Well, I can try to show you all kinds of literature and research and technical data, but I am simply going to say to him " I' m not going to argue with you, I' m just telling you you' re wrong" . Once you understand how carbon works it gets a little easier. Carbon has the largest surface area per size of particle of just about anything. This surface area is where odor is adsorbed, and note I say ad, not ab. It' s not like a sponge, where it goes inside, the substance being adsorbed is attached to this huge surface - more like how smoke sticks to your windshield. It is held their by a physical force (Van der Waal' s). This force is easily broken by temperatures that your dryer can achieve - 100 to 150 degrees. What Corrigan was referring to is the high temperature required to break the chemical bond created when carbon adsorbs things like hazardous waste, etc.
My oh my- what a convenient argument " I' m just telling you you' re wrong" is... OK, look- I' m a scientist, and I use carbon all the time for all kinds of things, from filtering chemicals to filtering air to filtering fish tanks. Never, in any other application, do you even attempt to " reactivate" these by gentle heating. Why not? Because you need the carbon to work... I mean give me a break- to suggest broadly that " hazardous waste" sticks to carbon, but organics do not, is complete nonsense (no disrespect intended- but kedberg has been misinformed). For one thing, " hazardous waste" could be any of thousands of chemical compounds- some of which would turn the carbon to mush- so it' s ridiculous to even say something like that. For another thing, Van der Waals forces are NOT easily broken, ESPECIALLY when it comes to volatile organics such as those your skin releases. In fact, it' s unlikely that they will be desorbed at all at 150 degrees.
Yes, putting your clothing in the dryer will desorb the carbon somewhat of some of the sorbed particles. How much, or which of those particles, is anyones guess- in defense of the suit manufacturers (and lucky for them perhaps) it is a very difficult thing to test. But it absolutely, positively, without question will not do anything even remotely close to a true reactivation. Desorption, when done for scientific purposes, involves steaming the carbon while tumbling it for extended periods of time (much hotter and completely different type of process than simply putting it in a dryer). Blowing some warm air over your clothes does one thing, and one thing only- it helps sell carbon suits. Within days, or perhaps hours, unless the suit is sealed the carbon will lose effectiveness to the point of being worthless.
And that, my friends, is the rest of the story...