Progress in Charcoal Production–Continuous Residue Carbonization

Charcoal production runs in a continuous carbonizer that operates without supplemental heat were successfully made and evaluated on five kinds of wood residues with moisture contents ranging from 11 to 142 percent, based on the ovendry (OD) weight. Run 1 consisted of mixed pine shavings and sawdust averaging 141.6 percent moisture content (MC); fresh pine sawdust 81.6 percent MC; and hardwood chips 79.2 percent MC, Rate of production for run 1 was 475 lb./hr. or 5.7 tons per 24 hours. Analysis of charcoal produced the following results on OD basis: average MC of charcoal, 1.79 percent; volatiles, 27.17 percent; ash 4.62 percent; fixed carbon, 68.21 percent. Run 2, consisting of pine planer shavings ranging in MC from 11 to 47 percent and averaging 27.4 percent, gave a yield over 20 percent on an OD basis. Results of charcoal analysis of run 2 from an average of 5 random samples on an OD basis were: average MC of charcoal, 0.67 percent; volatiles, 17.16 percent; ash, 1.08 percent; fixed carbon, 81.76 Percent. Run 3 consisting of dry oak shavings, gave a yield of 30 percent charcoal at a production capacity of 5-1/2 tons per 24 hours. Run 4 was made on hardwood chips and planer shavings with the following production results per 24 hours: tons OD material, chips, 16.4, shavings, 14.9; tons OD charcoal, chips, 4.7, shavings, 4.2; percent yield OD weight, chips, 28.4, shavings, 27.9; average MC percent, green material-chips, 36.2, shavings, 12.5; charcoal, chips, 1.5, shavings, 1.8. Run 5 was made with green gum chips from slabs fresh from the saw at a production rate of 7 tons per 24 hours.

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