Activated Charcoal and it's Manufacture

[jackalope]

This thread is for all of the info we can gather on the uses of charcoal in Aquaculture, and Aquaponics. There is another discussion on the forum that has revived my desire to figure out how to manufacture my own activated charcoal. I go through a lot of charcoal with my fish - Here in Montana, the costs of heating my 20'x75' (sorry, I don't know that measurement in meters ) ex-saloon/shop/warehouse would be cost-prohibitive, so I do Aquaponics in our 3 month summer (if we have one) and Aquaculture the rest of the year. I know that some may not agree with the use of charcoal, but it's been a facination for me for a long time, I just haven't found the right info for it yet. I'm hoping that dennis will share some of his extensive knowledge with us in this thread. If you're not interested in charcoal, or it's manufacture, "Move Along, There's Nothing to See Here." Please don't hijack this thread with FUD, if you can't add to the discussion, don't comment at all THX

I've learned something in the past few days - powdered activated charcoal can be ingested to remove toxins from your body! I've read that coconut shells make the best activated charcoal, but wood also makes a fine charcoal. Our Lodgepole Pine burns up into ashes in a short time, so I suppose that the softer woods would not be as good for charcoal as hardwoods would.

Any info that you can provide would be very helpful to me and any others interested in making their own charcoal.

[head rush]

I found this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXMUmby8PpU It might not be the same as "activted charcoal"
but then it could be ! Hopefully dennis CAN share is knowledge here and help us out.
I notice that towards the end you will see how he waters down the charcoal to break it down. This might be the catalyst to making it finer and then drying it out to be used in whatever form.
Could this help ?

[keith_r]

that's biochar, basically creating charcoal.. to create "activated" charcoal, you would need to put the finished charcoal in an acid dip(muratic is much cheaper than battery acid)..
one guy i saw reheated the charcoal in his burner after the acid dip to dry it
then grind it up to a powder

[head rush]

Yes Kieth... Bio char ! Looks like good stuff.
Well, according to the many sites that I have perused over since looking at the bio char process...
It's fundamental usage is in adding to the soil to enrich it, cleanse it and make it sustainable.
It seems to me that this process of using this bio char has some merit to it.
Activated carbon however manufactured, has a surface area of 500m2 per gram. That's a lot of surface area for such a little. It is used mainly in the gas purification, gold purification, metal extraction, water purification, medicine, sewage treatment, air filters in gas masks and respirators, filters in compressed air and many other applications.
If this is a product that is cheap to purchase then I see endless uses. However, if this works out too expensive to work with, then it would seem justified to maybe go the bio char route.
There's a heck of this subject on the net. Who knew?

Here is a 15 min vid on Tetra Petra..... and it's relevance to soil fertility.
http://biochar.bioenergylists.org/

Just as a matter of curiosity.... would a bag of charcoal submerged (like a tea bag) in an AP tank not benefit by leaching out harmful properties in the water?
Just asking from someone who does not know much about AP. For me there seems to be logic behind my theory, even though I don't know what the hell i'm talking about.

[keith_r]

when you say a bag of charcoal, you better be careful.. all kinds of stuff added to what gets sold as charcoal today..
if using a good "pure" lump charcoal, it might help some, but i would think it would get saturated fairly quickly (more personal research necessary here) in ap we're looking for chemical reactions to occur, mostly from microbes converting am to nitrites then nitrates.. activated charcoal contains many more microscopic "nooks and crannies" for the bacteria hold on to
i'm far from an expert on anything but the more i read the deeper it gets

[jackalope]

If biochar has so much surface area, why would it not be just as good for grow-bed media as expanded clay? If it were processed properly, it seems that it could be used as media in some way or another

[rfeiller]

expanded clay is basically inert

biochar is said to burn the roots.

a lot of hype going around on biochar. the soil originally contained naturally occuring biochar, it is said to have been depleted by overfarming. so now there are a lot of mfgs pushing biochar with all kinds of cure-all claims.

[head rush]

If biochar has so much surface area, why would it not be just as good for grow-bed media as expanded clay? If it were processed properly, it seems that it could be used as media in some way or another

It's actually activated carbon/ charcoal that has such a large surface area..... not the bio char.

[head rush]

biochar is said to burn the roots.
a lot of hype going around on biochar. the soil originally contained naturally occuring biochar, it is said to have been depleted by overfarming. so now there are a lot of mfgs pushing biochar with all kinds of cure-all claims.

Like most suppliers rfeiller... they need to push their product.
There are so many sites to look at regarding bio char..... and everyone has the same underlying theme....'What it CAN do'
I think that when you get universities researching this subject and getting big business to donate millions to the parts of the world that needs this kind of technology - then there should be some sort of credibility.....

If you looked at the links I posted.... especially the
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXMUmby8PpU - - - towards the end... he actually tells you what ratio you should mix your compost with your bio char as well as what bio char's coverage should be p/square meter. You have to, so as not to let the bio char compete with the plants......

The other link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXMUmby8PpU discusses exactly what you have said by depleting the soil of this compound.

Somewhere while searching through bio char and other subjects, I came across a quote of some sorts Early 1900's.......It went something like this......
"...........even with this new farming technique, you will always find the skeptics......."

I wonder how many people used this line with AP and HP not to mention sending men to the moon.

[rfeiller]

it is not that the soil has been depleted, this is a fact, most of our soils in californina are dead zones. it is as in any marketing opportunity a lot more credit is given to a product than it is capable of sustaining. i have read numerous articles on biochar, some by creditible sources many not.
any compound mixed in with the soil should be blended into the soil in moderation.

before i accept info i want to see blind studies, and true comparitive analysis. there is a logical path to most information. i'm not interested in the placibo effect.

no part of the world needs to have it's soils replenished more then the united states. being the bread basket of the world our water supply has been drastically reduced and the soil has been biologically depleted of naturally occuring nutrients. i am behind any way that the soil can be revitalized. unfortunately i believe it would take many years of intense work to bring back just part of the soil. to produce biochar; how many forest will have to be cut done to meet the market demand? our forest are already over cut. much of which goes to other countries.

the question i was responding too was why couldn't it be used in place of expanded clay.