I’ve wondered this for quite a while and no one I’ve asked seems to know. I didn’t see it in the archives…
Why does charcoal burn? It’s basically wood that has already been burned, so why should it burn better than plain wood?
Thanks muchly!
SE
It has been partially burnt leaving the carbon behind.
Brilliant quote from KneadToKnow’s link:
Basically, charcoal is coal from which all the hydrocarbons have been removed leaving nearly pure carbon and some inert minerals. So of course it burns. Producing mainly CO2 and leaving some ash. IIRC, it is made by heating coal with air excluded.
The problem with wood is that the lighter stuff makes all sorts of smoke, etc. That is what burns first and then you have the carbon which burns hotter and produces CO2. So making charcoal involves burning off only the first part and leaving the carbon which burns cleaner.
Charcoal is made by heating wood with air excluded. Coal, or anthracite at least, is already mostly carbon, so there’s no need to cook it before use.
Coke is made from coal. Coke is carbon and ash, and is used in making steel.
No, no, no.
One cannot make a general statement about coal like that. Anthracite may have a high carbon content, but then again, maybe not. You’ve fallen into the “anthracite assumption”, as I have named it in the industry.
Whether or not a coal is considered (or ranked) an anthracite under the ASTM designation is due to its dry, mineral-matter free fixed carbon content. A quick look at Table 1 in the ASTM D 388 will tell you the whole story.
While it is true that most United States and English anthracites (as well as Russian and Ukrainian ones) are very high in carbon content overall, there are many anthracites (Spanish, Korean, South African, and Chinese) which do not, in fact, have high carbon contents overall. But people assume that anthracite==high carbon content overall, and keep forgetting about those billions of tons of the “other” anthracites.
Thus, you can get a US anthracite which is 88% fixed carbon on a typical basis, and a Korean anthracite which is 45% fixed carbon. They are both anthracites, but very different.
Note too that “fixed carbon” is not the same as “carbon” at all. Fixed carbon contains, among other things, hydrogen, sulfur, chlorine, nitrogen, and oxygen. The actual “carbon” © content can be as much as 20% lower than the fixed carbon content.
Coal which has been heated and starved of oxygen is called “coke”. Charcoal almost always refers to wood.
Coal is not made from “old dinosaurs”. That has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve heard an EPA person say.
Oh, I see I already said all this before about anthracite.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52588&highlight=anthracite+korean
Sigh. I not only just a walking joke, I’m a broken record too.
Una
Don’t know if this requires a new thread, but does graphite burn well then? Would pencil lead be very flammable (or do the additives prevent it from burning)?
PC
Thanks Una, I missed that thread the first time around. Next time I’ll specify US prime anthracite 
Desmostylus’ comment about coke got me wondering exactly how it’s made. The process is a lot more sophisticated than charcoal manufacture.
Pencils were originally made from natural graphite, which burns quite nicely. Nowadays, the graphite is mixed with clays, stabilizers, waxes, etc. These have a large effect on flammability. Some leads will burn easily when you hold a match to them, others can be taken to nearly white heat without igniting.
(Sorry, no cite on the latter, I’ve done the experiment myself)
Hey, Squink, I hope you don’t think I was picking on you. It’s just with a name like, well, “Anthracite”, I try to butt into coal topics whenever I can…
yeah i tried burning my pencil lead before, darn thing wont ignite even when the other end of the wood on the pencil starts to smoke.
Nah, we’re cool, or in your case, coal 