Water percolator cartridge dissection

[Timelord]

I cut a used one of these open today as I suspected it contained activated charcoal. See pics.

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The tiny black particles are charcoal - I think. They were tiny angular lumps that did crush under pressure and I got one to smear on my skin like charcoal would. The other grey & white particles are tiny and bead like. They were not hard and could have been soft plastic or some other organic/inorganic or chemical compound. I am not sure.

I suspect they are just filler and the sparse charcoal allows the filter cartridge to meet minimum specs for being classed as a water filter for a percolator. I am not impressed & am under the impression the filter would work very poorly.

If anyone can identify the grey & white beads than this may be revised. In the mean time, I would not waste my money on a water percolator device that uses these type of cartridges!

The original idea was that maybe these would be a cheap substitue for more expensively packaged charcoal filters. From these preliminary results I now regard the cartridges as a waste of money. TL.