Garden wood and sawdust become Vietnamese smokeless charcoal for export

Making use of branches and trunks from longan and lychee trees that need pruning or removal due to age or crop restructuring, as well as sawdust and by-products from carpentry workshops, veneer production, and wood chipping, can be very beneficial. These materials are raw materials for Vietnamese smokeless charcoal with greater economic value.

When the wood fills the warehouse yard, the atmosphere in Mr. Nguyen Anh Minh’s charcoal workshop (Mang village) becomes lively. Amid the noise of saws, skillful workers quickly cut garden wood branches, stumps, or fresh miscellaneous timber into small sticks. Then, they move these materials to the kiln and continuously burn for a week.

Through the firing process, the fresh wood sticks are transformed into white charcoal. They can reach temperatures of up to 1,000°C when removed from the kiln. They retain almost the same shape as the original wood.

Once the bright yellow-orange white charcoal cools to a safe temperature, workers begin the next step. They cut the charcoal to customer-specified sizes and pack it into boxes. They also apply strict storage measures to prevent air from entering and affecting quality.

Vietnamese smokeless charcoal

Mr. Nguyen Anh Minh explained that to produce high-quality Vietnamese smokeless charcoal, the raw materials must be fresh and solid wood. In particular, the charcoal-burning stage requires advanced technical skill. It is one of the most important steps determining the final quality. They should control the kiln temperature carefully. If it’s too high, the charcoal will burn to ash.

Binchotan charcoal is good when it is dense and smooth, with a cross-section that is black and glossy. When two sticks are tapped together, they produce a metallic “clinking” sound. When burned, Binchotan produces no smoke or odor. Thanks to its high heat, white charcoal burns for 3–4 hours. This is twice as long as regular black charcoal.

Thanks to a production process that meets strict technical standards, Mr. Minh’s Binchotan charcoal has gained recognition in demanding markets like South Korea and Japan. Nearly 70 tons leave the workshop each month. He added that in cold countries, charcoal is in high demand for heating and cooking.

Moreover, charcoal is popular in many other fields, including water filtration, exhaust gas purification, odor removal, cosmetics, battery production, and advanced metallurgy. This makes the market wide open and generates significant revenue.

Vietnamese sawdust charcoal – Grade B

Starting from July 2014, Mr. Minh’s charcoal workshop already had Vietnamese smokeless charcoal on the international market. Meanwhile, the charcoal workshop of Hung Tri One-Member Limited Liability Company in Kim Ngoc commune was still at the experimental stage. However, the workshop’s production activities show promising prospects. They are gradually creating a source of green energy—sawdust briquette charcoal.

As the name suggests, a wide range of sawdust makes sawdust charcoal. This material is readily available at carpentry workshops or as by-products from chipping or veneer processing facilities. Using these by-products, the production facility first grinds the material into fine sawdust.

It then presses the sawdust into molds and dries it. After several days of drying and natural cooling, the sawdust transforms into square-shaped briquettes with a small hole in the center. Notably, this charcoal produces no smoke or odor during use. The fire burns evenly from the inside out.

Ms. Le Thi Hong Nhung is the manager of the workshop. She shared that although the production is still in the experimental phase, Korean customers have already visited the facility. They came to “inspect” the clean charcoal production process and place orders for the near future.

Vietnamese charcoal briquette

Operational charcoal workshops create jobs for over 30 local workers and neighboring communes, with incomes of 4–4.5 million VND per person per month. They also contribute significantly to local economic development. Currently, out of more than 3,900 hectares of natural land, Kim Ngoc commune has 2,564.7 hectares of forest land. This includes over 2,000 hectares of production forest.

Accordingly, about 10 woodworking, veneer, and chipping facilities have been established in the commune to process and consume local wood products. Moreover, the development of Vietnamese charcoal export businesses has helped many households sell garden wood and wood by-products, increasing their income.

From fresh garden wood and branches to sawdust—items that were previously low in value—these by-products become precious when transformed into high-quality export charcoal. This economic development model is newly emerging in Kim Ngoc commune. It is still quite novel in comparison to many other localities in the province.

The attention, guidance, and supervision of local Party committees, authorities, and relevant agencies are necessary. They are essential to ensure that charcoal export production can establish its position in the market. This approach not only generates high economic value for production facilities. It also contributes significantly to local socio-economic development.