INGREDIENTS OF COCONUT SHELL CHARCOAL BRIQUETTES-THE GOOD AND THE BAD

20/10/2018

Ingredients of Coconut Shell Charcoal Briquettes-The Good and the Bad

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What are our ingredients for Coconut Shell Charcoal Briquettes? And what might other additives be?

Our Recipe for a 100% Natural and Food Grade Charcoal Briquette:
1. Fine Charcoal Powder
2. Cassava Starch
3. Water

Over the years, unfortunately, many additives and chemicals have been introduced to coconut briquette production. However, what winsome about coconut charcoal is the fact that it's the healthiest and most environmental charcoal solution; whether for shisha or for cooking.

As you will notice below, it is very important to smell an burning briquette before using to check for any chemical additives within the composition.

Chemicals that are used by many are:
Wood/Sawdust

Use: provides a faster ignition and a whiter ash color
Disadvantages: wood charcoal emits much more carbon than coconut charcoal, results with more tar, affects smell and taste, can cause fainting, can cause lower blood pressure, and requires tree cutting.
How to Detect: a briquette would smell differently and would cause tear drops because of the high carbon emission.

Limestone

Use: gives the briquette a whiter ash color (also known as whitener)
Disadvantages: may cause respiratory tract irritation and thus, coughing and sneezing. Higher exposures may cause a build up of fluid in the lungs with severe shortness of breath.
How to Detect: a briquettes ash color will be dense white (just like a painted white wall). It would also smell differently.

Borax

Use: lubricates press releases as the charcoal is molded into various shapes.
Disadvantages: may cause respiratory irritations diarrhea, vomiting, headaches, stomach aches, and can cause acute toxicity in the long term.
How to Detect: briquettes will have an acute glow in color and would smell a little oily.

Sodium Silicate/Water Glass

Use: used as binder to produce a more dense and solid briquette. It's usually used in cement constructions.
Disadvantages: Inhaling sodium silicate can cause severe irritation of mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract. Large concentrations of this compound can cause permanent lung damage. Symptoms that can occur include difficulty breathing, a burning sensation in the throat and chest, and headache.
How to Detect: It would be almost impossible to break a briquette into pieces and the briquette would not have any cracks on its surface.

Sodium Nitrate

Use: It makes the ignition time shorter so a briquette would light faster. Used mainly in fast-lighting briquettes.
Disadvantages: can cause headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Exposure to very high levels can cause trouble breathing, collapse and even death.
How to Detect: a briquette would glow at the burning side in less than 1.5 minutes and it would have an intense smell similar to lighted matches.

Remember to check your products and stay safe.

25 Comments

Don Susantha Dharmapriya Kaluarachchi link

2/7/2020 11:37:45 pm

pls provide more information about coconut shell charcol briquttes manufacturing

Rifhshan

2/10/2020 11:24:28 pm

Hii
I am planning to start up a coconut charcoal briquetting factory . it would be of great help if you could guide me in calculating how ratio of ingredients needed , and how much raw material would be needed to make 1 ton of cocnout charcoal briquettes

Natã Aves

11/11/2020 06:09:49 am

I am also interested in the production of charcoal for hookahs, did you get more information?

ICCS Global Industries link

11/11/2020 02:56:46 pm

Hi Everyone,

To begin with, regarding the question about the quantities and ratios, the process mainly depends on what form of raw material you use. You can carbonize the coconut shell yourself or you can buy it already carbonized. We usually procure carbonized coconut shell. After this you'll lose 5-35% in moisture depending on the moisture content, and you'll lose 5-20% in dust depending on your supplier and their process, so you end up with a loss between 10% and 50%. This is a very big range for your loss. Consequently i will give you the ratio after your material is dried and cleaned.

You will then add 4-5 kg of starch per every 100 kgs of raw material and you'll add water during different phases of production. The water will mostly evaporate and what stays is 6-8% moisture content. You'll have loss during production of 6-10% depending on your process. You'll end up with a ratio of 100:90.

As for the process, it's different in every factory. Producing charcoal at home is a difficult and even dangerous activity that we strongly advise against. Remember, charcoal is a flammable and dangerous product.

