May 2004 Gasification Archive

From hero at MYANMAR.COM.MM Sat May 1 01:38:11 2004
From: hero at MYANMAR.COM.MM (hero)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: please don't sent again.
Message-ID: <SAT.1.MAY.2004.120811.0630.HERO@MYANMAR.COM.MM>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Singfield" <snkm@BTL.NET>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: [GASL] ..high temp metals, was: Plant Sizing

> Hmm -- one can only wonder how economical -- thick -- cast iron would
work??
>
> easy to machine -- easy and economical to replace -- and possibly just as
> long living??
>
> Your problem is as you state -- poor heat conductivity. It is that problem
> that plagues working stainless -- like machining it -- welding it. Zone
> temps shoot sky high and material melts -- galls -- or sloughs off.
>
> You might even find aluminum -- water cooled -- would work better -- or
> copper -- brass -- bronze -- etc.
>
> Like the acetylene/oxygen torch tips -- eh??
>
> I made up a water jacketed "Rose bud" Acety/Oxy high (very high) BTU
torch
> years ago to run a small melting pot -- Never had any torch tip problems.
> But the first one I made up -- no cooling -- melted.
>
> Always think about cooling things down. But you need metals with high heat
> transfer coefficients -- always.
>
> Peter / Belize
>
> At 06:08 PM 4/1/2004 -0600, a31ford wrote:
> >Good day, Arnt, Paul and all....
> >
> >Your information follows with my observed findings!
> >
> >I'm using 304SS for the Tuyeres in my 250KwT system, 10mm wall 13mm ID
(33m
> >total cross section) the depth (length) of each tuyere when new was 25mm,
> >however after the "etching" problem I had earlier this year, I just went
out
> >and inspected the old ones (never thought of checking total length, was
just
> >checking the depth of the etch in the face).
> >
> >Much to my surprise ! The entire unit is now only 22mm in length ! go
figure
> >! the entire face, NOT just the etch is being removed, the etch is
roughly
> >2mm deep across the face, I got around it for a month or so by simply
> >turning the Tuyeres slightly (had them pipe threaded on the back side).
> >Still all in all, I got good use from October 16/03 until March 12/04
with
> >the unit running 24/7 (except for inspections every 2nd weekend or so)
> >
> >Will try a "mild steel" set this summer, the load won't be as high, but
will
> >still run 24/7 for heating domestic hot water....
> >
> >Greg Manning
> >Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: The Gasification Discussion List
> >[mailto:GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]On Behalf Of Arnt Karlsen
> >Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 12:46 PM
> >To: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
> >Subject: ..high temp metals, was: Plant Sizing
> >
> >
> >On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 07:55:29 -0800, Art wrote in message
> ><014f01c41801$c268d2a0$68c3f204@7k6rv21>:
> >
> >> Paul,
> >>
> >> The definitive word on stainless steel vs carbon steel at higher
> >> temperatures is:
> >>
> >> The Design Manual for Structural Stainless Steel2 indicates that
> >> austenitic stainless steels suffer from the same types of distortion
> >> during welding(angular, blowing, shrinkage, etc.) as carbon steel, but
> >> the higher coefficient of expansion (17 x 10-6/?C versus 12 x 10-6/?C
> >> for carbon steel) and the lower thermal conductivity (approximately
> >> 30% of carbon steel) increases distortion of austenitic stainless
> >> steel weldments.
> >>
> >> There are also L grades of stainless steel which contain less carbon.
> >> During welding of normal grades of stainless steels, the carbon in the
> >> stainless steel forms a complex with the chromium to become chromium
> >> carbide. This complexing reduces the oxidation corrosion resistance
> >> in the weld areas and I have seen 1/8 inch thick welded tanks leak in
> >> the weld area after only a few hours exposure to high chloride content
> >> water. The better way is to use L grades of stainless and use the
> >> appropriate L grade of filler rod or welding wire to perform the
> >> welding operation. The grade of stainless chosen (304 vs 316 or
> >> others) should depend upon the overall corrosion resistance desired in
> >> the application being considered.
> >>
> >> Art Krenzel, P.E.
> >> PHOENIX TECHNOLOGIES
> >
> >..unless I'm mistaken, Paul wants advice on what to use in the
> >_reducing_ process environment in his gasifier and hot piping.
> >
> >..about 5 years ago, Vern posted this:
> >On Mon, 21 Jun 1999 02:17:07 EDT, VHarris001@aol.com wrote in message
> ><b17eb690.249f32e3@aol.com>: Subject: "Re: GAS-L: High Temp Metals - was
> >To Tuyere or Not to Tuyere":
> >
> >> Dear Arnt, others
> >>
> >> About a year ago I contacted representatives for both Inconel and
> >> 253MA and was unable to get helpful responses from either of them
> >> regarding the servicability of their materials for use in my
> >> gasification application. Besides being a reducing atmosphere in hot,
> >> abrasive conditions, my gasifier will also have some sulpher present.
> >> The Inconel representative simply said they had no material of which
> >> they could guarantee the performance. The 253MA rep said better to
> >> just try stainless steel first and see what happens.
> >> Says he has seen very disappointing performance from 253MA in certain
> >> applications. It varys application to application. He recommends it
> >> without question in many applications but others he doesn't,
> >> gasification being one that requires caution. He wouldn't even
> >> recommend 353MA - which was designed for gasification applications.
> >>
> >> I was all sold on high temp metals until I read Arnt's post last year
> >> about the coating on metals not being able to be regenerated in a
> >> reducing atmosphere. Thanks again Arnt!
> >>
> >> Vern
> >>
> >>
> >> In a message dated 5/28/99 7:32:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> >> arnt@c2i.net writes:
> >>
> >> >
> >> > .note that stainless steels, titanium etc, _will corrode_ in our
> >> > dusty hot reducing environments, their corrosion protection rely on
> >> > _surface_ oxygen diffusing into the metal, I was quoted a 10 minute
> >> > service life on some top priced titanium piping, we use cheap heat
> >> > resistant mild steel...
> >> >
> >> Gasification List SPONSORS and ARCHIVES
> >> http://www.crest.org/renewables/gasification-list-archive
> >
> >..practical tests are rather helpful in determining whether or not
> >these distorted metals has managed to remain as they were sold,
> >and not absorb carbon etc to become some kinda pig iron.
> >
> >..wherever air or oxygen can get to the metals,
> >the expensive exotic alloys will be just fine. ;-)
> >
> >--
> >..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-)
> >...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
> > Scenarios always come in sets of three:
> > best case, worst case, and just in case.
> >
>

