Charcoal production methods

It’s important to avoid oxygen access in charcoal production. Temperature starts at 300°C. Charcoal quality grows as temperature do. High temperature also helps to decrease volatile substances content. Charcoal made in high temperature can be used as raw material in various spheres: dyes, activated carbon, graphite production, metallurgy additives.

Nowadays there are two methods of producing charcoal:

First method

Metal container (retort) is filled with wooden chocks and sealed (most often with clay). A fire is kindled under the container. After several days of heating, coal need to be cooled for 2-3 days.

Cons

  1. Cycled production
  2. It’s hard to make constant product quality
  3. Laborious process
  4. Not energy efficient
  5. Dirty process. A lot of emissions and environmental pollution
  6. Fire-hazardous
  7. Non productive
  8. Hard to scale
  9. The only available material is large pieces of wood. It gives high product cost price

Pros

  1. Simplicity
  2. Cheap equipment

Second method

It’s more modern method with no repeatability needed. Machines are producing charcoal continuously. There are machines available for large pieces of wood as well as for small pieces: sawdust, wood chips, husk, straw and even peat.

Cons

  1. High price
  2. Hard to maintain (qualified personnel are required)
  3. Installation site requirements

Pros

  1. Continuous production process
  2. Constant product quality
  3. No physical work needed
  4. High energy efficiency, because machines often work on their own pyrolysis gas.
  5. High production temperature
  6. Cost for sale is higher because of better quality and wider application scope
  7. Low cost price
  8. Clean production with no emission (usually it’s only steam and CO2)
  9. High performance
  10. Anything can be used as raw material