[Turtle]

[quote=Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

So would Amazonian Natives have access to 'activated carbon'? Would the temperatures in pottery kilns be high enough to make the charcoal become activated? the research doesn't seem to make clear what sort of carbon we are talking about.
If 'activated' has more cavities; wouldn't this be a good thing?

Kiln temps high enough, yes. I don't have any knowledge on whether Amazonians purposefully manufactured activated charcoal.
More cavities=better in terms of how long the adsorption continues without further application of charcoal. Once the cavities have all filled, the charcoal is in effect 'used up' until or unless some other process releases it. Simple charcoal from a fireplace still adsorbs; breaking into smaller pieces increase surface area & so efficacy.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Turtle

No need for oven. From what I have gathered from these articles you don't want 'activated charcoal' for making these terra preta soils & you do want (need?) to crush it up. Some sources say you need 20% to 40% charcoal by volume to get the microbes churning & happy.
The solar oven is low temp (about 450deg F they said) & you shove in your garden waste instead of composting it.

BBQ charcoal seems cheaper than horticultural charcoal. The BBQ charcoal I purchased looked like it had been some sort of worked or turned timber. It had a hole in the middle and was hexagonal. It was certainly a lot cheaper that horticultural charcoal BUT how do I know if it is the right stuff? Charcoal doesn't say on the packet what temperature it has been produced at. From what I've read some of the plant resins need to be left in the charcoal for the bacteria to latch on to it
It was easy to pound the BBQ charcoal into a powder with a brick. I got into a rhythm a bit like native pounding of grains into flower.

One of the traditional ways of making charcoal is by coppicing
see
http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/gowild/wild.../charcoal.html
"How is charcoal used today?

In Britain today, charcoal is used as fuel for domestic barbecues, in fireworks and in medicinal biscuits. As it can absorb gases and impurities, it is employed in chemical, water and vodka filtration. Approximately two thirds of the estimated 60,000 tonnes of charcoal sold in Britain every year are used in barbecues. Of this vast quantity only 3 per cent (1,800 tonnes) is produced in England. A large proportion of the remainder is derived from unsustainable harvesting in the tropical forests and mangrove swamps with the cheapest imports coming from South-east Asia. This is particularly disturbing when one estimate suggests that there is 800,000 tonnes of low value wood including over-mature coppice in the south-east of England alone. This wood is currently of little economic value but could be used for the production of high quality British hardwood charcoal.
How is charcoal produced?

Charcoal production is dependent on heating wood without enough air for complete combustion. Under these conditions, water is expelled from the wood and volatile substances such as tars and oils are released, leaving charcoal containing up to 90 per cent carbon. In most charcoal production processes, some of the wood in the kiln is burnt to produce the necessary heat. If thoroughly air-dried wood is used, ideally with a moisture content below 20 per cent, then 4 tonnes will yield 1 tonne of charcoal. This yield is halved if unseasoned timber is used since a higher proportion of the wood in the kiln has to be burnt to provide the required heat.

Many different kilns are used throughout the world. Some, known as earth kilns, utilise only materials from the woodland to seal them. At Wakehurst Place, a less labour-intensive portable steel kiln is moved around the woodlands to each new coppice block. Other initiatives in Britain could lead to huge static kilns to which timber growers take their coppiced wood.
Charcoal from Wakehurst Place

At Wakehurst Place up to 3 tonnes of BAR-B-KEW charcoal is made each year. Like other British hardwood charcoal, it has a high carbon content which makes it easy to light and quick to reach a high cooking temperature. These qualities make it a superior product to most imports and it provides an alternative to charcoal produced from endangered sources such as tropical rainforest and mangrove swamps"

This is a good site on UK copicing
http://www.englishcharcoal.co.uk/

"AD 43-410

By Roman times iron was being produced in large-scale processes. To fuel the considerable production, many thousands of acres of coppice were brought under management and invariably the iron works were situated close by. Such was the scale of production that slag was commonly used as a sub-base for new roads.

