Process
The Karrick process is a low-temperature carbonization process, which uses a hermetic retort. For commercial scale production, a retort about 3 feet (0.91 m) in diameter and 20 feet (6.1 m) high would be used. The process of carbonization would last about 3 hours.
Superheated steam is injected continuously into the top of retort filled by coal. At first, in contact with cool coal, the steam condenses to water acting as a cleaning agent. While temperature of coal rises, the destructive distillation starts. Coal is heated at 450 °C (800 °F) to 700 °C (1,300 °F) in the absence of air. The carbonization temperature is lower compared with 800 °C (1,500 °F) to 1,000 °C (1,800 °F) for producing metallurgic coke. The lower temperature optimizes the production of coal tars richer in lighter hydrocarbons than normal coal tar, and therefore it is suitable for processing into fuels. Resulting water, oil and coal tar, and syngas moves out from retort through outlet valves at the bottom of the retort. The residue (char or semi-coke) remains in the retort. While the produced liquids are mostly a by-product, the semi-coke is the main product, a solid and smokeless fuel.
The Karrick LTC process generates no carbon dioxide, but it does produce a significant amount of carbon monoxide.
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