From a31ford at INETLINK.CA Thu May 6 07:47:42 2004
From: a31ford at INETLINK.CA (a31ford)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: [STOVES] Measuring equipment - analogue data acquisition to
USB port. (2)
In-Reply-To: <000901c432f5$df032c80$e49dfea9@home>
Message-ID: <THU.6.MAY.2004.064742.0500.A31FORD@INETLINK.CA>

Dear Crispin and all,

Two Things,

1) This Measurement topic, is it only on loggers ? or would anyone be
interested in a 1300?c digital meter for under $50.00 CDN ?

2) ANY electronic device that has a junction (transistor, thermocouple,
diode, resistor, etc.) can be used as a temperature change monitoring
device, however, some are better than others when used in this manner.

a) Thermocouple, bi-metal twisted or welded junction. Low voltage, micro
current.

b) Thermopile, same as above, BUT many junctions in one package, higher
voltage, mili current

c) Thermistor, tinned copper leads, bonded to a temperature unstable, but
relatively linear acting substrate, NO Voltage output.

d) P/N or N/P junction (Silicon) common use is transistors & diodes, BUT
VERY linear in temperature measurement, when biased in a bridge style
circuit. No Voltage output.

All of the above have a limited bandwidth BUT, the P/N or N/P junction has
the largest, It will work to the point of the lead welds being unbonded from
the junction (1400? c or so).

The Above mentioned meter uses a simple 1N4148 diode as the probe, $12.00
CDN for 100pcs.

Regards, and spring has sprung!

Greg Manning

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: The Stoves Discussion List [mailto:STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]On
Behalf Of Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 6:08 PM
To: STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Subject: Re: [STOVES] Measuring equipment - analogue data acquisition to
USB port. (2)

Dear Stovers

The "Microdatalogger" (MDL) (www.datalogger.com) is shown as costing
US$700 - Model 202 - which puts if in the same price league as the ACR
programmable logger from ACR in British Columbia.

The ACR software is CDN$200 and the MDL software is free (which it
should be!). The ACR one gives you 7 channels instead of 4. I
mentioned the 7 channel unit which has a 128K memory in the first post.
It can take different _types_ of intputs (voltage high and low, current)

The MDL is battery powered if you want. The memory capacity is not
shown. You can _rent_ them which is interesting.

It apparently cannot measure temperatures above 254 F, which is a
thermistor range and it appears to be a thermistor only device (not
programmable and not for thermocouples). It is marketed as an
architectural device (heating, ventilation and air conditioning
measuring).

There is a nearly identical device from Onset also with 4 channels for
about 1/2 the price but the MDL has an LED screen on board..

Regards
Crispin

From a31ford at INETLINK.CA Thu May 6 18:17:40 2004
From: a31ford at INETLINK.CA (a31ford)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: [STOVES] Measuring equipment - analogue data acquisition to USB
port.
Message-ID: <THU.6.MAY.2004.171740.0500.A31FORD@INETLINK.CA>

-----Original Message-----
From: a31ford [mailto:a31ford@inetlink.ca]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 6:48 AM
To: A Gasification List (E-mail)
Subject: RE: [STOVES] Measuring equipment - analogue data acquisition to
USB port. (2)

Dear Crispin and all,

Two Things,

1) This Measurement topic, is it only on loggers ? or would anyone be
interested in a 1300?c digital meter for under $50.00 CDN ?

a) Thermocouple, bi-metal twisted or welded junction. Low voltage, micro
current.

b) Thermopile, same as above, BUT many junctions in one package, higher
voltage, mili current

c) Thermistor, tinned copper leads, bonded to a temperature unstable, but
relatively linear acting substrate, NO Voltage output.

d) P/N or N/P junction (Silicon) common use is transistors & diodes, BUT
VERY linear in temperature measurement, when biased in a bridge style
circuit. No Voltage output.

All of the above have a limited bandwidth BUT, the P/N or N/P junction has
the largest, It will work to the point of the lead welds being unbonded from
the junction (1400? c or so).

The Above mentioned meter uses a simple 1N4148 diode as the probe, $12.00
CDN for 100pcs.

Regards, and spring has sprung!

Greg Manning

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

Dear Stovers

The "Microdatalogger" (MDL) (www.datalogger.com) is shown as costing
US$700 - Model 202 - which puts if in the same price league as the ACR
programmable logger from ACR in British Columbia.

The MDL is battery powered if you want. The memory capacity is not
shown. You can _rent_ them which is interesting.

There is a nearly identical device from Onset also with 4 channels for
about 1/2 the price but the MDL has an LED screen on board..

Regards
Crispin

From tombreed at COMCAST.NET Fri May 7 04:23:39 2004
From: tombreed at COMCAST.NET (TBReed)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Making minerals available.
Message-ID: <FRI.7.MAY.2004.022339.0600.TOMBREED@COMCAST.NET>

Dear Dan and All:

Obviously we are all interested in the sustainability of biomass production.
Mineral availability is a key issue. I wouldn't be interested in biomass
energy if I didn't think it could be sustainable.

Dan is so right that the minerals necessary for growth are often present,
but unavailable.

Mother Nature's solution to this is to use high temperatures to form
different mineral species in which the minerals ARE available. In
particular the lava from volcanoes is easily broken down to release
potassium and calcium that are "locked up" in clays. This explains the
incredible fertility of volcanic islands like Indonesia and Hawaii.

However, I don't think we are likely to make "synthetic lava" to fertilize
our gardens.

Comments?

TOM REED BEF 2 AM

----- Original Message -----
From: <Carefreeland@AOL.COM>
To: <STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 9:20 PM
Subject: [STOVES] Organic farming.

