How to Make Charcoal From Dry Leaves, Rubbish, Foliages, etc

HOW TO MAKE CHARCOAL FROM DRY LEAVES, RUBBISH, FOLIAGES ETC

If you burn the wood, the timber, leaves etc in open air, it will become ash. Because chemical reaction of the Carbon in the wood ( C ) with Oxygen from the air become fire, heat, light, smokes and ash. But if we burn in closed burner, the air cannot enter, the burner process called burn without air or phyrolisis process. This burning process is only to burn 9 chemical elements with Oxygen like rubbers, tar, wax etc in the woods. Carbon or C, the element of the wood cannot burn without Oxygen from the air. So that, from this burner we will find charcoal. The peoples in the villages are usually makes charcoal from the wood. They make a hole in the earth or the bang. They put the dry woods to the hole. Since the burner process, the air or oxygen from the air cannot enter, blocked by smokes and fire out from the upper hole. After fire and smokes become little by little, the process of making charcoal is finish. Stop the burner by water. Because if you do not use the water, the charcoal will become ash. Now we are critical energy, especially kerosene for cooking. But every day we burn so many dry leaves from the tree, dry grass, etc. And now, I will introduce you, how to make charcoal brick, charcoal furnace from dry leaves, biomass, etc. See from this figure.

1. Oil drum. Make a hole on the top, 25 cm diameter and the below is open, put on the sand.

2. Put some dry leaves into the drum, first flare up with little kerosene and put the grass little by little into the drum. The air cannot enter the drum from the top because blocked by fire and smoke and sand at below. We must stop put the grass into the drum after half of the drum full of grass. After the fire is low and stop, the leaves has become charcoal.

3. Overthrow or bring down the drum, flash the water to fire and we find charcoal.

4. Crush the charcoal, give some water with starch and put into cylinder 5.

5. Make a cylinder 5, 30 cm in diameter, 30 cm high by 30 x 60 cm thin zinc plate. And do not forget to make about 5 cm diameter hole by bamboo or bottle. After that, dry the cylinder charcoal in the hot sun light about 2 days. But do not forget to open the cylinder and make the hole at the bottom.

6. Make the little furnace or stove for cooking by bricks, 10 x 5 x 20 cm, covered by soil or clay (not cement) and put the cylinder charcoal at the middle of the stove. Put the charcoal to fulfill the empty area of the furnace. You can see the air hole like L. Put the burning bamboo or woods to the vertical hole. Only in a little time, the vertical hole of the stove will fired, without smoke.

7. Now we can cook what we want.

To stop the fire is very easy. Put the zinc plate to the top hole and covered the hole at the bottom by sand. The air cannot enter the furnace and the fire will stop. It’s very easy and safety. If the hole of the fire become bigger and bigger because we use the stove for some days, we must get out the remainder charcoal and put the new cylinder charcoal like point 6.

To economize the using of the charcoal, we can add some “easy to fire waste” like: newspaper, carton, sawdust, coconut waste, etc.

We can make charcoal stove by using clay pot. But before cast the thick charcoal porridge to the pot, make air hole like L (figure no. 6 - 7) by make little hole at the bottom of the pot and put the bamboo vertical at the middle of the pot.

Good luck trying!

How to Kill Ilalang with Ilalang

HOW TO KILL ILALANG WITH ILALANG

Ilalang (Indonesian Languages) or imperata cylindrical is family of grasses . It’s tall and big, It can extend to 1 meters or more. And, if it grow, Ilalang will dominate the entire field. Another plant won’t ever live if Ilalang is around. You can’t ever use it again for planting. People when encounter such situation usually said hopeless sentence “Ah... Our village have become ilalang field”.

When cutted, dried, or burned, young or the bud of Ilalang will grow much more from the ash-covered-earth that works for as natural fertilizer. Rice, corn, peanut, potatoes, etc, will soon died because of the grow speed of an ilalang. The root of Ilalang in the soil won’t get burned, and this root has a lot of bud which soon grow to dominate the entire field.

Today, a lot of medicine or chemicals was invented to destroy Ilalang. Usually used before changing Ilalang’s field to a rubber garden. They use it by showering all of Ilalang with the medicine. And it will destroy Ilalang entirely, along with the leaves and the roots in the earth.

The problems is, we do not know the side effect of the chemical to environment, earth, animals and human being. May be not in the short time, but in the long time?

I will introduce you how to kill ilalang by ilalang. From the nature to the nature. First, we must know the weakness of ilalang. Ilalang cannot grow if there is no sun light, straight shine to ilalang. We can see this condition around of us, under the big and leafy trees, great jungles, etc. The second is, the root of ilalang tree is rather sweet because it have some sugar.

The first time we cut the ilalang and cover the leaves to the trunk of the ilalang tree, then water from the rain deprave or destroy the leaf and the root of ilalang will soon deteriorated because the bacteria attracted to sugar. So, the bud of ilalang cannot live and grow.

After the soil free from ilalang, plant natural rubber or another tree like mangos, rambutan, etc. Soon the plant will grows bigger, and the new ilalang cannot grows under it. Because it’s blocked the sunlight. The rainy season will be the best time to start it. Easy right? Good luck!!