Design development of condenser system for condensing smoke produced by carbonization process

The coconut shell charcoal industry is growing rapidly for export purpose, raw material for several industries, and as fuel on cooking stove or grill. In the other side, charcoal production activity causing negative impacts since the process produce smoke which can pollute the environment around production area. One of many efforts to reduce the negative impact of charcoal production activities is by condensing the smoke into liquid smoke. Liquid smoke has high economical value since it can be utilized as a natural pesticide, natural preservative, and also for medicine after a certain processing. Charcoal production is a carbonization process based on primary pyrolysis technology. A condenser system has been developed for carbonization process in a portable venturi kiln. The condenser system consists of the condenser itself as the main part of the system, piping unit to transfer the smoke from the kiln (carbonization reactor) to the condenser, connection port between kiln and the pipe, and connection port between pipe and the condenser. Several improvements have been done to the original design to get optimum performance of the overall system (both of kiln performance and the condenser system performance). Kiln performance was decline when condenser system applied since the smoke interrupted when release from the kiln and causing carbonization process getting slowly. In the other side, the smoke should be slowly entering the condenser system for good result of condensation. The lasted modification design of the system is a condenser with 11 vertical copper pipes with 0.5 cm diameter and 110 cm length, bounded by 20 round galvanic plate with 10 cm diameter and 0.4 mm thickness. The condenser connected to the kiln through the 210 cm pipe in a half circle form. The system performance successfully processing 12.45 kg coconut shell to produce good charcoal with yield around 24% in the average temperature of 260 °C in around 270 minutes. The system produce 1520 ml condensate with average distillation rate of 0.35lt/hour.