> Dear Stovers,
> Yes, there is often a considerable amount of minerals available in
> the soil which are not available to the plants. Most of the unavailable
minerals
> are combined chemically with other elements which form stable compounds.
> Soil that has an unbalanced pH for example can be treated repeatedly with
> chemical fertilizers and produce little response from the plants.
> Fungi and lichens (which are microscopic plants and fungi living
> together in symbiosis) are wonderful at producing organic acids which
actually
> dissolve rock. This is one example of clear evidence of the power of
healthy soil
> to provide for the plants growing in it.
> Lack of oxygen in the soil is also a great limiter of plant growth.
> While stagnate water in the soil can kill plant roots from lack of oxygen,
a
> replenished supply of highly oxygenated rainwater can in some soils
provide more
> oxygen than might be otherwise available. The common treatment for drowned
> damaged roots is to continue to water the plant lightly but frequently.
> Seedlings in the greenhouse are often misted frequently with the saturated
soil
> providing dissolved oxygen.
> Soil science is among the most complex studies, yet basic
principals
> seem to guide the most successful gardeners. If soil is well drained, the
> excess minerals which lock up valuable fertilizers tend to leach out while
drawing
> fresh oxygen into the soil with each rain or watering.
> Nitrogen tends to be the first mineral in short supply in poor
soils
> as it can leave the soil through leaching or vaporization, if there is
lack of
> organic matter to hold it. Potassium can also be easily leached from low
> organic matter soil. Phosphorus, tends to accumulate in the soil, however
it is
> quickly locked up in compounds making it unavailable to the plants. Iron
is
> often a catalyst for uptake of other minerals. At high pH Iron becomes
locked up
> as stable forms unavailable to plants.
>
> Dan Dimiduk

From jean-henry.ferrasse at UNIV.U-3MRS.FR Fri May 7 05:21:14 2004
From: jean-henry.ferrasse at UNIV.U-3MRS.FR (Jean-Henry Ferrasse)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Making minerals available.
Message-ID: <FRI.7.MAY.2004.112114.0200.JEANHENRY.FERRASSE@UNIV.U3MRS.FR>

All,
I alwas thought that ashes could be back-spreaded as agricultural
by-fertiliser, available or not, it is maybe better than landfilling.
Coments on that too?
Jean-Henry

> Dear Dan and All:
>
> Obviously we are all interested in the sustainability of biomass
production.
> Mineral availability is a key issue. I wouldn't be interested in biomass
> energy if I didn't think it could be sustainable.
>
> Dan is so right that the minerals necessary for growth are often present,
> but unavailable.
>
> Mother Nature's solution to this is to use high temperatures to form
> different mineral species in which the minerals ARE available. In
> particular the lava from volcanoes is easily broken down to release
> potassium and calcium that are "locked up" in clays. This explains the
> incredible fertility of volcanic islands like Indonesia and Hawaii.
>
> However, I don't think we are likely to make "synthetic lava" to fertilize
> our gardens.
>
> Comments?
>
> TOM REED BEF 2 AM
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Carefreeland@AOL.COM>
> To: <STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 9:20 PM
> Subject: [STOVES] Organic farming.
>
>
> > Dear Stovers,
> > Yes, there is often a considerable amount of minerals available
in
> > the soil which are not available to the plants. Most of the unavailable
> minerals
> > are combined chemically with other elements which form stable compounds.
> > Soil that has an unbalanced pH for example can be treated repeatedly
with
> > chemical fertilizers and produce little response from the plants.
> > Fungi and lichens (which are microscopic plants and fungi living
> > together in symbiosis) are wonderful at producing organic acids which
> actually
> > dissolve rock. This is one example of clear evidence of the power of
> healthy soil
> > to provide for the plants growing in it.
> > Lack of oxygen in the soil is also a great limiter of plant
growth.
> > While stagnate water in the soil can kill plant roots from lack of
oxygen,
> a
> > replenished supply of highly oxygenated rainwater can in some soils
> provide more
> > oxygen than might be otherwise available. The common treatment for
drowned
> > damaged roots is to continue to water the plant lightly but frequently.
> > Seedlings in the greenhouse are often misted frequently with the
saturated
> soil
> > providing dissolved oxygen.
> > Soil science is among the most complex studies, yet basic
> principals
> > seem to guide the most successful gardeners. If soil is well drained,
the
> > excess minerals which lock up valuable fertilizers tend to leach out
while
> drawing
> > fresh oxygen into the soil with each rain or watering.
> > Nitrogen tends to be the first mineral in short supply in poor
> soils
> > as it can leave the soil through leaching or vaporization, if there is
> lack of
> > organic matter to hold it. Potassium can also be easily leached from
low
> > organic matter soil. Phosphorus, tends to accumulate in the soil,
however
> it is
> > quickly locked up in compounds making it unavailable to the plants. Iron
> is
> > often a catalyst for uptake of other minerals. At high pH Iron becomes
> locked up
> > as stable forms unavailable to plants.
> >
> > Dan Dimiduk

From dglickd at PIPELINE.COM Fri May 7 09:35:22 2004
From: dglickd at PIPELINE.COM (Dick Glick)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Making minerals available.
Message-ID: <FRI.7.MAY.2004.093522.0400.DGLICKD@PIPELINE.COM>

Hello All --

Interest in the area -- making minerals available is described under the title -- "soil foodweb" with Dr. Elaine Ingham as a key reference -- for example: http://www.rain.org/~sals/ingham.html
and other links under the topic.

Best, Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "TBReed" <tombreed@COMCAST.NET>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 4:23 AM
Subject: [GASL] Making minerals available.