The main phases of production are: Drying-Cleaning-Milling-Mixing-Pressure Blending-Extruding/Molding-Drying-Packing. However, the process to attain the perfect combination of machine specs is a long one and it requires dedication and patience. The details lie in the understanding that charcoal is a chemical product that reacts to starch, water, and heat. Thus the machines have to be designed while taking these factors into consideration and designing your machines to make sure you control the behavior of the charcoal as it flows along your production line.

Hope this was helpful.

Supun Fernando

19/10/2020 02:25:14 am

Hi

Same as the above comment . I could really use some help in making instant light briquettes. I have failed numerous times to produce it

11/11/2020 03:08:01 pm

Hi, please see above reply.

EGON

23/12/2020 01:46:36 am

Hi.
I'm doing tests to produce coconut charcoal for hookahs. Use the same amount of ingredients and the tests will come out with different results.
Coal is fragile.
Is there a temperature or drying time?
What could be happening to make the hookah coal fragile?

ICCS Global Industries

23/12/2020 09:35:25 am

Hi EGON,

Numerous factors could be the reason for a fragile briquette. We test the solidity of the charcoal twice for every single batch so we make sure it's as solid as it needs to be.

You have to keep in mind charcoal is a chemical product and this means that the ingredients alone cannot give you the same result always because the technique used for production is as important. So the time, the heat, the pressure, the room temperature... all are part of the process. You will have to take all that into consideration.

You will also have to experiment with your machine design, power, and speed. When it comes to producing charcoal, you have to make sure your starch is literally cooked with the material so it has to be heated. We use the friction between the material and the machine to generate this heat. You will need heat enough to heat the material but without drying it. You will also need to make sure that the flow of the material in the machine is uninterrupted.

As for drying, we use advanced industrial ovens that we built to serve an optimal drying medium for charcoal. Drying time depends on your means of drying. Overall, you can know your briquette is dry enough by cracking it open and trying to scratch the inner surface to see if the particle material will hold or break apart. If you do scratch the surface, then you need more drying time.

8/1/2021 02:34:02 am

Hi,
Thanks for answering.
Could you tell me how many days you leave drying in the oven?
How many degrees does the oven remain?
If it is not possible, answer me in the email.

Thanks!

3/3/2021 10:13:32 am

Hi Egon,

Every oven is different in it's capacities which will cause a variation in the time and temperatures needed to have the dry briquette. The briquette's surface area also varies in terms of time needed until it's dry. Our oven designs are engineered to maintain heat levels and airflow at our optimal standards. We maintain gradually increase the temperature in the oven to 90-95 degrees max. You need to make sure al your sensors read the same temperature and the temperature is almost the same in all the oven. At this temperature range, we need around 36-60 hours to heat around 10 tons of charcoal. You need to experiment with your exhaust system to find your optimal exhaust procedure as well.

Hope this was useful.

Mayur link

28/2/2021 10:24:53 pm

Dear Sir

We request for share information for White ash in charcoal cube and how to avoid cracks in charcoal cube .

Regards
Mayur
Maharashtra India

3/3/2021 10:24:37 am

Hi Mayur,

Coconut charcoal is a natural product and what most people always fail to understand is this. Being a natural product means controlling the natural specs of the product doesn't come easy. What we do is that we only purchase raw material after testing the ash color and getting a color close to white. You can say the color would be dark or light grey. A really white color for coconut charcoal as as in the white color of wood charcoal ash is impossible to have. Such colors in the market are obtained either by chemical additives or by using wood charcoal within the formula.

As for cracks, it's also a natural factory that is caused by heating a cold object or cooling a hot object. Cracks are caused by many factors that would start from when the charcoal was carbonized (heating and cooling processes) till blending and extruding processes till oven drying (heating and cooling processes as well). The key is to always vary the environment's temperature gradually. Charcoal is a delicate product and needs to be produced with care and awareness.

