[Terrapreta] Fwd: torrefied wood or charcoal?
Sean K. Barry
sean.barry at juno.com
Sun Mar 2 13:00:23 CST 2008
Hi Gerrit,
Isn't torrefied wood just wood which is undergoing pyrolysis, but which was removed before it was completely converted into gases, liberated volatile matter, and charcoal? If so, then I think the difference would be in the VM% content. The VM is combustible and may itself work as a binder.
Regardless of how the properties of torrified vs charcoal effect it ability to charbroil barbequed chicken, what difference does this make with regard to its use as a soil amendment? It seems to me that ash from burned wood, burned "torrefied" wood, or burned charcoal, all have a higher pH (these are more alkaline). High ash content means higher pH. This is not good for any soils unless they are very acidic to begin with. Raising the soil pH lowers the cation exchange capacity (CEC), which plants need high in order to get necessary nutrients (P, K, I, N, S, Ca, Fe, Mg, etc) from the soil. Higher pH is not a habitable environment for many soil micro-organisms, either.
Volatile matter is the partial decomposition products from the breakdown of cellulose, lignin, and hemi-cellulose. It contains things like benzene and other "aromatic" compounds. Many of these are phyto-toxins. Torrefied wood likely contains more amounts and more varied types of these compounds. Though torrefied wood may contain more BTUs per kilogram than charcoal, this energy content is of no value to plants per se, and the toxicity may undermine the activity of soil microbes or plant root systems before the porous charcoal has a chance to effect a soil ecosystem improvement.
I don't know, but I think torrefied is likely not as useful or effective in making an improvement to the soil as is low ash charcoal.
Regards,
SKB
----- Original Message -----
From: Gerald Van Koeverden<mailto:vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>
To: Kevin Chisholm<mailto:kchisholm at ca.inter.net>
Cc: Terra Preta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2008 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Fwd: torrefied wood or charcoal?
They already had accelerants in the original. Why would they add
even more? Why wouldn't they want to reproduce a typical slow-burning
fire, like that of pure charcoal?
It is probably the combustion products of those added accelerants
which have given charcoal briquette ash such a bad name for use as a
soil amendment, because typically ash is a good fertilizer. Every
second recipe for making compost specifically recommends the
avoidance of using charcoal briquette ash.
Which leaves us with a new question: how would the ashes from
Kingsford's new charcoal behave as a soil amendment?
gerald
On 2-Mar-08, at 8:01 AM, Kevin Chisholm wrote:
> Dear Gerrit
>
> Thje differences might be due to accelerants added for ease of
> starting, rather than the presence or absence of torrified material.
>
> Kevin
>
> Gerald Van Koeverden wrote:
>> Tom,
>>
>> It would be interesting to do a little detective work on this one.
>>
>> Here's some amateur experimental results comparing the old
>> Kingsford briquettes with the newest version:
>>
>> http://www.nakedwhiz.com/productreviews/kvsk/oldkingsfordnew-2.htm<http://www.nakedwhiz.com/productreviews/kvsk/oldkingsfordnew-2.htm>
>>
>> You'll see that their graphed results show that the new stuff
>> burns much hotter and burns out significantly quicker than the old
>> - defining characteristics of the difference between charcoal and
>> torrefied wood...
>>
>> Gerrit
>>
>>
>>
>> On 1-Mar-08, at 5:01 PM, Tom Miles wrote:
>>
>>> I think you’re reading too much into a couple of well
>>> intentioned , not very precise, descriptions. I have seen nothing
>>> in the history of the Ford-Kingsford operation to suggest that
>>> they are or were making anything like terrified wood.
>>> Ford’s briquette was actually the char byproduct of a wood
>>> distillation plant to make methanol using waste from the mill he
>>> built to make wooden car parts. He closed the wood distillation
>>> when synthetic methanol from coal became available from Germany
>>> in about 1935. See Bob Massengale, Black Gold, A History of
>>> charcoal in Missouri
>>> http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~37830.aspx<http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~37830.aspx>
>>> <http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail%7Ebookid%
>>> 7E37830.aspx>
>>> Barbecue briquettes have always contained a collection of things
>>> including ashes from biomass boilers, sometimes coal char etc.
