| Char Cloth | |
|---|---|
 Char cloth in a tinder box | |
| Thermal properties | |
| Upper working temperature | 455 °C |
| Lower working temperature | 349 °C |
Char cloth, also called char paper, is a material with low ignition temperature, used as tinder when lighting a fire. It is the main component in a tinderbox. It is a small swatch of fabric made from a natural fibre (such as linen, cotton, jute etc.) that has been converted through pyrolysis.
Char cloth looks like a black, fragile piece of cloth. It is usually made from swatches of organic fabrics, but similar tinder can be made in the same way using cotton balls or tampons, dried moss, leaves or fungus (amadou for instance), raw unspun flax, etc. This is packed into a small, almost airtight, rectangular tin, then heated slowly and steadily over coals for a long period of time, allowing it to undergo thermal decomposition (aka, pyrolysis). The material that remains after this process is complete ignites very easily, making it the preferred tinder when lighting a fire using flint and steel.
Pyrolysis is defined as "a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen”. [1] Basically pyrolysis is turning organic matter into charcoal, a low weight, high energy content, very easily ignited matter. Fresh charcoal can even autoignite, even though its autoignition temperature (349 – 455 °C) is not that low (for instance, paper's is 218–246 °C (424–475 °F)); this is because, if even a small point ignites, it will generate more energy than lost, igniting the cloth around, so energy and temperature will build up until it turns red hot ember. The cloth usually does not produce enough gas for it to produce flames, but if close enough to something that can, a full fire will finally occur.
This material, when properly prepared, will ignite with the slightest spark and provides a slow burning, hot ember to build the fire around, making it very popular with campers; especially in harsh weather conditions when lighting a fire is more difficult. Applying the same principle that has been used throughout history by indigenous peoples, char cloth can start a fire with only the help of flint and steel, it is then placed in a tinder bundle and blown into flames. [2] It is easily made on a small scale, making it accessible and popular in the domestic sphere and while cooking on campfires.
When struck against steel, a flint edge produces sparks. ‘The hard flint edge shaves off a particle of the steel that exposes iron, which reacts with oxygen from the atmosphere and can ignite the proper tinder’. [3] With this flint and steel technique the char cloth will ignite and an “ember will flash through it” allowing for a flame to be built around the ember. [4] Although the char cloth is slow burning, the spark will need to be fostered using small kindling materials such as dried leaves, small twigs or a tinder bundle. [5]
Char cloths have been used to light fires for centuries.
One of the earliest recorded uses of a char cloth dates back to a ninjutsu manual written by Hattori Hanzō in 1560 called the Ninpiden or Shinobi Hiden, or Legends of Ninja Secrets. [6] The manual states how to make char cloth from either cotton, silk or paper.
“Crumple cotton, silk, or paper until it is soft. Divide it into small amounts, and dry-roast it until it is black, paying attention that it doesn’t burn white. Keep it within a tightly covered container and be sure to always have some at hand.” [7]
Another use of char cloth was recorded by C. P. Mountford and R. M. Berndt in Making Fire by Percussion, where the introduction of char cloth to Australian Indigenous Aboriginals is detailed, saying the use of char cloth was easier than traditional methods. [2]
Char cloth has also been noted as used by the indigenous people of Hawaii in 1940. In the Hawaiian Journal of History, when describing the smoking habits of the islanders, the use of char cloth to light tobacco is briefly mentioned as a method introduced by colonists to the Hawaiian people. “This was not a traditional Hawaiian way of starting fires but was the flint and steel method introduced from the West.” [8]
In the historical non-fiction novel by Jonothan Timmons titled “Outlandish: A Human History of Violence in the Galapágos A Historical Non-Fiction Novel”, which aims to “relate the events concerning the settlement of Floreana Island in the Galápagos Archipelago in the early 1930s by European ex-pats”, char cloth is mentioned. Timmons writes that a European captain withdrew his oil cloth that contained his “tobacco and tinderbox, which held inside his flint and steel and bits of char cloth”. [9]
The production of char cloth occurs when organic cellulose based fibres undergo pyrolysis, an irreversible chemical reaction that includes the thermal decomposition of material in an inert atmosphere (in the absence of oxygen). [1] At elevated temperatures of greater than 250 °C, cellulose decomposes to form considerable amounts of flammable products, one of these being bio-mass. "Biomass is a complex material, mainly composed of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin in addition to extractives (tannins, fatty acids, resins) and inorganic salts". [10] Char cloth is a form of bio-mass, termed bio-char. Char cloth is the result of incomplete combustion, as oxygen is a limiting reagent in the reaction due to the limited oxygen let into the tin during the production process. [11]
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula (C
6H
10O
5)
n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall of green plants, many forms of algae and the oomycetes. Some species of bacteria secrete it to form biofilms. Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer on Earth. The cellulose content of cotton fiber is 90%, that of wood is 40–50%, and that of dried hemp is approximately 57%.
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start fires.
A campfire is a fire at a campsite that provides light and warmth, and heat for cooking. It can also serve as a beacon, and an insect and predator deterrent. Established campgrounds often provide a stone or steel fire ring for safety. Campfires are a popular feature of camping. At summer camps, the word campfire often refers to an event at which there is a fire. Some camps refer to the fire itself as a campfire.
The pyrolysis process is the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures, often in an inert atmosphere.