> Dear Dan and All:
>
> Obviously we are all interested in the sustainability of biomass production.
> Mineral availability is a key issue. I wouldn't be interested in biomass
> energy if I didn't think it could be sustainable.
>
> Dan is so right that the minerals necessary for growth are often present,
> but unavailable.
>
> Mother Nature's solution to this is to use high temperatures to form
> different mineral species in which the minerals ARE available. In
> particular the lava from volcanoes is easily broken down to release
> potassium and calcium that are "locked up" in clays. This explains the
> incredible fertility of volcanic islands like Indonesia and Hawaii.
>
> However, I don't think we are likely to make "synthetic lava" to fertilize
> our gardens.
>
> Comments?
>
> TOM REED BEF 2 AM
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Carefreeland@AOL.COM>
> To: <STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 9:20 PM
> Subject: [STOVES] Organic farming.
>
>
> > Dear Stovers,
> > Yes, there is often a considerable amount of minerals available in
> > the soil which are not available to the plants. Most of the unavailable
> minerals
> > are combined chemically with other elements which form stable compounds.
> > Soil that has an unbalanced pH for example can be treated repeatedly with
> > chemical fertilizers and produce little response from the plants.
> > Fungi and lichens (which are microscopic plants and fungi living
> > together in symbiosis) are wonderful at producing organic acids which
> actually
> > dissolve rock. This is one example of clear evidence of the power of
> healthy soil
> > to provide for the plants growing in it.
> > Lack of oxygen in the soil is also a great limiter of plant growth.
> > While stagnate water in the soil can kill plant roots from lack of oxygen,
> a
> > replenished supply of highly oxygenated rainwater can in some soils
> provide more
> > oxygen than might be otherwise available. The common treatment for drowned
> > damaged roots is to continue to water the plant lightly but frequently.
> > Seedlings in the greenhouse are often misted frequently with the saturated
> soil
> > providing dissolved oxygen.
> > Soil science is among the most complex studies, yet basic
> principals
> > seem to guide the most successful gardeners. If soil is well drained, the
> > excess minerals which lock up valuable fertilizers tend to leach out while
> drawing
> > fresh oxygen into the soil with each rain or watering.
> > Nitrogen tends to be the first mineral in short supply in poor
> soils
> > as it can leave the soil through leaching or vaporization, if there is
> lack of
> > organic matter to hold it. Potassium can also be easily leached from low
> > organic matter soil. Phosphorus, tends to accumulate in the soil, however
> it is
> > quickly locked up in compounds making it unavailable to the plants. Iron
> is
> > often a catalyst for uptake of other minerals. At high pH Iron becomes
> locked up
> > as stable forms unavailable to plants.
> >
> > Dan Dimiduk

From dglickd at PIPELINE.COM Fri May 7 14:39:07 2004
From: dglickd at PIPELINE.COM (Dick Glick)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Making minerals available
Message-ID: <FRI.7.MAY.2004.143907.0400.DGLICKD@PIPELINE.COM>

Hello --

More of the same general direction -- be careful how you feed. See:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/may04/fungi0504.htm?pf=1
Mycorrhizal fungi?naturally occurring, beneficial soil organisms?have been helping farmers for thousands of years by improving water and nutrient use efficiency and suppressing diseases in the plants they colonize. Applying certain chemicals to the soil during the last half century-while increasing crop yields and fighting diseases-has likely inhibited these important fungi.

Best, Dick

From a31ford at INETLINK.CA Fri May 7 19:35:01 2004
From: a31ford at INETLINK.CA (a31ford)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Wood VS. Charcoal (was) Gas and Biomass
In-Reply-To: <20040507044025.1820AC1@telchar.epud.net>
Message-ID: <FRI.7.MAY.2004.183501.0500.A31FORD@INETLINK.CA>

Good day all,

NOTE: about the following, No offence meant to anyone,
I'm thinking globally, rather than one stove.....

Somewhere within the thread of this dialog, someone pointed out that the testing was done in Kg. rather than heating value. ?? Also, someone else sites that charcoal uses less fuel, so fewer emissions.

Why ??

I thought the end result was that BOTH wood and charcoal (NOT COAL) produced the same amount of emissions in the first place ????

Watch it, as this is a loaded question, lets put our thinking caps on this weekend, before we reply to this one... Dean, Tom ?? I think both of you know where I'm going with this.... :)

Best wishes to all,

Greg Manning,

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: The Stoves Discussion List [mailto:STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]On
Behalf Of Dean Still
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 11:40 PM
To: STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Subject: Re: [STOVES] Gas and Biomass

Dear Stovers,

Dear Friends,

I put together a quick survey of the literature concerning emissions from charcoal vs wood burning stoves. It appears that although wood stoves can produce more CO if they smolder all day, wood burning stoves seem to be generally cleaner burning, producing less CO and particulates, than charcoal stoves. (The following are quotes from the cited articles)

All Best,

Dean

A.) In the case of wood combustion, CO2 emission factor is in the range of 1560?1620 g kg?1. The emission factors for pollutants CO, CH4, TNMOC and NOx were in the ranges 19?136, 6?10, 6?9 and 0.05?0:2 g k g?1, respectively. In the case of charcoal combustion, CO2 emission factor is in the range of 2155?2567 g kg?1. The emission factors for pollutants CO, CH4, TNMOC were in the ranges 35?198, 6.7?7.8, 6?10 g kg?1, respectively. Comparison between wood and charcoal stoves shows that, CO2 and CO emission factor values for wood are lower as compared to charcoal. CH4 and TNMOC emission factors for wood are with the same range as compared to charcoal. Emission factors for NOx using wood is slightly lower than charcoal. The emission of all the pollutants per unit of useful heat was found to decrease with increasing stove efficiency for both wood and charcoal stoves.
(Emission Factors of Wood and Charcoal Cookstoves, S.C. Bhattacharya?, D.O. Albina, P. Abdul Salam , 2002)

B.) Emissions ratios for firewood and charcoal combustion from Brocard et al. (1996). Firewood Combustion CO/CO2 (%) Ignition 26.1 Flaming 5.7 Glowing 15.0 Smoldering 21.0 Charcoal (%) Making 24.0 Burning 15.5 Global BC/OC Inventory, rev 2.7 ? 2003.02.27 page 1T.

