand little circles, pass 'em out, exchange 'em when one gets saturated, etc...
... how to knock out gas masks=Saline spray.&nsbp;&nsbp;The ions in the salt will saturate and deactivate the charcoal.