The hot summer nights are very different from the daytime, and the pleasant temperatures make you feel comfortable. Isn’t it quick to grill with the wind on a nice night? I was wondering if you knew that charcoal for grilling is an important tool for making delicious food. Some say charcoal is the product of burning trees. Is this true?

After burning wood, plant ash remains; most of the ash cannot continue to burn with inorganic salts, and unburned wood becomes charcoal after cooling. Charcoal is a dark brown or black porous solid fuel that remains after pyrolysis of wood or wood raw materials under conditions of incomplete combustion or isolation from air. There are two methods of making charcoal. One is the kiln firing method, that is, a kiln made of soil is filled with wood and then burned, and then burned to carbonize the wood in the kiln and avoid volatilization. The other is dry distillation, which involves putting the wood into a dry distillation kiln and heating the charcoal in separate air conditions to break it down.

Charcoal is mainly divided into four categories: white carbon, black carbon, activated carbon and machine-made carbon. White charcoal is mainly composed of hardwoods, broad-leaved trees, Coccinaceae and Iris families. It has the advantages of long burning time, smokeless and pollution-free, but it is easy to explode when exposed to moisture and is expensive. Black charcoal is mainly made of light-leaf charcoal, which is easy to ignite, easy to explode, and is not resistant to burning. If burned, the disadvantage is that it emits smoke. Activated carbon can be called the deep processing of charcoal. According to different raw materials, it can be divided into plant raw material charcoal, coal charcoal, petroleum charcoal, bone charcoal, etc. Activated carbon has an open pore structure, a broad total surface area, adsorption capacity, is insoluble in water and other solvents, and has physical and chemical stability. The processed charcoal uses wood chips as raw materials. The wood chips are mainly formed by high-temperature and high-pressure molding and sent to the carbonization furnace for carbonization. The entire production process does not require the addition of relatively environmentally friendly additives. It is characterized by long burning time, high calorific value, no smoke, no explosion, environmental protection, etc. It is mainly favored by large barbecue restaurants.

Charcoal not only plays an important role in combustion, but it can also be made into a desiccant. Charcoal desiccant has the characteristics of fast adsorption speed, strong adsorption capacity, non-toxic and harmless. In addition, it is necessary to carburize all steel materials with high surface hardness and high wear resistance. The carburizing effect of simple charcoal is very poor, so charcoal is usually used as raw material and an appropriate amount of contact agent is added to make a carburizing agent. Charcoal is also closely related to us in life. For example, activated carbon is widely used due to its strong adsorption capacity. At present, it is mainly used for glucose, pharmaceuticals and MSG and environmental protection. Charcoal is not just the residual product of wood burning and is used in baking, but it plays an important role in every aspect of life.