Coconuts abound in the beautiful Pacific country of Samoa. Charcoal, manufactured from coconut shells, is a biofuel with several uses. In addition to domestic cooking, charcoal is used for providing the heat source for charcoal-powered clothing irons.
Charcoal manufacture is a labour-intensive and smoke-intensive process conducted using the basic technology of a used 40-gallon steel container. The process appears inefficient in terms of wasted fuel, and environmentally unsatisfactory in terms of the smelly and visually-unattractive smoke generated.
Your mission: Surely there must be a simple cost-effective modification to the basic process that can be made to:
- Improve the efficiency of converting the input coconuts to output charcoal - Reduce the volume and/or toxicity and/or visual colour of the smoke produced - Use the smoke produced as a biogas suitable for some heat-generating purpose.