(AN ESTIMATE OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM COMMON KENYAN COOKSTOVES UNDER CONDITIONS OF ACTUAL USE, R Bailis, M Ezzati and DM Kammen)

C.) Taking CO as an example, it is estimated that in the starting phase of combustion, a three-stone wood fire emits about 188g CO per kg-fuel. Additional estimates in other phases of combustion are 52g CO per kg-fuel in the burning phase, 91g in the dying fire phase, 126g in the hot coal phase and 156g in the dying coal phase with little variation across households.
Averaging over each measurement-day introduces variation for reasons discussed above, so that the CO emissions factor for each household using the 3-stone fire, averaged over the course of the measurement day, ranges from about 61g to 95g CO per kg-fuel (79 ? 7 g-CO per kg-fuel: mean ? s.d.).

(GREENHOUSE IMPLICATIONS OF HOUSEHOLD STOVES: An Analysis for India
Kirk R. Smith, R. Uma, V.V.N. Kishore, Junfeng Zhang, V. Joshi, and M.A.K. Khalil)

D.) This study reports emission factors of carbon monoxide and size-resolved aerosols from combustion of wood, dung cake, and biofuel briquette in traditional and improved
stoves in India. Wood was the cleanest burning fuel, with higher emissions of CO from dung cake and particulate matter from both dung cake and briquette fuels. Combustion of dung cake, especially in an improved metal stove, resulted in extremely high pollutant emissions? Pollutant emissions increased with increasing stove thermal efficiency,
implying that thermal efficiency enhancement in the improved stoves was mainly from design features leading to increased heat transfer but not combustion efficiency.
Compared to the traditional stove, the improved stoves resulted in the lower pollutant emissions on a kW h-1 basis from wood combustion but in similar emissions from briquette and dung cake.

(Emission Factors of Carbon Monoxide and Size-Resolved Aerosols from Biofuel Combustion, C H A N D R A V E N K A T A R A M A N * A N D G . UMA M A H E S W A R A R A O)

E.) Table 6. Compilation of particulate matter emission factors for residential solid-fuel combustion.
Fuel/Technology References a EFPM (g/kg) b
Fossil fuels
Bituminous coal/
Apt. building stoker
2.0-2.4 [Beijing EPB, 1996], 6-18 [Hangebrauck et al., 1964], 1.3-
4.4 [Spitzer et al., 1998]
2.5?3.0
Bituminous coal/
Heating stove
10.4 [Butcher and Ellenbecker, 1982]; 10-22 (hot air furnace)
[Hughes and DeAngelis, 1982]; 17-79 [Jaasma and Macumber,
1982]; 0.6-65 [Sanborn, 1982]; 7.6 [Truesdale and Cleland,
1982]; 4.6?2.1 [Spitzer et al., 1998]
12?8
Bituminous coal/
Cooking
8.2 (open pit) [Mumford et al., 1987], 12?17 (clay stove) [Bond et
al., 2002], 0.13-14.5 (improved stove) [Zhang et al., 2000]
7.7?6.5
Lignite/all 2.7-6.5 [Bond et al., 2002] 4.6?4.6
Biofuels
Agricultural waste/
Domestic use
2.4-9.4 [Joshi et al., 1989], 1.7-4.0 (maize stalks) 4.7-17.8 (wheat
stalks) [Zhang et al., 2000], 0.63-4.3 (mustard stalks) and 0.8-16
(rice stalks) [Smith et al., 2000]
6.5?3.0
Animal waste/
Domestic use
4.9-5.6 [Joshi et al., 1989], 0.55-2.2 [Smith et al., 2000]; 3.9-4.9
[Venkataraman and Rao, 2001]
3.7?2.0
Charcoal/
Production
4.0?1.5 [Brocard et al., 1996]; 0.7-4.2 [Smith et al., 1999]; 8.4
[Pennise et al., 2001] (all in g/kg wood, not charcoal)
2.6?2.2
Charcoal/
Domestic use
3.9-7.5 [Oanh et al., 1999]; 2.4?0.7 [Smith et al., 2000] 4.1?4.8
Wood/
Apt. building stoker
1.0-1.7 [Spitzer et al., 1998], 1.4-3.9 (hot water boiler) [Hughes
and DeAngelis, 1982]
1.4?1.0
Wood/
Fireplace
11.8?11.6 [Houck and Tiegs, 1998]; 17.3 [EPA, AP-42]; 5-17
[Dasch, 1982]; 2.9-9.0 [McDonald et al., 2000]; 2.7-11.4 [Fine et
al., 2001]; 1.6-6.8 [Fine et al., 2002]
12?6
Wood/
Heating stove
0.66 [Truesdale and Cleland, 1982]; 1.2-3.3 [Spitzer et al., 1998];
6.1 (improved), 18.5 (conventional) [Houck and Tiegs, 1998]; 15.3
[U. S. EPA, 1996]; 1.6-6.4 [Butcher and Ellenbecker, 1982], 3.1
[Bond, 2000], 3.3-28 [Sanborn and Blanchet, 1982], 10.2-15.3
(cordwood), 2.1-4.4 (pellet stoves) [EPA AP-42], 2.3-7.2
[McDonald et al, 2000]
15?8
Wood/
Traditional cookstove
6.4-8.9 [Smith et al., 1987c], 1.9?0.7 [Joshi et al., 1989], 1.0
[Smith et al., 2000], 2.8 [Venkataraman and Rao, 2001]
3.9?3.0
Wood/
Improved cookstove
4.5 [Smith, 1987c], 2.0-2.8 [Joshi et al., 1989], 0.67-1.5 [Ballard-
Tremeer and Jawurek, 1996], 1.5-4.6 [Zhang et al., 2000], 1.2-4.0
[Smith et al., 2000], 0.9-1.2 [Venkataraman and Rao, 2001], 3.7
[Oanh et al., 2002]
2.3?0.8
Wood/
Open cooking fire
5?3 [Brocard et al., 1996], 0.8-1.1 [Ballard-Tremeer and
Jawurek, 1996], 0.94-2.0 [Smith et al., 2000], 8.5 (eucalyptus
chips) [Oanh et al., 1999]
3.8?2.1
(a) Ranges indicate multiple sources measured, while ??? indicates standard deviation of same source. (b) Under ?EFPM?,
??? indicates half-width of 95% confidence interval, not necessarily centered about the mean. See text for discussion of
other emission characteristics. (c) Citing conference proceedings by Butcher et al.