However, charcoal was not limited to use as a fuel. The wood tars produced were used for caulking ships and the lighter pyroligneous acid (which the Egyptians had used for embalming) may have had a use in the production of dyes. Charcoal posts were used for construction support in wet areas where ordinary timber would have quickly rotted whilst crushed charcoal had uses in the filtration and purification of liquids."


There is even a Yahoo coppicing group!
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/grou...1?viscount=100

Both these websites mention plant resins in the charcoal.
Is it important for these to be left in the charcoal?
Some of the Cornell Uni papers seem to think so
Am I fussing over nothing?
Perhaps I need to suck it and see.

The TV show I saw on coppicing years ago involved building a special bonfire. The bonfire was specially constructed so that it burnt slowly over a number of days. I haven't found how to construct this yet.I guess i won' be able to do it in suburbia anyhow. It does seem to be the way to go for farmers however.
I don't think my wife or the smoke alarm would appreciate me producing carbon in the oven (Not energy efficient anyway).
Let me know how you go with the home made solar furnace. I have lots of long hard "poles" off palm fronds. They are sort of bent so don't make good tomato stakes -but might make good charchol!

"Manufacturing Charcoal
Charcoal is made when wood is heated under conditions where there is insufficient air for complete combustion. In this process the water contained in the wood is first driven off before the wood begins to break down. A series of chemical reactions then follow which result in the release of volatile products. Charcoal – a solid black residue is left.

Manufacture of charcoal in the UK is now largely carried out in portable kilns. These kilns are circular steel drums of about eight feet diameter and a least four feet in height. There is a removable lid and a number of chimneys, which vent from the bottom of the kiln. The timber is carefully placed in the kiln leaving a central void which forms the starting point for the fire. When the kiln is full a fire is lit in the central void and allowed to establish before the lid is loosely placed on the top of the kiln.

Over the next couple of hours the amount of air to the kiln is carefully controlled before the lid is sealed using earth from nearby. The kiln then vents from ground level and burns for around 24 hours providing perfect conditions for the production of charcoal. All vents are then sealed and the combustion process dies down. The kiln is then allowed to cool before it is safe to remove the charcoal. The cooling process can take several days. The image below illustrates the early stages of the combustion process before the lid is properly sealed.

The ring kiln is a relatively modern replacement for "the traditional earth burn."

The traditional earth burn is what I want to know about!

O well another day, another hunt for cheap charcoal.

I do have a lovely bacterial tea brewing made of yeast, sugar, milk, plant materials, an old bottle of Spiralina (seaweed), kitchen scraps and a spoonful of liquid fertiliser. It is bubbling away nicely. (I do hope my wife doesn't find it.
(I have to smuggle in chook poo as she says it "stinks"

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting (irrelevant?) facts about charcoal?
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Making Charcoal
From Steve Nix,
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A Startup Business Opportunity
Introduction

Charcoal is a formless mass of carbon and can be made from most carbonaceous materials. It is one of the oldest of man-made fuels and has been prepared under the ground for a thousand years. Charcoal is still a major source of energy throughout the world.

Much like the old process, the modern commercial process is to heat wood with little or no air present which takes special but simple equipment.
In the United States, wood is the primary material used for charcoal and is generally procured in the form of residue like sawmill slabs and edgings. Sawmills love to find users of this material because of environment problems with burning and disposal. Where there are sawmills, there is available raw product.

It has been estimated that there are nearly 2,000 charcoal-producing units in the United States, including brick kilns, concrete and masonry block kilns, sheet steel, kiln, and retorts (a steel metal building).
The state of Missouri produces a lot of this national charcoal product (they have until recently had less stringent environmental regulations) and 98 percent of all charcoal is produced in the eastern United States. Here is a list of bulk charcoal processors listed by the Missouri Forest Products Association.

While charcoal can be made from any number of natural materials, hardwoods such as hickory, mesquite , oak, maple, and fruitwoods are favored.
They have unique aromas and tend to produce a better grade of charcoal. Better grades of charcoal come from raw materials with low sulfur content.

Uses of charcoal may surprise you. Besides being the fuel that cooks steaks, hotdogs, and hamburgers on a Sunday picnic ( see BBQ Forum ), charcoal is used in many other processes. It is used in certain metallurgical "purifying" treatments and as a filter to remove organic compounds such as chlorine, gasoline, pesticides, and other toxic chemicals from water and air.

