so i just learned that people make charcoal by putting wood in some container with little oxygen and build a fire around it. but why not just burn the wood directly, and take the leftovers?
im guessing some of the wood burns away if you aren’t using a container, so it’s less efficient, but if you’re in a forest with limitless wood it doesn’t really seem to be worth the effort when you can easily just create a bigger fire. another reason i can guess is that the charcoal you get from using a container is higher quality. if that is the case, why does it produce higher quality charcoal, and what does it mean for charcoal to be higher quality?
In: Chemistry
When you’re in the wood, you’re not really looking to make a lot of charcoal for the purpose of storage. Because, like you said, you can add more wood to the fire.
However, for the purpose of commercialization, charcoal in a kiln yields more high quality charcoal while retaining a lot of the mass.
Charcoal is energy dense, and can burn for longer than a piece of wood of the same size. But if you’re burning wood to make a smaller piece of charcoal, there’s no point.
However, if you’re turning wood into charcoal while retaining most of its weight, you have a better material for burning.
The process of making charcoal with little oxygen is called carbonization.
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