The present paper shows a case study to evaluate the economic viability of three charcoal production systems: traditional "hot tail" kilns, rectangular brick kilns and cylindrical metallic kilns. The company analyzed already operates using "hot tail" kilns and aims to check if it is more feasible to keep its current system or to choose one of the two alternative systems. It was adopted the Equivalent Annual Value (EAV), Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Incremental IRR, Benefits/Costs (B/C) and Pay Back for the economic evaluation. The most feasible system was the cylindrical metallic kilns. This production system, despite its disadvantages with high initial investment and costs with electricity consumption, allowed financial gains such as reducing operational costs due to the increased yield of the carbonization process.
Charcoal; Economic Engineering; Charcoal processes
