Charcoal conversion rate is an important parameter for the customers who want to invest in charcoal production. It determines the cost of making charcoal. Because raw materials is the most costly part. The cost of the raw materials accounts for 50%-60% of the cost of producing charcoal.
How many tons of biomass materials to get one ton of charcoal
To make this question clear, we use the common case “sawdust to charcoal” to analyze the carbonizing ratio. About the steps of producing charcoal from sawdust, you can reference the below page.
After reading the above page, We know that weight loss happens in three stages: drying, briquetting, and carbonizing.
To get 1 ton of charcoal, we need to carbonize 3 tons of sawdust briquettes. From sawdust briquettes to charcoal, the sawdust briquettes are carbonized by a carbonization furnace or earthen kiln. In this step, the weight of sawdust briquettes will shrink greatly.
To make 3 tons of sawdust briquettes, we need at least 3 tons of 10% moisture sawdust. From sawdust to briquettes, dried sawdust passes through the sawdust briquette machine under high temperature and high pressure. In this process, sawdust moisture will reduce, but not much, it can be neglected.
So finally, it comes to the initial moisture of sawdust.
The moisture of natural dried materials is around 30%. After being dried by the sawdust dryer, the water content can be reduced to around 10%. To get 3 tons of 10% moisture sawdust, we need to dry around 3.85 tons of 30% moisture sawdust, roughly equal to 4 tons.
For the fresh biomass materials, humidity can reach 50%-60%, it will need 6-7 tons of wet materials to get 3 tons of 10% moisture sawdust.
Conclusion
For dried materials (30% moisture), the charcoal conversion rate is 4:1
For wet materials (50%-60% moisture), the charcoal conversion rate is 6:1
For sawdust briquettes, the charcoal conversion rate is 3:1
