Eucalyptus for Charcoal Manufacturing - a Case Study

In India, short rotation fast growing Eucalyptus is mostly planted for pulp and fuelwood production. The studies conducted to evaluate the suitability of Eucalyptus for other end-uses are few. Eucalyptus wood easily makes a good strong commercial charcoal, which has twice the calorific value of air-dry wood, 28,000 kilo joules per Kg compared to about 16,000 kilo joules for air-dried Eucalyptus wood at 20% moisture content. It is a good source of high reactive carbon with carbon content of 99.45% and is very useful for metallurgy and numerous chemical processes. The high purity of charcoal makes it preferable over coke for its usage in pig iron projects. Under local conditions, using traditional paraboloidal kiln method, it makes a good commercial profitable industry. The yield obtained is 22-23% from Eucalyptus wood with 40-50% moisture content. Eucalyptus charcoal is even marginally better in bulk density, ash content, carbon percentage and cracking behaviour than kikar charcoal.