Chaitali

28/2/2021 10:40:52 pm

Hello Sir, please guide us regarding how to check solidity of hookah charcoal cube ?? Is there any standard process for this ...pls guide us

3/3/2021 10:35:24 am

Hi Chaitali,

Charcoal producers often think charcoal solidity relies solely on starch amount and the extruding process. However, every single stage of production affects the charcoal solidity. Carbon levels, moisture content, grain size after milling, amount of starch, cooking time, resting time, cooling processes, screw conveyor shapes, flow of material in machinery, oven process...etc.

This is something you need to experiment with until you find your optimal procedures. It differs from factory to factory with the varying machine designs and all. So to answer your question: No, there is no standard process for this and to be honest, there is no standard process to produce coconut charcoal either.

To test it, our briquettes would undergo a test known as the "Drop Test" after the post-oven cooling process. The briquette is simply fully ignited and the dropped into a safe container.from 50-80 cm distance above. every briquette should survive a minimum of 10 drops.

Be aware for chemicals used as binders to improve density and solidity. Chemicals can always be sensed by smell.

konde link

3/3/2021 12:59:01 pm

hi sir
Which mesh size material should be use for making shisha charcoal. we request for help .

3/3/2021 01:28:02 pm

Hi Konde,

Regarding mesh size the general concept is this: the smaller you go, the better shape/texture you get but the harder the process; the bigger you go, the faster ignition time but the faster burning time as well and the shape/texture won't be as desired. We vary our mesh size between 2 mm, 3 mm, and 4 mm. This depends the raw material condition and moisture content. We use a bigger mesh for material with higher moisture content. If you can, it7s always better to mix and you'll have to experiment with the best formula.

Tan Le

5/3/2021 02:38:51 pm

Hi Sir

I have charcoal factory in Vietnam, I have problem.

My charcoal crack when burn and fail in drop test. How to improve it, and have another chemist to make it stronger.

Thanks

Evgenii

24/3/2021 02:43:44 pm

Hi!
We are Russian factory and we are trying to set up the production of coconut charcoal briquettes using high pressure pressing machine. Our current production process now is milling->filter (1mm) -> mixing machine (charcoal, water, starch in different proportion) -> collector-> pressing ->drying (air dry/oven). The video of our production line by the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gDNeK5tcy1-MTvUUZWgI1b7PL72Cjzxs/view?usp=sharing

As a result we have quite fragile briquettes. And it seems some of important production step is missed or current equipment works incorrectly. I would very appreciate if you give any advise how to fix this problem.

Thank you in advance
BR,
Evgenii

hagop

28/4/2021 03:17:06 am

dear sir
how i can eliminate the small and taste of carbon from the charcoal briquettes , and what material need to be used to increase much succes

thanks

15/10/2021 07:02:31 pm

Hi we need wash charcoal before the use through HCL . Also after wash we need reheat with 120 to 150 Degree temrpure

Paramjeet Singh

26/12/2021 06:51:42 am

Hi,

We are producing coconut charcoal Hookah coal cube. Our ash content is not coming below 7 to 8 %, wheeas ideally it should be less than 3 %.
Kindly inform the solution.
We are adding 5 t0 6 % Binder and 20 to 25% water in Coconut charcoal.

Maj

5/5/2022 04:39:43 am

Try to press cook the mixture. Do it 2 times then shape it at the extruder when it is still a bit hot and kinda wet, not very wet. Im a huge manufacturer in Indonesia.

yusuf ziya durak

8/2/2022 01:42:08 pm

The above answers many of the products originating during carbonization. This business is not a simple and very profitable business. You don't do carbonization while making charcoal. For correct carbonization, you need to spend more. Your problems are solved when your goal is not high profit but high quality. A final tip for you is to reach high temperatures so that the number of pores in your coal will increase, thus reducing your durability and cracking rate. Automatic combustion systems are completely faulty.

Robin

10/3/2022 01:07:40 am

dear sir
how i can eliminate the small and taste of carbon from the charcoal briquettes , and what material need to be used to increase much succes

Given Egumbo

26/1/2023 07:07:08 am

Hi Evgen,

Thanks for all the info, what can be used to make instant light shisha coal? We are using coconut shells to make the normal/natural coal already.

Regards

Ingredients of Coconut Shell Charcoal Briquettes-The Good and the Bad

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