Diseño y construcción de un horno para la elaboración de carbón activado a partir de cáscara de coco.

Abstract

The objective of this work was to desing and build an electric muffle oven, which allows to carbonize coconut shell to obtain activated carbon. For this, tools (techniques, methods and software) were used, which facilitated the desing of structure, thermal desing and sizing of the control system. Each part of the dimensioning was detailed to better understand the reader. The desing stages included the following tasks: in the structural desing stage it was necessary to establish. The total dimensions of the equipment (0.6850x0.4955x0.5269 m); the dimensions of the sections where the oven chamber is installed, the electrical and control part of the equipment; the final how the carbonization chamber of the kiln is, with the dimensions of the internal insulation. The next thing to be done was thermal desing, which determined the total power of the thermal resistances (3kW), the thicknesses of the insulators (35cm-refractory bricks and 15%). Once the thermal desing was completed, the control system was adjusted theoretically. First, the oven plant model was obtained, taking the electric resistance as the final control element and the internal temperature of the oven as a controlled variable. This was used to establish energy balance equations, taking into account the heat losses to the environment and the heat required by the activated carbon in the thermal activation process (1473 K). As a last part, the physicochemical analysis of product quality was carried out using hydrochloric acid as a chemical agent based on the corresponding NTE INEN regulation. It is recommended to carry out studies to obtain activated carbon, with other raw materials.