Making Charcoal Briquettes in China

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Excerpt From: Google Book Search

TITLE: Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan

by Franklin Hiram King - 1911 - 441 pages

View full text of this book: http://books.google.com/books?id=VZ41AAAAMAAJ

Excerpt from Page 138

In both China and Japan we saw coal dust put into the form and size of medium oranges by mixing it with a thin paste of clay. Charcoal is similarly molded, as seen in Fig. 72, using a byproduct from the manufacture of rice syrup for cementing. In Nanking we watched with much interest the manufacture of charcoal briquettes by another method. A Chinese workman was seated upon the earth floor of a shop. By his side was a pile of powdered charcoal, a dish of rice syrup byproduct and a basin of the moistened charcoal powder. Between his legs was a heavy mass of iron containing a slightly conical mold two inches deep, two and a half inches across at the top and a heavy iron hammer weighing several pounds.

Fig. 72.—Charcoal balls briquetted with rice water or clay, for use as fuel

In his left hand he held a short heavy ramming tool and with his right placed in the mold a pinch of the moistened charcoal; then followed three well directed blows from the hammer upon the ramming tool, compressing the charge of moistened, sticky charcoal into a very compact layer. Another pinch of charcoal was added and the process repeated until the mold was filled, when the briquette was forced out.

By this simplest possible mechanism, the man, utilizing but a small part of his available energy, was subjecting the charcoal to an enormous pressure such as we attain only with the best hydraulic presses, and he was using the principle of repeated small charges recently patented and applied in our large and most efficient cotton and hay presses, which permit much denser bales to be made than is possible when large charges are added, and the Chinese is here, as in a thousand other ways, thoroughly sound in his application of mechanical principles. His output for the day was small but his patience seemed unlimited. His arms and body, bared to the waist, showed vigor and good feeding, while his face wore the look of contentment.

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User:W H Hatcher 15 March 2008

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Page created: 31 March 2008; Last edited: 31 March 2008; Version: 0
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Making Charcoal Briquettes in China

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