A handy kiln for making charcoal from urban leaf litter
Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI), Pune, India www.arti-india.org
Single Barrel Charcoal Kiln

I can tell you how to make char out of your burnable organic waste. The simplest device is a top-lit updraft kiln. It consists of a vertical cylinder, having relatively small holes near its base for primary air. You fill the cylindrical body of the kiln with the material to be charred and then light it from the top. Once the fire gets going, you place a lid on the cylinder. There is a chimney built into the lid. The lid does not sit flush on the kiln, but there is a gap between the lid and the kiln. The draft created by the chimney sucks secondary air into the chimney, where it gets mixed with the pyrolysis gas to burn it. The biomass burns downwards, leaving a layer of charcoal on top. As the primary air comes upwards, it meets the burning front which traverses downwards. The burning biomass utilises all the oxygen in the primary air, so that the air going up through the layer of char has only carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen and the pyrolysis gas left in it. As there is no oxygen left in the updraft air, it cannot burn the char that has formed above the burning biomass.The pyrolysis gas and carbon monoxide burn in the chimney, because of the secondary air that is sucked in through the gap between the chimney and the kiln. You have to find out by trial and error, how long it takes to char the material loaded in the kiln. After that much time is over, you remove the lid, and extinguish the fire by sprinkling water over the burning material.

This particular device is portable and manually operated. There are larger charring kilns, based on the oven and retort process. Prof. Yuri Yudkevich, a Russian scientist, has made them for charring useless material generated by the timber industry in Russia.

We are already using both types of kilns under field conditions in India for charring agricultural waste as also urban waste.

We have a video CD that describes the kilns and you can fabricate them by watching the video CD. Our web site www.arti-india.org would show you how to get our CDs by paying us through Pay Pal.

Yours
A.D.Karve

See also:
Briquetted Charcoal from Sugarcane Trash

Bamboo-based Charcoal Production
National Mission on Bamboo Applications, InfoSheet IS 03 09/05, India

Charcoal made from bamboo finds ready uses and markets. It has been made for thousands of years in pits and even shallow depressions. Specially designed brick kilns, developed and tested by the National Mission on Bamboo Applications (NMBAi), provide an opportunity to make high-quality charcoal from bamboo in an efficient, safe and reliable manner.

National Mission on Bamboo Applications (NMBA)
Vishwakarma Bhawan, Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg
New Delhi 110 016, India
Telephone 91-11-26566778 Fax 91-11-26962267
Email bamboo@bambootech.org
Website www.bambootech.org

How to Make Charcoal
Robert Flanagan, SAFFE, January 30, 2008

I've just been playing around with my natural draft stove to see how easy it would be to use it for cooking and making charcoal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZDtXOiGLE .
I fed some extra fuel in the side so show the pyrolysis reaction taking place.

Terra Preta and Ants - Rooftop Experiments
Dr. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, India, December 13, 2007

Dear All,
After the successful field trials in Alkaline soils http://e-alkalinesoilsterrapreta.blogspot.com/ , I have just started second season TP experiments on a small scale on our Roof top in small pots
http://e-terrapretarooftopexp.blogspot.com/. The charcoal is exclusively from use of Magh-1 woodgas or smoke burner stove
http://e-smokeburnerstove.blogspot.com/ designed by me. I would like to share some of my immediate observations.

One day after establishing pots and the seed with soil and charcoal and only soil. I have sowed brinjal seeds in the 6 with charcoal + soil and 6 only soil. To my surprise I saw that in the three control pots the seeds were eaten away by small red ants. The six pots with a mix of about 30% charcoal were untouched by ants. In TP practice the chances of germination of the seed with out any loss to creatures like ants is minimized. I thought this is the first direct benefit of using charcoal. On day two I saw that all the pots without charcoal are with small red ants. There is not a single ant in the pot with charcoal addition.

Although I love ants, to avoid ants eating away the seeds sown, we could always add some charcoal along with the seeds. Second important application is that in the Vermicompost pits some ants eat away the earthworms to avoid such problem and for value addition to the compost to create a habitat for microbes, we could as well add charcoal.

From web I learnt that those you want to avoid toxic chemicals are using charcoal and diatomous earth as a repellant for ants. For photographs please see the blog below.
http://e-terrapretarooftopexp.blogspot.com/

I would like to know from your experiences what could be the other impacts in using Charcoal to the living things existing in soil.

Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy

The fines of rice hull ash mixed in with stored seeds are very effective in controlling weevils. (Rice hulls have a very high silica content.) The sharp silica structures in the ash scratch the cutinous exoskelton of the first insects to emerge, leaving them to dessicate before they can breed and lay more eggs. (I was taught this in a weekend course by the Tropical Products Insitute, U.K.)

DE (diatomaceous earth) will do the same because of its silica edges, and is also used for pest control in storing grain. It is also recommended to add DE to compost for the same reason: it is not injurious to beneficials in the process like the digestive tract of worms, but will control certain pests that like to colonize compost
piles.

Could it be that the charcoal has similar cystalline structures which keeps the insects away...in fear of being scratched to death...?