>>> Tom Miles
>>> *From:* terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org>
>>> <mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org>> [mailto:terrapreta-
>>> bounces at bioenergylists.org<mailto:bounces at bioenergylists.org>] *On Behalf Of *Gerald Van Koeverden
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, March 01, 2008 7:24 AM
>>> *To:* Terra Preta
>>> *Subject:* [Terrapreta] Fwd: torrefied wood or charcoal?
>>>
>>>
>>> You're perfectily right to be cautious. All the literature
>>> discourages the use of briquette charcoal ashes in gardening.
>>> They are toxic to plants.
>>> What interested me in the article is the claim that the wood in
>>> Kingsford briquettes isn't even charcoal - but rather a pre-
>>> charcoal stage called torrefied wood. By stopping carbonization
>>> at this stage - before it goes exothermic - they save more of the
>>> wood's energy than through a full carbonization into pure
>>> charcoal, maximizing their returns. Torrefied wood has 90% of
>>> the original energy in the raw wood as compared to 50 or 60% in
>>> charcoal.
>>> On 1-Mar-08, at 9:50 AM, Dan Culbertson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't know if the article below is "true" but it is a bit
>>> incorrect or incomplete with respect to charcoal briquettes.
>>> They contain coal as well as wood char and binders. Maybe not
>>> the Kingsford brand but some certainly do. See http://
>>> www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/charcoal-briquette<http://www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/charcoal-briquette> .
>>> Makes them not a very good thing to use in the soil for terra
>>> preta I would think. I've avoided using anything but natural
>>> charcoal in soil mixes and I leave the cheaper briquettes (and
>>> their coal ashes) to uses other than soil amendment. I'd be
>>> interested to know if that is overly cautious... but coal doesn't
>>> seem like a very good thing to put into soil.
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> *From:* Gerald Van Koeverden <mailto:vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca<mailto:vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>>
>>> *To:* Terra Preta <mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>>
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, March 01, 2008 08:10
>>> *Subject:* [Terrapreta] torrefied wood or charcoal?
>>>
>>> *true or false?*
>>>
>>>
>>> *Charcoal*
>>>
>>> by: /E. G. Kingsford/
>>>
>>>
>>> Charcoal is simply carefully cooked wood.
>>>
>>> Mankind figured out this one many centuries ago. The
>>> heat-producing part of fuel is carbon. Increase the relative
>>> amount of carbon in your cooker, and you can roast that
>>> haunch of
>>> mountain goat, or yak fillet, and get out of the kitchen in half
>>> the time. Wood is about 50% carbon (coal is 90). You can up your
>>> wood-based carbon by reducing the wood’s hydrogen and oxygen
>>> content. It’s still done pretty much the way it was started
>>> centuries ago. Logs are baked slowly at very high
>>> temperatures in
>>> a low-oxygen oven. This drives off most of the liquids and
>>> leaves
>>> the carbon.
>>>
>>>
>>> Unlike charcoal, the irritating, ubiquitous charcoal
>>> briquette is
>>> made from roasted wood scrap, quick-lighting chemicals, and
>>> binders compressed into a little cake. It has less snob appeal
>>> than true charcoal but is a thoroughly American heritage. The
>>> briquette was invented in the 1920s for Henry Ford, as an auto
>>> assembly line spinoff. Henry Ford pondered the problem of how to
>>> squeeze a buck from the scraps of steering wheel and dashboard
>>> wood that were ordinarily thrown away. As always, his crack
>>> staff
>>> answered with the solution, “Cook it, smash it into a lump, and
>>> give it a fancy name.” For years thereafter you could only buy
>>> charcoal briquettes only at your local Ford dealerships. Then,
>>> eventually the operation became so large it was turned over to a
>>> Ford relative, E.G. Kingsford, and the rest is hamburger.
>>>
>>> http://www.dountoothers...org/charcoal.html<http://www.dountoothers...org/charcoal.html>
>>> <http://www.dountoothers.org/charcoal.html<http://www.dountoothers.org/charcoal.html>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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