Question

How can you obtain charcoal from wood? Explain with the help of a diagram. Why is charcoal considered a better fuel than wood?

Answer 1

Step 1: Availability of Charcol:

Charcoal can be obtained from wood by the process called destructive distillation. In destructive distillation, wood is heated in the absence of air to remove its volatile material and water content, and the resultant residue is charcoal.

Step 2: The process can be depicted as shown below:

$\underset{}{\text{Wood}}\stackrel{\text{heat stronly in absence of air}}{\to }\underset{\left(\text{black residue}\right)}{\text{Charcoal}}\text{+}\underset{\left(\text{released into atmosphere}\right)}{\text{volatile matter + Water}}$

Step 3: Charcol is a better fuel than wood:

Charcoal is considered a better fuel than wood because:

1. It has a higher calorific value as compared to wood.
2. It generates comparatively lesser smoke during combustion.
3. Due to low moisture content, the ignition temperature of charcoal is lesser. Thus, it requires less preheating to reach ignition temperature.