Activated charcoal, which has a super adsorptive surface, is growing in use. It is used in purifying and refining metals and in the gas masks that were used during the Gulf War.
NutraSweet (tm) uses activated charcoal to transform the product into a powder.
Activated charcoal is used as an antidote for many types of poisons and is touted as an effective anti-flatulent.

Most charcoal manufacturers sell their product as a briquette. This market has been dominated by several companies to include Kingsford and Royal Oak. They do not make "lump" charcoal which is an alternate product that has advantages and has potential as a startup business.

[gost]

Michael-

On Sugar- Sugar is much too valuable to add to the soil. Better to use it to make fuel alcohol, which is something else I've been working on.

On Temperature- I think that low temperatures are best for ADE charcoal as it then retains more of the plant resins that are used in binding the nitrogen.

On Nematodes- Yes, I'd like to read the "Quirky Science Fact." Beneficial nematodes are an important part of healthy organic soils and I'm sure are found in abundance in Terra Preta.

On Charcoal- I don't see why coconut charcoal wouldn't work just fine if you can get it cheap enough. One of the questions I have about the Amazonian charcoal if whether it's made from hardwoods, and whether the resulting resins might be different in various materials. I've read that alder is the preferred wood for making charcoal for use in forges, followed by mountain ash, and oak, but I don't know how that would relate to what we are doing here.

Coal is NOT the same as charcoal. Not only does it contain various percentages of sulfur and other chemicals, but it also has a lot of flammable volatiles, which is what helps it to burn. Coal is made when anaerobic pete bogs are subducted and put under heat and pressure for a few millenia. Coal is around 90% carbon, with the rest made up by the other chemicals. Probably not at all good to put in your garden soil. When the volatiles are removed, the resulting product is called "coke," and it burns cleaner than coal but needs a strong bellows to keep it going.

Regular charcoal briquettes are not a good substitute for ADE charcoal either. They are made from a combination of sawdust charcoal and coal, and sometimes petroleum coke, which can be high in heavy metals. Most of the volatiles and other chemicals actually burn away before you start cooking, but they would still be present if you ground them up and put them in your garden. Kingsford charcoal briquettes are made from: powdered charcoal, anthracite coal, limestone, starch (as a binder), sawdust, and sodium nitrate and a few other ingredients. I've just heard recently, however, that WalMart and Home Depot here in the US both carry what is called "Lump Charcoal," which is the pure stuff, no additives, and it is available in various kinds of wood: hickory, mesquite, oak, etc. You can find a bunch of other brands online as well. A little too expensive to suit me.

On Clays and Kitty Litter- I'm not sure about the kind of kitty litter you get, but my experience is that the stuff is simply made from dry clay, not kiln fired. When it gets wet, after a while it just turns back into sticky clay, which would not be good for a garden unless you need to slow down your drainage. I thought I'd check with my local nurseries to see if they have any broken terra cota flowerpots they'd like to get rid of.

I had already read that same paper about the mineral composition of the ADE pottery that you posted, but I don't know enough about pottery to see how this compares to terra cota. Some of the pictures I've seen of it though, looks just like it. That's what I'm going to use.

On Water- I just made up a batch of home-made Terra Preta and the very first thing I noticed is that it holds a heck of a lot of water when you get it wet. It took a little time before the water started soaking in, but the stuff holds it like a sponge. I've set a wet pot of it out in the sun to see how long it takes to dry out compared to my regular compost. I think it's going to be really good for water conservation.

Here's a pic of the stuff I made:

[gost]

LOL about the alpaca poop, Michael. I like the stuff not only because it seems appropriate to making Amazonian soil, but because it's high in N and you can use it directly on plants without it burning, much like rabbit manure. Not only that, but I have a neighbor who raises alpacas and is happy to get rid of the waste. I add it into my compost pile and figure the extra microbes can only help the process.

As far as where I live, I'm in the upper right hand corner of the US, about 75 miles north of Seattle, Washington, in a rural area just below the Canadian border. My wife and I own six acres of land in the hills where we play at organic gardening, amongst other things.