Tinder is easily combustible material used to start a fire. Tinder is a finely divided, open material which will begin to glow under a shower of sparks. Air is gently wafted over the glowing tinder until it bursts into flame. The flaming tinder is used to ignite kindling, which in turn is used to ignite the bulk material, to produce a fire.
A flashover is the near-simultaneous ignition of most of the directly exposed combustible material in an enclosed area. When certain organic materials are heated, they undergo thermal decomposition and release flammable gases. Flashover occurs when the majority of the exposed surfaces in a space are heated to their autoignition temperature and emit flammable gases. Flashover normally occurs at 500 °C (932 °F) or 590 °C (1,100 °F) for ordinary combustibles and an incident heat flux at floor level of 20 kilowatts per square metre (2.5 hp/sq ft).
A tinderbox, or patch box, is a container made of wood or metal containing flint, firesteel, and tinder, used together to help kindle a fire. A tinderbox may also contain sulfur-tipped matches.
Destructive distillation is a chemical process in which decomposition of unprocessed material is achieved by heating it to a high temperature; the term generally applies to processing of organic material in the absence of air or in the presence of limited amounts of oxygen or other reagents, catalysts, or solvents, such as steam or phenols. It is an application of pyrolysis. The process breaks up or 'cracks' large molecules. Coke, coal gas, gaseous carbon, coal tar, ammonia liquor, and coal oil are examples of commercial products historically produced by the destructive distillation of coal.
Fire making, fire lighting or fire craft is the process of artificially starting a fire. It requires completing the fire triangle, usually by heating tinder above its autoignition temperature.
Diammonium phosphate (DAP; IUPAC name diammonium hydrogen phosphate; chemical formula (NH4)2(HPO4) is one of a series of water-soluble ammonium phosphate salts that can be produced when ammonia reacts with phosphoric acid.
Charring is a chemical process of incomplete combustion of certain solids when subjected to high heat. Heat distillation removes water vapour and volatile organic compounds (syngas) from the matrix. The residual black carbon material is char, as distinguished from the lighter colored ash. By the action of heat, charring removes hydrogen and oxygen from the solid, so that the remaining char is composed primarily of carbon. Polymers like thermoset, or most solid organic compounds like wood or biological tissue, exhibit charring behaviour.
A fire striker is a piece of carbon steel from which sparks are struck by the sharp edge of flint, chert or similar rock. It is a specific tool used in fire making.
A fire piston, sometimes called a fire syringe or a slam rod fire starter, is a device of ancient Southeast Asian origin which is used to kindle fire. In Malay it is called "gobek api". It uses the principle of the heating of a gas by rapid and adiabatic compression to ignite a piece of tinder, which is then used to set light to kindling.
Smouldering or smoldering is the slow, flameless form of combustion, sustained by the heat evolved when oxygen directly attacks the surface of a condensed-phase fuel. Many solid materials can sustain a smouldering reaction, including coal, cellulose, wood, cotton, tobacco, cannabis, peat, plant litter, humus, synthetic foams, charring polymers including polyurethane foam and some types of dust. Common examples of smouldering phenomena are the initiation of residential fires on upholstered furniture by weak heat sources, and the persistent combustion of biomass behind the flaming front of wildfires.
Pyrolysis oil, sometimes also known as biocrude or bio-oil, is a synthetic fuel with few industrial application and under investigation as substitute for petroleum. It is obtained by heating dried biomass without oxygen in a reactor at a temperature of about 500 °C (900 °F) with subsequent cooling, separation from the aqueous phase and other processes. Pyrolysis oil is a kind of tar and normally contains levels of oxygen too high to be considered a pure hydrocarbon. This high oxygen content results in non-volatility, corrosiveness, partial miscibility with fossil fuels, thermal instability, and a tendency to polymerize when exposed to air. As such, it is distinctly different from petroleum products. Removing oxygen from bio-oil or nitrogen from algal bio-oil is known as upgrading.
A feather stick is a length of wood which has been shaved to produce a cluster of thin curls protruding from the wood. It allows damp wood to be used to start a fire when dry tinder is hard to find.
Reactive flash volatilization (RFV) is a chemical process that rapidly converts nonvolatile solids and liquids to volatile compounds by thermal decomposition for integration with catalytic chemistries.
Torrefaction of biomass, e.g., wood or grain, is a mild form of pyrolysis at temperatures typically between 200 and 320 °C. Torrefaction changes biomass properties to provide a better fuel quality for combustion and gasification applications. Torrefaction produces a relatively dry product, which reduces or eliminates its potential for organic decomposition. Torrefaction combined with densification creates an energy-dense fuel carrier of 20 to 21 GJ/ton lower heating value (LHV). Torrefaction makes the material undergo Maillard reactions. Torrefied biomass can be used as an energy carrier or as a feedstock used in the production of bio-based fuels and chemicals.
This is an alphabetized glossary of terms pertaining to lighting fires, along with their definitions. Firelighting is the process of starting a fire artificially. Fire was an essential tool in early human cultural development. The ignition of any fire, whether natural or artificial, requires completing the fire triangle, usually by initiating the combustion of a suitably flammable material.
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a thermal depolymerization process used to convert wet biomass, and other macromolecules, into crude-like oil under moderate temperature and high pressure. The crude-like oil has high energy density with a lower heating value of 33.8-36.9 MJ/kg and 5-20 wt% oxygen and renewable chemicals. The process has also been called hydrous pyrolysis.