(Bond, D.G. Streets, K.F. Yarber, S.M. Nelson, J.-H. Woo, and Z. Klimont, A technology-based global inventory of black and organic carbon emissions from combustion, in press at Journal of Geophysical Research, 2004)

From santo at POCZTA.FM Sat May 8 04:50:27 2004
From: santo at POCZTA.FM (Krzysztof Lis)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Wood VS. Charcoal (was) Gas and Biomass
In-Reply-To: <000901c4348b$eb5c9bf0$1900a8c0@a31server>
Message-ID: <SAT.8.MAY.2004.105027.0200.SANTO@POCZTA.FM>

a> Somewhere within the thread of this dialog, someone pointed out
a> that the testing was done in Kg. rather than heating value. ??
a> Also, someone else sites that charcoal uses less fuel, so fewer
a> emissions.

a> Why ??

a> I thought the end result was that BOTH wood and charcoal (NOT
a> COAL) produced the same amount of emissions in the first place ????

I would even say that using charcoal in gasifier makes more emissions
than using wood. Why? To obtain one kg of charcoal you have to use
about 5 kg of wood, while it has energetic value of only 3-4 kg of
wood when used in gasifier (this data came from book dating 1950-s).
So you burn more wood if you're using charcoal than if you use raw
wood. The only difference is that part of those emissions is not made
at the point on which you gasify, but somewhere else.

--
Best regards,
Krzysztof Lis / Poland

From santo at POCZTA.FM Sat May 8 09:17:32 2004
From: santo at POCZTA.FM (Krzysztof Lis)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Gas cleaning technologies (biomass)
In-Reply-To: <20040413031137.MYUF26464.mta1-rme.xtra.co.nz@coppermine>
Message-ID: <SAT.8.MAY.2004.151732.0200.SANTO@POCZTA.FM>

K> In theory, the incandescent carbon in the throat of the gasifier
K> should be able to convert everything to clean gas, CO and H2.

What about ashes? Aren't they made of silica / silicon? It's not
possible to convert it to clean gas, unless on atomic level. ;)

--
Best regards,
Krzysztof Lis / Poland

From renertech at XTRA.CO.NZ Sat May 8 21:54:09 2004
From: renertech at XTRA.CO.NZ (Ken Calvert)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Electrostatics for aerosols.
In-Reply-To: <137.2da8d6ee.2db28fc4@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.9.MAY.2004.135409.1200.RENERTECH@XTRA.CO.NZ>

Here we go again. 8 months ago, I promised to try and find a paper on the
cleanup of woodgas with an electrostatic precipitator. I still haven't
found the article but I can see the discussion heading that way again,
especially as I hear Tom talking about cyclones not being much good for
aerosols. So, I will try and describe the basic outline.

We were alerted to the technology by a paper by Stuart Hoenig in the
early 80's.
You can find his paper in the WIRE Library or by searching Google on
"Hoenig, electrostatic precipitator". He dangled a piece of chain down the
centre of about 6ft of 6-8" metal pipe and applied a high voltage source.
When you blow smoke up or down the pipe, the cleanup is dramatic.
Our electronic guru took a 12volt auto ignition coil, and excited it
with one of those kits that were all the rage 20 years ago for souping up
your car's ignition system. By the end of the project he had built his own
energiser which pumped a rapid succession of sparks into a high voltage
capacitor, and built up something like 30,000 volts of static voltage from a
12 volt battery. The secret is to cool the gas down to just below the point
where all the smoke particles become nuclei for the moisture to condense
around and you get a fog rather than just smoke. Then I forget whether it
was the positive or the negative terminal that went on the chain, but all
the gas is whipped over to the inside surface of the pipe. If you can keep
the pipe as cool as possible then you will get the wet tarry condensate
dripping down to build up in the bottom of the pipe. It works fine for
stationary operations but if the chain swings off line there is the usual
cascade of sparks and over heated power supplies. And, if you think that
you can tie the thing down by applying some tension at the bottom you will
be frustrated by the moisture causing flashover of that bottom insulator.
And be warned you will even have problems in keeping the top insulator clean
and dry as well! I will try again to find the conference proceedings that
the paper is in, but for the meantime happy dreams and schemes. Ken C.

From tombreed at COMCAST.NET Sun May 9 08:04:13 2004
From: tombreed at COMCAST.NET (TBReed)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Understanding charcoal gasification and tar destruction
Message-ID: <SUN.9.MAY.2004.060413.0600.TOMBREED@COMCAST.NET>

Dear Krzysztof: and All:

Many of us have erroneously thought that the incandescent carbon in the
gasifier throat would be great for gas cleanup. Yes and no.

Yes, if you can keep it incandescent (above 800 C). But the reactions
between CO2 and H2O and charcoal

CO2 + C ===> 2 CO Bouduard reaction
H2O + C ==> CO + H2 Water gas reaction

are both VERY endothermic, and so quench any gas entering the bed. And they
greatly improve gas quality, so they make the final boost in MJ/m3.

At the initial temperature of the charcoal after flaming pyrolysis, > 1000 C
at high superficial velocities, the reactions are instantaneous. But they
quench the charcoal very rapidly to below 800C where the reactions become
agonizingly slow.

So, depending on the quantities of CO2 and H2O present, there is need for
extra heat input. The simplest is addition of air in the char zone, and
this is the principle of the Indian IISC (Bangalore) and the CPC downdraft
gasifiers which have raw gas tar levels below 100 ppm.

When the superficial velocity of the flaming pyrolysis zone drops below
about 0.1 cm/s, (as in our gasifier stove) the temperature of the resulting
charcoal zone drops below 800 C so there is very little further gas cleanup.
(But of course the flaming pyrolysis still drops the tars below 1000 ppm.).

