GENERACIÓN DE CARBÓN VEGETAL MEDIANTE ENERGÍA SOLAR

Abstract

Carbon is an Energy source commonly used for stoves and boilers, relatively cheap. One of its main advantages is the fact that it is a renewable resource and as such does not contribute to the increase of atmospheric CO2 inventory. The conventional process to produce charcoal consists of ground pits or brick kilns. In those cases, the energy required to carbonize the biomass is obtained from the partial combustion of the wood, which entails a substantial decrement on the net carbon yield of the system, in addition to the fact that the process temperature is difficult to control, resulting in a lower quality product and a maximum yield between 0.2 and 0.3 (FAO, 1983). In the present work, the design of a solar oven capable of producing charcoal from wood is presented. The work methodology is described, both for the characterization of the wood and the design, construction and field test of the solar oven. In the preliminary study it was evident that a tracking solar concentrator was impractical, so it was opted for a design that did not require tracking of the sun. The constructed prototype, with a surface of 1.37 m2, allows to obtain 70 g of charcoal from 180 g of wood in 5 hours on a sunny day with an irradiance value of 800 W/m2, without solar tracking during the day.