• Consider the following statements: 
• Statement I: Activated carbon is a good and an attractive tool to remove pollutants from effluent streams and to remediate contaminants from various industries.  
• Statement II: Activated carbon exhibits a large surface area and a strong potential for adsorbing heavy metals.  
• Statement III: Activated carbon can be easily synthesized from environmental wastes with high carbon content.   
• Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements?

• Activated carbon (activated charcoal): A highly porous form of carbon processed (“activated”) to create a network of tiny pores. This makes it excellent for adsorption.

• Effluent streams: Wastewater discharged from industries (textile, pharma, tanning, mining, etc.) that may contain pollutants.

• Remediation: Cleaning up or reducing contaminants in polluted water/soil.

• Adsorption (not absorption): Pollutants stick onto the surface of a solid (activated carbon) due to surface forces.

• Surface area: Activated carbon has an extremely high internal surface area because of its pores—this provides many “sites” for pollutants to attach.

• Heavy metals: Toxic metal ions like Pb, Cd, Hg, Cr, As, etc.

Check the statements

Statement I: Activated carbon is a good and attractive tool to remove pollutants from effluents and remediate contaminants.
✅ Correct. It’s widely used for water treatment and pollution control.

Statement II: Activated carbon has large surface area and strong potential for adsorbing heavy metals.
✅ Correct. Its high porosity and surface functional groups allow adsorption of many contaminants; heavy-metal uptake can be significant (often enhanced further by surface modification).

Statement III: Activated carbon can be easily synthesized from environmental wastes with high carbon content.
✅ Correct. Many biomass/agro-wastes (coconut shells, sawdust, rice husk, nutshells, etc.) can be converted into activated carbon, making it cheaper and sustainable.

Both II and III are true, and both explain why activated carbon is an “attractive tool” in Statement I:

• II explains effectiveness (high adsorption capacity).

• III explains attractiveness/practicality (low-cost, waste-to-resource, scalable).