The world is looking for protecting nature and providing clean alternatives or environmentally friendly alternatives these days. Have you ever thought of using these alternatives such as using clean coal in roasting or heating?
On the shelves of the grocery, you may notice a type of environmentally friendly coal. Don’t be surprised. This is called bio- coal.
Engineer Hassan Zayed (44 years old) was successful to produce bio- coal using agricultural residues, that is largely wasted. He has also provided Gazan’s markets with it pointing that he is the first to produce bio- coal using scientific thoughtful methods.
Zayed said that he thought of this idea four years ago, since he was noticing the large quantities of agricultural residues in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, and the difficulty of getting rid of them.
” I told my friend about the idea, and we both studied about bio- coal and production of compressed coal. We also did many studies to develop the product and get the best quality to compete with the imported products, and get excellent results in the local markets”, said Zayed.
He added, “I collected some samples of agricultural residues, dried, and carbonized them apart from air. I discovered that 70% of them contains an excellent coal.”
Bio-coal is used as a fertilizer. It is also used in feed industry and agricultural pest control. It is also known in many countries especially Asian countries, such as Japan.
How is bio- coal produced?
Zayed explains stages of coal production saying, ” first, we collect agricultural residues, and compress them after drying and chipping them. Then, apart from air, we heat them in a very high temperature up to 500 degrees. This is called destructive distillation, and it results in thick vapors are collected transferred into dark brown liquids, that contain vapor and many chemical elements. “
After this, we separate the ingredients to get wood vinegar, which is currently used in Japan, east Asia, and Europe as a fertilizer. It is also added to animals’ food to get better productivity.
He added, “residues that have been heated apart from air is put in an oven, and it changes into carbon, the main ingredient of compressed and bio- coal that is added to soil to increase its fertility.”
According to Zayed, This process results in three main outputs, which are, bio- coal that is used to enrich soil, wood vinegar, which is a liquid of wood distillation used in agriculture, and compressed coal, that is used in heating and roasting, and is characterized by its fast combustion, and continuity in addition to powder coal.
He is also looking for producing active coal, that is one of the most important international industrial products.
Asking him about what leads people to replace the normal coal with bio coal, Zayed confirms that bio coal is characterized by its fast combustion, it doesn’t require ventilation, and it is healthier and environmentally friendly since it doesn’t contain tar that is harmful for health, and is disposed by raising the level of carbonization to 500 ° C.
The project of Bio coal production is a glimmer of hope for Gaza Strip, that suffers from lack of fuel. Zayed said, ” we offer natural alternatives for solid fuel, and provide the local environment by natural ingredients without risks. It also benefits the exhausted Gaza not from the siege, but from the deadly carcinogenic insecticides and carelessness of the excessive use of these insecticides.”
Production obstacles
Although the raw material used in the local production is available, and the engineer is aware of making production machines by himself, there are some obstacles facing bio-coal production in the strip. The most apparent one is the problem of electricity. “We need 3 VAZ electricity to run on mill of the raw material, and this is so expensive.”, said Zayed. Also, the problem of lack of financial support for the contiguous developmental activities of the project.
He founded his own factory to start providing the local market with the product, but it was bombed in the last war on Gaza in July-2014. This prevented marketing the product in the intended time.
Zayed is trying to rehabilitate his factory, benefiting from a grant provided by the “seed” project to support and to enable leading grown and small projects.
It is worth mentioning that the project “seed” implemented by IUG Business and Technology Incubator. It aims at supporting leading grown and small private projects in the Palestinian society financed by Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, UNDP and DEEP.
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