I TURNED AMAZON BOXES INTO CHARCOAL

A lot of people do not know this, but you can make charcoal right in your own backyard. In this test, I took old Amazon boxes, turned them into compressed fuel pucks, loaded them into a simple metal paint can with a small vent hole, and heated the can from the outside until the material began to carbonize. Now, why would anybody bother making charcoal in the first place? Charcoal can be used as clean fuel for a gasifier, where it is converted into combustible gas that can run an engine and generator. It can be processed further into activated carbon for water and air filtration. It can be used in blacksmithing and metalworking because it produces concentrated heat with fewer volatiles than raw wood. It can be crushed into a black pigment for paint, ink, and artwork. It can also be used as biochar to improve soil structure and hold nutrients and moisture. My personal goal is the gasifier. In the future, I plan to take waste paper, cardboard, wood, and other available biomass, turn it into charcoal, feed that charcoal into a gasifier, and use the gas to run a generator. That generator will be able to power a home or charge a large battery bank, while the engine heat and exhaust can also be recovered for space heating and hot water. That is the long term PiggyPower vision. Electricity, hot water, and useful heat from materials most people would throw away. Was this the greatest charcoal batch ever made? Absolutely not. This was my first attempt, the rain cut the test short, and the can did not get hot enough all the way through. Out of the full batch, only about three pucks completely carbonized. But those pieces held their shape, stayed firm enough to handle, and proved that the process works. The partially carbonized pieces can simply go back through another batch, so nothing is wasted. We got the point across, showed the full process, and walked away with real charcoal made from Amazon boxes. I am pretty pleased with that for attempt number one. Give me some time. We are going to build the entire system. Drop a comment and tell me what experiment you want to see next. Follow along for the future gasifier build, and check out OfficialPiggyPower.com.