Those are some good links you've come up with, Michael, as always. I've run across the Eprida site before and find it pretty interesting. I don't know quite what to make of the charcoal temperature business and how to apply it here, but here is a quote from the author of that presentation, Danny Day, in another article, specifically about Terra Preta:

" The initial phase of the meetings started with a review of the current
knowledge of man made soils called terra preta occupying an area of
the Amazon that total to twice the size of Britain. Carbon was added
to these soils in the form of a low temperature charcoal. Using low
intensity smoldering fires created these charcoals. By analysis, we
can tell that they were created 1000-2000 years ago and were part of a
soil management practice designed to take a yellow clay soil of
limited biological productivity and convert it into some of the
richest soil in the world. A thousand years after its creation it is
so well known in Brazil, that it is dug up and sold as potting soil. . .

". . . Low temperature woody charcoal (not grass or high cellulose) has an interior layer of bio-oil condensates that microbes consume and is
equal to glucose in its effect on microbial growth (Christoph Steiner,
EACU 2004). High temp char loses this layer and does not promote soil
fertility very well."

The implication is that the charcoal was produced at low temps, but he doesn't state the exact temperature range. None the less, it seems probable that because the ADE soils have a fair amount of "brown" (incompletely charred) charcoal present, it can be inferred that the temps must have been in the lowest ranges of charcoal conversion.

The temperatures that I'm using are much lower that the Eprida temps you posted above. I'm trying to stay within the range of 470-500F (240-260C), with the idea that preserving the bio-resins and oils is extremely important in the regulation of N, as indicated in the literature.

I got a kick out of the idea of discussing Terra Preta with the boys at the pub. Last weekend, while I was making charcoal, my neighbor Auggie, a retired logger who we buy eggs from, stopped by.

"Howdy neighbor," he said. "Watcha doin'? Fixin' to smoke some fish?"

"Naw," I said. "I'm trying to make some charcoal."

"Oh." Long pause. "How come? You gonna have a barbecue?"

"No, I need a special kind of charcoal to make something called Terra Preta."

"Oh." Another long pause. "That some kind of Mexican dish?"

"No, It's a type of soil that the people in the Amazon used to make to grow their food in."

"So . . . you're makin' dirt?"

"Yep."

"How come? Don't you have enough already?"

"Well, yeah, but you know, making Terra Preta just might be a way to help solve the problem of global warming. I'm just playing around with the idea."

"So . . . you're makin' charcoal, to make some dirt so you can fix global warming?"

"Yeah, something like that?"

"Well, ain't that something!" Long pause. "Say, you got any more of that home-made raspberry wine in the fridge?"

"Sure Auggie, help yourself."

Around here, everyone's used to my crazy notions. I'm known as the mad scientist/songwriter/farmer/computer geek with the loud electric guitar and the finest raspberry wine ever made. I owe it all to alpaca poop, I tell them.

[SoilWatcher]

I haven't posted in forever. I will probably make a couple posts.

First a question. Many of you are finding supplies of charcoal. Back in the early part of this whole thread, one of the critical things was that it should be low temperature charcoal, thereby leaving resins which fed the microbes. Does any of this commercially available charcoal fit the bill?

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by SoilWatcher

Many of you are finding supplies of charcoal. Back in the early part of this whole thread, one of the critical things was that it should be low temperature charcoal, thereby leaving resins which fed the microbes.
Does any of this commercially available charcoal fit the bill?

Excellent question
How can you tell?

This also fits with the post

Resilient Form of Plant Carbon Gives New Meaning to Term ‘Older than Dirt’
http://www.physorg.com/news83516285.html

I'd like to know how the researchers knew it was carbon was from resinous material 10,000 to 100,000 years old.

I have tried to buy charcoal from farmers making it the traditional way which I hope will be a lower temperature (c400C) than activated charcoal. They also tell me they are using rain forest trees.
So far my search has been in vain; and I have ended up with Commercial BBQ charcoal made (I think) from coconuts.

