With its immense capacity for adsorption from gas and liquid phases, activated carbon is a unique material. It occupies a special place in terms of producing a clean environment involving water purification as well as separations and purification in the chemical and associated industries. In these roles, it exhibits a remarkable efficiency as the international production is a littie more than half a million tonnes per year, with perhaps 2 million tonnes being in continuous use. This is equivalent to the allocation of 200 mg per person of the world population to be compared with the world use of fossil fuels of 2 tonnes per person of the world population. Much is already written about activated carbon such that the Google search engine will offer over one million pages from the Internet. These pages are mosdy descriptive and uncoordinated. Currendy, there exists a need for a text which establishes a framework into which factual information can be located and explained. Further, carbon science has expanded rapidly in recent years with considerable relevance to an understanding of activated carbon. Again, these information are mostly uncoordinated and need to be assimilated into a comprehensive story. This assimilation is the purpose of this book.