Charcoal
What is Charcoal? It is carbon from vegetables and animals. All carbon based life forms can be turned into charcoal simply by getting rid of water and other substances. But charcoal to use are those black, brittle bricks that are commonly sold for a variety of purposes.
Charcoal can be used as a fuel source. There are an excellent source of heat which is why they are commonly used during barbeques. To make charcoal, you will need to put the material in a low oxygen environment and use slow pyrolysis.
There are many ways to create them. In the UK, they were produced by leaning wooden logs in a pile against a chimney. These logs were covered by material (Usually straw and soil) to prevent oxygen from entering.
Some sort of fuel is entered into the chimney and ignited. This produced a very slow, low oxygen burn that takes five days to produce the end product, charcoal. However, most modern facilities use a metal container (Sealed) as there is less chance of air entering with this unit.
There are a few popular commercial types of charcoal on the market. These include charcoal lumps, briquette's and various other extruded forms. Japanese charcoal is a very refined form where pyroligneous acid is removed during the charcoal making process.
This produces a charcoal that emits almost no smoke or smell. Briquette's are made by taking some form of cheap wood material such as sawdust and compressing them. The best part about charcoal is the fact that they are cheap.
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