IIT Guwahati develops low-cost charcoal retort reactor

The developed reactor has been given an opportunity to be demonstrated at Township of NTPC Ramagundam Thermal Power Station, located in Telangana to produce charcoal from municipal solid waste (5 tonnes/day). 

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati have developed a novel low-cost Improved Natural Draft Charcoal Retort (INDCR) to address the technological and capital investment challenges of Indian charcoal makers.  

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited’s New initiative Wing for Waste to Energy Projects organised an open competition ‘Green Charcoal Hackathon 2020’, where IIT Guwahati innovators presented the INDCR as participants. Upon further evaluation and mentorship by the NTPC officials, the developed reactor has been given an opportunity to be demonstrated at Township of NTPC Ramagundam Thermal Power Station, located in Telangana to produce charcoal from municipal solid waste (5 tonnes/day). 

Charcoal is widely used as a fuel for domestic and industrial heating applications. While most of the developed countries are producing industrial charcoal through the retort system, it was not available for Indian charcoal producers because of technological barriers and the need for higher capital investment. 

Arunkumar Chandrasekaran and Senthilmurugan Subbiah, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, lead innovators of the INDCR system, have filed an Indian patent for the design of this innovative reactor. The reactor’s technical detail and its performance have been published in the journal, ‘Energy & Fuels Journal, American Chemical Society’. 

The developed charcoal retort reactor was installed and tested at Paramakudi, Ramanathapuram district, Tamil Nadu, with the help of Optima Heat Technologies, Paramakudi, Tamil Nadu.  

The pilot-scale mobile charcoal production unit is 125 kg of input loading capacity with the two-phase mode of operation. The demonstration of the whole research consumed two years with more than 60 field trials having been carried out to ensure consistent yield and quality of charcoal. 

Read more: 

• GATE 2022 Admit Card postponed again, no new release date announced 
• COVID scare: 39 more students found infected at NIT Hamirpur 
• IIT Bombay to release CEED, UCEED 2022 admit card on Jan 8