Gerald Van Koeverden vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca

According to a old research study, the effect of charcoal fines on insects might have nothing to do with it as an abrasive or 'scratchy'medium. This article shows that certain dusts actually absorb the lipoid layer from the exoskelton of bees without any apparent abrasion, resulting in the dehydration of the insect. The results (Table 1) show that all the dusts effected an increase in the rate of water-loss of the dead bees; that the three most effective dusts were silica gel, Almicide and activated charcoal, the common physical property of these materials being their capacity to act as powerful absorbents; that Bentonite and activated charcoal, both soft materials, were more effective than carborundum, which is hard and highly abrasive. These facts again indicate that abrasion is not an important factor in the action of these dusts in disrupting the waterproofing layers, and suggest furthermore that they may act by adsorbing the lipoid material.
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/32/1/95.pdf

Gerrit

Dear Gerrit
Thanx for this interesting paper.

TECHNICAL NOTICE:
Activated charcoal (from gas mask 300 mesh about 50 micron) is very much different than TP. Activated charcoal is an aggressive - powerful absorbent with specific surface area BET 650-1200 m2/g, while TP is mild with specific surface area BET 25-100 m2/g, As far as I know CALCON Carbon tried to put in activated carbon to soil since long time, but was not successful.

Sincerely yours: Edward Someus (environmental engineer)
Terra Humana Clean Tech Ltd. (ISO 9001/ISO 14001)
3R Environmental Technologies Ltd.
ADDRESS: H-1222 Budapest, Szechenyi 59, Hungary
TEL handy: +(36-20) 201 7557
TEL / FAX: +(36-1) 424 0224
TEL SKYPE phone via computer: Edward Someus
3R TERRACARBON: http://www.terrenum.net
3R CLEANCOAL ENERGY: http://www.nvirocleantech.com

Improving water and soil resources for tree production - Vietnam
NSW Department of Primary Industries, Australia

Summary

Water for irrigation is a scarce resource in topical dry seasons. Nutrient losses due to erosion and leaching are high in topical wet seasons. This project will evaluate practices within horticultural tree crops to increase the efficiency of use of scarce irrigation water and applied nutrients in subtropical NSW and Vietnam. The project will evaluate the potential to apply partial rootzone drying to cashew and macadamia nut crops. The effect of biochar on soil nutrient and water availability will be assessed.
Project Objectives

The objectives of this research project are to:

1. Assess the potential sources, availability and costs of irrigation water in landscape units of cental coastal Vietnam.
2. Identify current farmer practices and perceptions in relation to irrigation and nutrient management.
3. Increase technical capacity of the Agricultural Science Institute for Southern Coastal Central Vietnam in water and soil science.
4. Evaluate water and nutrient management strategies to improve productivity and profitability of tree crops, and resource use efficiency in central coastal Vietnam and northern coastal NSW.
Partners

Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Southern Cross University, Vietnamese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Ninh Thuan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Leader

Peter Slavich
Wollongbar

Carbon Sequestration by Carbonization of Biomass and Forestation: Three Case Studies
Makoto Ogawa,Yasuyuki Okimori, Fumio Takahashi, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Volume 11, Number 2, March 2006 , pp. 421-436(16)
Publisher: Springer


Abstract:
We proposed the carbon sink project called “Carbon Sequestration by Forestation and Carbonization (CFC),” which involves biomass utilization and land conservation by incorporating the products of biomass carbonization into the agents for soil improvement, water purification, etc. Our purpose was to demonstrate the potential of the CFC scheme for carbon sequestration, particularly carbon storage in soil.


Case studies were conducted in both developing and developed countries.


1. In southern Sumatra, Indonesia, 88,369 Mg-C year−1 of wood residue from a plantation forest and excess bark from a pulp mill would be converted into 15,571 Mg-C year−1 of the net carbon sink by biochar for soil improvement. The fixed carbon recovery of the system is 21.0%.


2. In a semiarid region in western Australia, the carbonization of wood residue was incorporated with multipurpose projects of a mallee eucalyptus plantation that involved the function of salinity prevention. During the project period of 35 years, the total carbon sink would reach 1,035,450 Mg-C with 14.0% by aboveground biomass, 33.1% by belowground biomass and 52.8% by biochar in soil.


3. In southern Kyushu, Japan, the study was focused on the effective use of surplus heat from a garbage incinerator for carbonizing woody materials. Sawdust of 936.0 Mg-C year−1 would be converted into the net carbon sink of 298.5 Mg-C year−1 by carbonization, with the fixed carbon recovery of the system being 31.9%.


Consequently, the CFC project could encourage the creation of a carbon sink in soil. However, we recognize that the quality standard of biochar, the stability of biochar in soil, and the methods for monitoring biochar utilization must be clarified before incorporating biochar carbon into the carbon credit system.


Keywords: biochar; biomass utilization; carbonization; carbon sequestration; carbon sink


Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1007/s11027-005-9007-4
Affiliations: Email: okimori_yasuyuki@kanso.co.jp

Robert Flanagan's Biochar Stove: Carbon Negative Cooking
David Yarrow, TERRAi: The Earth Restoration & Renewal Alliance, October 30, 2007

The Charcoalab Projecti: Charcoalab Pot Trials

Robert Flanagani, SAFFE, China, Christelle Brauni, Naomi, September 4, 2007

Select image to access album of photos.

The new "Black Gold" is already on sale in Indonesia!

Robert Flanagani, SAFFE, China, August 31, 2007

Black Gold

Update on Biochar Trials in Hangzhou, China

Robert flanagan, SAFFE, Hangzhou, China, August 28, 2007

Ready to Eat in 59 Days