There is still a lot of research required at the most basic level for
gasification to take its place as the replacement for oil, and

Time is running out

There is very little time spent on basic understanding of the fascinating
interactions of COMBUSTION, GASIFICATION and PYROLYSIS (the name of the IISc
Bangalore laboratory).

Yours truly,

Thomas Reed The Biomass Energy Foundation

----- Original Message -----
From: "Krzysztof Lis" <santo@poczta.fm>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 7:17 AM
Subject: Re: [GASL] Gas cleaning technologies (biomass)

> K> In theory, the incandescent carbon in the throat of the gasifier
> K> should be able to convert everything to clean gas, CO and H2.
>
> What about ashes? Aren't they made of silica / silicon? It's not
> possible to convert it to clean gas, unless on atomic level. ;)
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Krzysztof Lis / Poland

From cicbcal at CAL2.VSNL.NET.IN Mon May 10 02:25:46 2004
From: cicbcal at CAL2.VSNL.NET.IN (Kollol Dey)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Electrostatics for aerosols.
Message-ID: <MON.10.MAY.2004.115546.0530.CICBCAL@CAL2.VSNL.NET.IN>

Dear All,

ESP's (electrostatic precipitators) commonly known as "Detarrers" in the
coke oven gas cleaning process is nothing new. It has been in existence - I
think since the 1930's. It's a very well developed technology, and is common
item (as the name suggest) used for removing tar - present in the form of
tar fog 0.5 micron to 1.0 micron - in coke oven gas. Commercially available
detarrers are designed with 6"; 8" or even 10" collector tubes with a
central discharge electrode of SS wire construction. In some design the wire
is simple round or star shape in cross section, while there are other
designs with spikes at regular intervals etc.

The electrical discharge creates a negative field between the discharge and
the collector electrodes and the residence time required to complete gas
treatment is dependent on the dielectric characteristic of the tar, which
determines the particles migration velocity. Detarrers can be designed for
very high efficiency of tar fog removal (often present in sub micron size in
the gas).

The maximum voltage that can be applied between the electrodes without
breaking down the insulation, (that is commencement of arcing) is of course
depend on the diameter of the collector electrode diameter and the
characteristics of the gas and the liquid particles that is to be removed.
The current (power) consumed by the detarrer is dependent on the amount of
liquid that is to be removed from the gas and detarrer's removal
efficiency.

All "tar" is not the of the same quality and hence, does not have the same
electrical characteristics. So the quality of tar obtained from a high
temperature coke oven, vary considerably from tar in a gas obtained from a
coal fired producer gas. In fact, it is quite normal to see a detarrer in a
coal fired producer, being considerably larger than one to be used in a coke
oven gas when compared on specific gas volume basis and the same removal
efficiency.

I am sure tar in gas obtained from a biomass gasifier can also be
successfully removed from a well designed detarrer, based on well proven
design procedures if all the characteristics of the gas and the quality of
the tar to be separated are accurately known. Here again I would expect a
different detarrer size for an updraft gasifier as compared to a down draft
gasifier.

Since the detarrer is essentially a very capital intensive equipment, I am
of the pinion that it may not be economically viable to install one for gas
equivalent less than 2.0 ~3.0 MW(electrical). This figure is of course based
on local conditions.

Regards

Kollol Dey.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Calvert" <renertech@XTRA.CO.NZ>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 7:24 AM
Subject: Re: [GASL] Electrostatics for aerosols.

> Here we go again. 8 months ago, I promised to try and find a paper on the
> cleanup of woodgas with an electrostatic precipitator. I still haven't
> found the article but I can see the discussion heading that way again,
> especially as I hear Tom talking about cyclones not being much good for
> aerosols. So, I will try and describe the basic outline.
>
> We were alerted to the technology by a paper by Stuart Hoenig in the
> early 80's.
> You can find his paper in the WIRE Library or by searching Google on
> "Hoenig, electrostatic precipitator". He dangled a piece of chain down the
> centre of about 6ft of 6-8" metal pipe and applied a high voltage source.
> When you blow smoke up or down the pipe, the cleanup is dramatic.
> Our electronic guru took a 12volt auto ignition coil, and excited
it
> with one of those kits that were all the rage 20 years ago for souping up
> your car's ignition system. By the end of the project he had built his own
> energiser which pumped a rapid succession of sparks into a high voltage
> capacitor, and built up something like 30,000 volts of static voltage from
a
> 12 volt battery. The secret is to cool the gas down to just below the
point
> where all the smoke particles become nuclei for the moisture to condense
> around and you get a fog rather than just smoke. Then I forget whether
it
> was the positive or the negative terminal that went on the chain, but all
> the gas is whipped over to the inside surface of the pipe. If you can keep
> the pipe as cool as possible then you will get the wet tarry condensate
> dripping down to build up in the bottom of the pipe. It works fine for
> stationary operations but if the chain swings off line there is the usual
> cascade of sparks and over heated power supplies. And, if you think that
> you can tie the thing down by applying some tension at the bottom you will
> be frustrated by the moisture causing flashover of that bottom insulator.
> And be warned you will even have problems in keeping the top insulator
clean
> and dry as well! I will try again to find the conference proceedings that
> the paper is in, but for the meantime happy dreams and schemes. Ken C.

From j.andries at WBMT.TUDELFT.NL Wed May 12 04:20:50 2004
From: j.andries at WBMT.TUDELFT.NL (Jans Andries)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: who knows Italian supplier of small 25- 50 kWel gas engines?
Message-ID: <WED.12.MAY.2004.042050.0400.J.ANDRIES@WBMT.TUDELFT.NL>

Does anybody know the name of the Italian supplier of 25 - 50 kWel gas
engines which can be used for producer gas?
Thanks

From graeme at POWERLINK.CO.NZ Wed May 12 15:16:10 2004
From: graeme at POWERLINK.CO.NZ (Graeme Williams)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: who knows Italian supplier of small 25- 50 kWel gas engines?
Message-ID: <THU.13.MAY.2004.071610.1200.GRAEME@POWERLINK.CO.NZ>

Jans,
It's highly unlikely that any manufacturer of small engines is familiar with
producer gas, and you will have to ask specifically for an engine size for
your quotation. For 50kWe, you will require an engine with a cylinder volume
of 11 litres, and it should be naturally aspirated. Smaller cheap engines
are turbo charged to get the power but you don't want the trouble of
cleaning them caused by dirty gas. I know there are several companies in
Italy who specialise in low cost Gensets, but I need time to dig into stored
file for the information.Maybe others will direct you. You should also refer
to the Engine Tables located on our Fluidyne Archive
www.fluidynenz.250x.com and work out for yourself outputs from various
engines. Hope this helps.
Doug Williams,
Fluidyne Gasification.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jans Andries" <j.andries@WBMT.TUDELFT.NL>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 8:20 PM
Subject: [GASL] who knows Italian supplier of small 25- 50 kWel gas engines?