Charcoal seems to be much more readily available in UK nurseries; where the ancient art of Coppicing still seems to survive.
Who knows if charcoal made from Temperate Climate Trees have the same or similar resins as in the Amazon???
The Japanese may have done some work on this if you can somehow access their research papers

It would be nice to know more about the role of resins in this Terra preta mix.

--
michael

[davidgmills]

Hello all. I have recently learned about terra preta. I am a lawyer so only marginally good at science although I have a father and brother who are both PhD's in biochemistry. I also have three uncles that are farmers (2 dairy 1 beef). My father was always darn good with a garden.

Terra preta has got me interested in gardening again after about a ten year hiatus. I am an internet nut so once I stumbled upon an article on the net about terra preta I poured over every article I could find. Erich is quite a prolific poster.

Anyway I started my terra preta garden back in early November using store bought charcoal briquettes because I didn't know any better. Soon I found out that making your own produced a much better charcoal. But I must say even the store bought briquettes made an difference in the soil's ability to hold moisture.

Over Thanksgiving I began experimenting making my own. It is actually quite easy. I had a two and a half gallon popcorn can with a lid. So I began experimenting in making charcoal with it using sticks and dead tree limbs from the yard. After a couple of times of trial and error, I discovered that the best and most efficient means of making charcoal was to put about two inches of twigs and leaves in the bottom of the can with paper for a starter. Once the fire got going really good and hot I began to put good sized chunks of wood on top of the fire, smoldering it of course, and slowly filled up the can with fist sized chunks of wood. I put the lid on top leaving about a half inch gap. Presto about two hours later, it all turns to charcoal, approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the size of wood I started with. Very efficient process. Hardly any wood is wasted as starter fuel.

What they say is true about the smoke. First, off comes a gray smoke burning off the water. Then comes a yellowed smoke as the first gases burn off. Finally a blue smoke as the final gases come off. Then no smoke and its charcoal.

Obviously, a two and a half gallon bucket will not produce enough charcoal for a residential garden. So I am going to move up to a galvanized garbage can.

But even after a few weeks I can see the difference the charcoal makes even without the bacteria and fungal growth. The soil is much damper and it seems to really break up clods of clay. Shoveling a full depth of the shovel blade is now very easy, whereas before, it got difficult about half blade depth. Also threw in broken pottery.

Trying to get the garden ready for spring planting. I hope by charcoaling now maybe I will get some bacterial action before spring.

I live in Memphis where we have good soil, good moisture, and a fairly temperate climate.

In thinking about how to make terra pretta for a farm, based on my experience with the charcoal I have made, I would get a big round horse water trough (10 feet or so in diameter and 3 to 4 feet high) and use it. Use some corrugated tin for a cover and take it to the place where you want to start your terra preta plot and make the charcoal on the spot. It really is very safe and as easy to control the fire as a barbecue pit. Start with a hot fire in the bottom of the horse trough. Once it is going good enough that you won't entirely put it out by putting logs on top, start putting them on. Pile them on until you fill the trough up, making sure that the thing keeps smoldering. This might take a couple of days to turn to charcoal, especially if you are using good sized logs. But I feel pretty sure it would work as this is very similar to how charcoal is made in England.

Glad to be a member of this forum.

[Taildragerdriver]

OK this thread is exactly what I wanted to get into.

So let me document the concept of what I'm think I'm going to do.

Making Charcoal: Intially I plan to make a 55 gallon drum charcoal burner to get the hang of making charcoal on a small scale. There are a number of websites that describe how to do this.

Of course for my needs this won't make a dent. So for a larger scale I have access to an old "wigwam burner" left over from the old lumber mill near my pastures. I plan to start with the a traditional mound burn as described in the following site.

Chapter 6 - Making charcoal in earth mounds

These wigwam burners were built because when they burned mill waist the sparks would not get out and start fires nearby if winds start blowing. If I build my mound inside and cover it with soil it will be safe to let burn for the several days required to make charcoal.

I have to be sure there are no issues with the local state laws to use this for making charcoal. I'm pretty sure there are none but want to be sure. The laws on burning for farming are pretty liberal in rural Oregon.

