[Stoves] Upgrading charcoal by washing it

[neiltm at uwclub.net]

On 21 Sep 2016 at 9:26, Anand Karve wrote:

> Dear Stovers,
> we have developed a TLUD process for making charcoal by charring
> agricultural waste. Since a lot of the agri-waste comes from grain crops
> belonging to the family Poaceae, the ash content is rather high due to the
> silica in the plants. Mineral coal is washed in order to reduce its ash
> content and to increase its calorific value. I was wondering if the same
> can be done in the case of charcoal.I can of course conduct a few
> experiments and find the answer, but I would be grateful to the list if
> somebody knows the answer and provides it to me.

I used to quench my TLUD char with water, but because it is porous, it 
then had to be dried.  Now I 'quench' the char by placing it in  biscuit 
tin and excluding the air.  It cools very rapidly.  When the tin is 
getting full I riddle the contents with a fine mesh which gets rid of all 
the ash, but retains quite small particles of char which I burn on my 
BBQ, sometimes with the assistance of a computer fan, at least at start 
up.  Whether you might have issues of scale and type of char, and amount 
of ash that might mitigate against doing it that way I can't say.  I 
can't see any advantage to using water to wash the char from 
microgasifiers.  Coal, AFAIK is not porous like charcoal, so might dry 
more easily?

Best wishes,   Neil Taylor

> Yours
> A.D.Karve
> ***
> Dr. A.D. Karve
> 
> Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)
> 
> Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
>