Charcoal Production from Acacia Wood Stumps

After the acacia trees are cut down for paper production, a lot of wood waste is still not being utilized, including the stumps of the trees. Only the logs used for paper production have a diameter of 8 cm above, while the diameter is smaller as wood waste. After the trees are cut down, replanting is carried out and the wood stumps are left just like that. In fact, there are a lot of wood stumps, especially with an area of tens to hundreds of thousands of hectares of acacia forest. If every one hectare is produced 16 tons of acacia wood stumps, then with an area of 20,000 hectares, 320,000 tons of acacia wood stumps will be produced.

There is a difference in the handling of acacia or eucalyptus stumps and energy plantation stumps. On acacia or eucalyptus stumps, after the trees are cut, they have to replant again because their main target is wood products with a certain diameter, namely 8 cm and above. If the wood stump is grown again, it will take a very long time to reach that diameter, so it is not efficient. That is the reason for them to replanting after being cut down. Meanwhile, in energy plantation wood, after the trees are cut down, the remaining stumps are allowed to grow again. The main target of energy plantations is to achieve the highest volume of wood productivity in mass basis. Even after being felled, the number of branches that come out of the energy plantation stumps increases so that the productivity is also high. Apart from being able to be harvested repeatedly without having to replanting each time, productivity remains high because of the large number of coppices or branches, even four times the first harvest. 

The huge volume of acacia stumps is very potential for charcoal production. Acacia plantation companies can create jobs by empowering local communities to take and collect the acacia stumps. The acacia stumps are then processed into charcoal. With proven carbonization technology and high capacity, all of these stumps can be processed and have economic value. With the large volume of acacia stump waste, charcoal production can also be sustainable, just like the production of acacia wood from the acacia forest. Creating large and sustainable employment opportunities is a positive effort that is in line with bioeconomy and community welfare. The wood charcoal produced with this technology is also of high quality, even with a fixed carbon of more than 82% exceeding the European standard NF EN 1860-2.

Acacia Wood Charcoal Production As A Solution Usage of Acacia Wood In The Pandemic Era And Also Long Term

It is predicted that the corona outbreak is still long and even in Indonesia the cases continue to increase and until now there has been no visible decline in the curve. The peak of the outbreak is even predicted to be in 2021, this makes this outbreak more and more fatal. To reduce casualties and reduce the number of cases, a number of educational activities from early childhood to higher education are carried out online, as well as office activities from various companies. This condition reduces the need for the amount of paper significantly, because all these activities can be said to be paperless. Paper plants have reduced their paper production and have even closed them.

Acacia plantation or forest as industrial estate forest or community forest is the main source of this pulp and paper production. With the decline in paper production, the need for raw materials will automatically decrease. Acacia wood production is not selling well, so the forest management company also suffers because there is no income. This condition must be addressed immediately so that the company can run normally again. The use of acacia wood so that it becomes a value-added product is the solution to this problem.

Charcoal production can be perfect solution to this problem. With modern production, the quality and quantity of charcoal produced will be standard and stable and also will not pollute the environment in the production process. Quality acacia charcoal products are needed by a number of industries. Our charcoal production technology is even capable of producing charcoal quality that is higher than European standards, namely NF EN 1860-2. Besides that, we can also help with the marketing aspects of the charcoal product.

Compared to the production of wood pellets, which are mostly for power generation, the investment requirement is also much greater so that many companies are less interested. The volume of shipment of wood pellets is 10 thousand tons each time, so that the logistics and infrastructure aspects are also not easy and cheap. The need for electricity for wood pellets production is also large so it may be difficult to do in certain areas.

Of course everyone hopes that this corona outbreak will soon disappear. But anticipating as well as solutions for both the short and long term is certainly a good thing, so that it is expected to become a sustainable business. Acacia wood charcoal production can be done on a medium scale with the investment requirement is not too large. The need for electricity for the charcoal production plant is also small. For acacia forest management companies interested in acacia charcoal production, please contact eko.sbs@gmail.com