RogueRose - 5-11-2015 at 00:28
I've read many methods for producing charcoal and not so many for producing activated charcoal, but I suspect it is largely the same as charcoal
production but with using treated wood as a starting medium.
Most methods use some kind of sealed (sealed enough to keep air from entering, not exiting) container that can withstand heat. This has a number of
problems (I seem to get a LOT of smoke doing it this way) I'm not going to do into but would like to suggest another method.
I have a heat resistant (25gal drum) lined with a highly insulated refractory on top, sides & an insulated lid. I plan on heating either cast
iron or steel to either melting point, inside the insulated drum. Remove air blower & seal side vent & put heated metal on bottom of
container. Place wood on top of metal & place lid on container then allow to cool. This should, in theory, convert the wood to charcoal with all
the heat of the metal and the retained heat of the vessel.
IDK if there is something better to use than the steel/cast iron (sand??) to act as a dense heat retaining medium, suggestions if there are better
alternatives..
As long as air can't enter in any significant amount, I suspect this should produce some high quality charcoal.
As far as producing activated charcoal (which is the real goal), I have read that wood is usually soaked in either an acid or base. I was thinking of
cutting the wood into chunks or cubes, fill with a acid or base solution and pressure cooking. I would think this would saturate the wood with the
A/B. The only problem with this is I would need a stainless reaction vessel as I don't think aluminum would fare to well with an A/B solution heated
to 1 ATM. So, any suggestions here are appreciated as a steel pressure cookers are pretty expensive from what I have seen.
I'm guessing that producing the charcoal will take a lot more energy as the wood is going to have a much higher water content due to the pressure
cooking. IDK if the wood can be pre-dried before putting it into the charcoal vessel or if that would effect the wood before the conversion process.
Finally, figuring out what "activation" chemical to use is a little difficult as I have seen lots of things reportedly used for this. I guess it may
depend upon what is being converted to charcoal. I plan on using hard woods, most likely oak and possibly willow and hickory if I can find it.
So, if anyone has experience with or knows what activation chem can be used for hardwoods, I would appreciate input on that.
aga - 5-11-2015 at 01:05
google search term :-
site: sciencemadness.org activated carbon charcoal
First result :-
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=63...