The Quality of Charcoal Produced from Leucaena leucocephala in Earth Kilns from Tanzania

In Tanzania, wood-fuel is by far a major source of domestic energy for about 99% of the population accounting to 91% of total energy used in the country. The rate of cutting trees from natural forests for wood-fuel needs is increasing which may lead to total deforestation in the next few decades due to increasing population necessating immediate attention to solve the problem. The fast growing trees are seen as the solution to the current wood-fuel crisis and reducing the pressure on the natural forests. Leucaena leucocephala is among the fast growing tree species and is becoming more accepted and provide promising future for solving the problem since charcoal production is among one of its multiple products which is a typical domestic fuel for urban areas. Charcoaling was done for Leucaena leucocephala and common charcoal produced from miombo woodland species for finding differences in their quality. The results indicated that the density of Leucaena leucocephala charcoal was lower than that of common charcoal. However, there was no significant differences in calorific value between the two. With chemical analysis, ash content, volatile matter and carbon content in percentage of Leucaena leucocephala charcoal met the requirement of good quality charcoal according to specifications (Anon. 1974).