RnD-Africa: Three KNUST students Create Smokeless Charcoal

Did you know that smokeless charcoal exists in Ghana and even in Africa?

BidiGreen Ghana Limited, a company located in Kumasi is doing amazing

with its extraordinary charcoal that presents extra and amazing features.

This is what we bring you on RnD-Africa on AAU TV.

Stay tuned, we’ll bring you more.

BidiGreen Ghana Limited is a renewable energy company

that focuses on producing charcoal produced from crop waste

mostly coconut husk and pumpkin nut shell.

But we also rely on a variety of raw materials available based on demand.

Now BidiGreen burns three times longer.

It is smokeless and an efficient source of energy for cooking.

Firewood has for so long been a major source of energy for domestic purposes.

Along the line, innovative minds realized that a better substitute

could be made out of firewood just by burning it

and that is how charcoal is traditionally made.

The first criterion for production is to have very dry raw materials

with a moisture content of about from zero to fifteen percent to make production efficient.

It takes about six hours to fully carbonize all the crop waste.

What really makes BidiGreen innovative is the smokeless feature of the charcoal.

Cooks all over the world have been exposed to much more advanced means of cooking

such as a gas or an electric stove.

Although charcoal has been substituted with better options

its relevance has not entirely been relegated.

Till date, a wide range of people finds major usefulness for charcoal

as it has been used by kebab sellers, household cooks, industrial cooks amongst others.

BidiGreen is a climate-centered company involved in the renewable energy sector

and our main aim is to provide an alternative raw material to producing charcoal

instead of using hardwood charcoal.

Hence all activities around pushing for a more sustainable environment

with our waste-sourced charcoal.

Many users of charcoal tend to complain about the excess ash that it produces,

its weight and high consumption, its inability to be regulated,

and its hazardous effect.

It is in the midst of these complaints by charcoal users

that comes an innovative solution by BidiGreen Ghana Limited,

a group of three students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

These innovative minds came together to produce charcoal

that is three times stronger than the usual charcoal in the market.

It has a smokeless feature,

it is molded to few specific purposes among other innovative features.

So we are currently at where BidiGreen Ghana Limited

which produces its extra extra extraordinary charcoal.

This is where began and we’ll take you through the process

but before that I have with me here the cofounder of BidiGreen Ghana Limited

and I’ll have him introduce himself.

I’m Emmanuel Obeng Frimpong.

I’m in charge of the production at BidiGreen Ghana Limited.

Okay, it’s nice meeting you and I can see that you are doing a massive job here.

I’m actually very impressed.

So quickly take us through the process of

converting these coconut husks among other raw materials

to make the activator charcoal.

Okay so as you can see the raw material, the coconut husks.

You also have pumpkin shells and corncobs.

These are the numerous raw materials we use here.

So, we select our source and then we dry them.

And after drying we process it into the carbonizer

where we carbonize it under controlled conditions

and high temperatures to achieve a carbonized product that is a char.

So, it takes about five to eight hours to carbonize it.

After that we take it through the milling process,

addition of our binder, and mixing...

We then mold it into various shapes based on the customer’s specifications.

So did you have a specific quantity of coconut husks

combined with other materials that you have to use?

Mostly that’s our trade secret.

We have a combination of those various raw materials.

We combine it in various proportions

in order to achieve the customer’s specifications.

So that makes our products more exceptional

compared to the products that would use just one raw material.

But we use a combination of various raw materials.

So this is pumpkin nut shell,

we are currently sun-drying it.

These are not in fact shells, so we are just sun drying it.

We are waiting for it to dry.

We’ve already filled the carbonizer with some of the pumpkin nut shells.

Once we are done with that we refill, then continue the process.

So basically that’s how it is.

There’s our carbonizer and this is where we do the carbonizing of the raw materials

after it has been sun dried or it has been dried.

So there are three chambers within the carbonizer.

We fill each cylinders or chambers with the raw materials.

We apply the heat through this section.

We heat it, it’s an enclosed system

in order to prevent letting the smoke out

and causing other environmental hazards.

It’s an enclosed system

that tries to control the flow of the smoke,

in a very controlled manner.