I will start with a small pile of wood and cover it with dirt using my backhoe and learn how to control it to get the proper burn. Then progress to larger burn mounds. (This is the interm design in the long run if sucessful we would probably chip the wood and build a iron kiln out of the wigwam burner.) This probably is not a real efficient and cost effective method but it should give me a method to produce a large enough amount of carcoal to work up an acre or so of pasture and amend it with charcoal.

So now I plan to produce the charcoal and load it into an old manure spreader and spread it on the pasture. Then take a rotivator (a big 5' wide rototiller on a 3point hitch run by the PTO on a tractor) and rotivate it into the top foot of soil. I think that makes for the most efficient and effective method of getting the carcoal incorporated into the soil along with the organic matter of the existing grass cover on the pasture I plan to use.

There is some conflicting information on the websites as to whether this will tie up all the nitrrogen or not. I know putting ash into the soil will but not sure about the carcoal. I would like to know what others have experienced.

Reguardless I then plan to plant grazable alfalfa on the site and keep the cattle out till it gets well established and irrigate just the same along with the rest of the pasture. Alfalfa is a legume and a great nitrogen fixer. So it should build up the nitrogen and hopefully turning in the current grass will get the soil microbes going.

My goal is to try to document the gain in productivity of the charcoal pasture compared to the rest of the pasture both in pictures and in pounds per acre production.

So if I can show big production gains in the pastures and it will last long term the ranchers around here would probably be willing to buy the carcoal. That is my concept any way.

OK enough for now.

I would love get any feed back people might have and what you think about my plans.

Thanks

Taildragerdriver

[davidgmills]

Taildragerdriver: 5-10 tons per acre. Wow. More power to you. I have been thinking if we could get every human to have a goal to put one ton of charcoal back into the earth before they die that would be a laudable goal. Six billion tons of charcoal in the ground would do wonders for the planet.

At this rate you could single handedly save the planet for us all.

150 feet in diameter. That is a big fire ring. I really cannot imagine what his thing looks like, but you will put us all to shame.

As far as the 55 gallon drum method, there is a blacksmith that has a good website that shows how he makes charcoal for his forge. Very interesting method in that he builds a fire under the drums and then seals the drums and reroutes the gases from the heated drums back into the fire. After a while the gases are the fuel that keeps the process going. The only problem with it seemed to me that his method, even with using the gases, still used more wood for fuel than charcoal. If you use half the wood for fuel and half for charcoal that seemed very wasteful. My process probably did not involve using 1/10 of the wood as starter fuel.

In order to get urban areas to make charcoal, I have thought about making a pit that barbecues with it. (Memphis is considered the barbecue capital of the nation,it has a few rivals but we really don't pay them much attention). So if you could make a pit that made barbecue you would not incur the wrath of the neighbors. Most people do not complain about the smell of barbecue. They don't have the same sentiments about smoke.

And making charcoal is smoky.

One other thing to keep in mind as far as tonnage. The wood shrinks in size when you charcoal it down to about 1/4 to 1/3 the size, but the shrinkage in weight is much greater than that. After all the water and gases are burned off, charcoal may only weigh an 1/8 (just guessing here) or so of its original weight. It is every light.

Erich: I had read your posts elsewhere that Missouri is the capital of charcoal making in America. Unfortunately, on an suburban plot (about 1/3 acre), I can not feasibly even use a ton much less 125 tons.

But I am also trying to find ways small plot owners can take their annual dead wood and clippings and charcoal them rather than send them off to the local landfill. That means coming up with a way to do it on a small scale and a way to do it so that neighbors don't complain. That is why I like the barbecue pit idea. I am thinking about taking a garbage can and making charcoal in it and putting a grill at the very top of the heap. Barbecue is not supposed to be cooked directly under a flame anyway. It is supposed to be cooked by indirect heat. I could do that and make charcoal at the same time.

As far as buying it though, at least for now, for us urbanites and suburbanites, I am afraid we are doomed to buy BBQ charcoal for now. Heck, I could not even find a place that had lump charcoal. I had to buy briquettes. Walmart sells lump. But they were out. And I am sure it will be considerably more expensive. But I want to try lump if I can find it.