General purpose adsorbents include activated coconut charcoal, carbon black, and silica gel.- Activated coconut charcoal (activated carbon) is used extensively as a general purpose adsorbent, especially for purification applications where the trapped compounds do not need to be recovered. It is not as widely used for thermal desorption and chromatographic applications due to two major drawbacks; its adsorptive strength may be too strong to allow complete desorption, and it is more suitable for applications that employ chemical desorption instead of thermal desorption. However, there are applications where charcoal is and can be used, such as the adsorption/desorption of the very volatile analytes halocarbon 12 and chloromethane.
- Carbon black is an amorphous carbon with a high surface area-to-volume ratio, although lower than that of activated carbon. This small particle (nanoparticle) purified carbon black is suitable for use in electrochemical and bioprocessing applications.
- Silica gel is used extensively as a general purpose adsorbent due to its ability to adsorb/desorb a wide range of volatile analytes, in particular, those that are polar. Care must be taken when sampling in humid environments due to its affinity for water.
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