Conversion of Wood into Hierarchically Porous Charcoal in the 200-Gram-Scale using Home-Built Kiln

Abstract

The wood-to-charcoal process (carbonization) is crucial in developing new materials at the lab for key technological processes nowadays. Unfortunately, laboratory carbonization methods are relatively costly and produce charcoal on a one-gram scale. This work presents a simple-to-build and simple-to-operate homemade kiln that carbonizes Eucalyptus wood chips (yield of 30±1 %) and produces charcoal on the 200-gram scale (two orders of magnitude higher). As-made solid particles had the typical structure, composition, and chemical behavior of charcoal obtained from wood with standard carbonization procedures. Research of charcoal-based materials is now probably more accessible.