Main Uses and Attributes

Charcoal is an organic carbon compound that can be found in various forms including wood charcoal, activated charcoal and barbeque charcoal. It is an impure form of graphitic carbon, or graphite, and produced as a residue when a material is partially burned or heated with limited access to air.[1]  It results from the high-temperature decomposition of organic material, called pyrolysis.[2]

Physically, charcoal appears as a black, porous solid. It is a low-density compound, absorbent and has little mechanical strength. Chemically, charcoal is a low ash compound, highly combustible and highly reactive to carbon dioxide.[3]

Globally, the predominant use of charcoal is for outdoor cooking.[4] Wood charcoal, produced from the burning of wood, is used as fuel and can also be a source of acetone. Activated charcoal, an absorbent compound, can absorb odorous and coloured substances from gases or liquids. Thanks to this attribute it is used in the purification of drinking water and sugar, the recovery of solvents, and in gas masks for the removal of toxic compounds from the air. It also has a variety of medical uses for the same reason.[5] Charcoal is also used in making black gunpowder and case-hardening chemicals, and in blast furnaces as a source of carbon.

For industrial purposes, charcoal is heavily deployed in steelmaking as an alternative to traditional coal-fired blast furnaces. Brazil is the global leader in charcoal production and is coal-scarce; steelmakers in the country are often vertically integrated with charcoal-producing plantations.