> Does anybody know the name of the Italian supplier of 25 - 50 kWel gas
> engines which can be used for producer gas?
> Thanks
>

From bpjackso at YAHOO.COM Wed May 12 19:14:32 2004
From: bpjackso at YAHOO.COM (Bruce Jackson)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Two Strokes
Message-ID: <WED.12.MAY.2004.161432.0700.BPJACKSO@YAHOO.COM>

Hi,
I asked this awhile back and didn't get much of an
answer.
Has anyone ever heard of or seen a two stroke spark
ignition engine run on producer gas?
I don't need to know what you think, I just need to
know if its been done.
The bunch of you got me thinking about finding cheap
high compression engines rather than old low
compression tractor engines. The one thing that we
have an abundance of around here is old high
compression two strokes.
For starters, I am going with an ancient Rotax with
added oil injection.
Anyhow, I'd be interested in anyone's experience with
this type of set up.
Later
Bruce

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861

From arnt at C2I.NET Thu May 13 10:53:51 2004
From: arnt at C2I.NET (Arnt Karlsen)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: Two Strokes
In-Reply-To: <20040512231432.44279.qmail@web40611.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <THU.13.MAY.2004.165351.0200.ARNT@C2I.NET>

On Wed, 12 May 2004 16:14:32 -0700, Bruce wrote in message
<20040512231432.44279.qmail@web40611.mail.yahoo.com>:

> Hi,
> I asked this awhile back and didn't get much of an
> answer.
> Has anyone ever heard of or seen a two stroke spark
> ignition engine run on producer gas?
> I don't need to know what you think, I just need to
> know if its been done.

..it was done in WWII, 'gg:"gas generator" DKW OR two-stroke '
(Google).

> The bunch of you got me thinking about finding cheap
> high compression engines rather than old low
> compression tractor engines. The one thing that we
> have an abundance of around here is old high
> compression two strokes.

..shoot for 13.5. 11, if you also wanna burn gasoline, I found
gasoline at 11.3 streched the cam chain too far, it ate thru the
chain cover ;-), YMWV.

> For starters, I am going with an ancient Rotax with
> added oil injection.

..oughtta be fine. Snow scooter engines?

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-)
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.

From AJLucero at UWYO.EDU Fri May 14 12:54:45 2004
From: AJLucero at UWYO.EDU (Andrew J. Lucero)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: High Temperature Blower or Fan
Message-ID: <FRI.14.MAY.2004.105445.0600.AJLUCERO@UWYO.EDU>

I am working on a gasification related process where I'd like to recirculate hot fuel gas at about 20 SCFM. Can anyone recommend a supplier for a blower or fan? It only need to develop several inches of water pressure. Thanks.

ANDREW
Andrew J. Lucero Ph.D.
Western Research Institute
365 N 9th St
Laramie, WY 82072-3380
ph. 307-721-2408
FAX 307-721-2233
www.westernresearch.org

From a31ford at INETLINK.CA Fri May 14 21:49:17 2004
From: a31ford at INETLINK.CA (a31ford)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:50 2004
Subject: High Temperature Blower or Fan
In-Reply-To: <51919106D7326F4D90CED6A3709E63F50188303A@POSTOFFICE.uwyo.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.14.MAY.2004.204917.0500.A31FORD@INETLINK.CA>

Hi Andrew and all,

As far as a "High-temp" blower or fan, try the fan from a pellet stove.

Another one is by using the exhaust portion of a smaller car's "Turbo" being
driven by a chain drive from an electric motor, most smaller "turbo's" are 2
sections, and can easily be separated, the one I did, had the central
"oiler" built onto the cast Iron side of the unit (I used a small fish tank
pump for the oil circulator, I simply removed the intake impeller, installed
a #10 chain sprocket and configured a bracket for the motor.

Oh, remember one thing, the unit will have to run the opposite direction
that what it was intended, as the exhaust side was NOT the pressure side of
a turbo... but boy, can It handle the heat !

Greg Manning,

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: The Gasification Discussion List
[mailto:GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]On Behalf Of Andrew J. Lucero
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 11:55 AM
To: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Subject: High Temperature Blower or Fan

I am working on a gasification related process where I'd like to recirculate
hot fuel gas at about 20 SCFM. Can anyone recommend a supplier for a blower
or fan? It only need to develop several inches of water pressure. Thanks.

ANDREW
Andrew J. Lucero Ph.D.
Western Research Institute
365 N 9th St
Laramie, WY 82072-3380
ph. 307-721-2408
FAX 307-721-2233
www.westernresearch.org

From list at SYLVA.ICUKLIVE.CO.UK Sat May 15 06:24:55 2004
From: list at SYLVA.ICUKLIVE.CO.UK (Andrew Heggie)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: High Temperature Blower or Fan
In-Reply-To: <000101c43a1e$d61affa0$1900a8c0@a31server>
Message-ID: <SAT.15.MAY.2004.112455.0100.>

On Fri, 14 May 2004 20:49:17 -0500, a31ford wrote:

>
>As far as a "High-temp" blower or fan, try the fan from a pellet stove.

The fans on our pellet stoves all operate as induced draught, after
the heat exchanger, thus they only move flue gases <200C.
>
>Another one is by using the exhaust portion of a smaller car's "Turbo" being
>driven by a chain drive from an electric motor, most smaller "turbo's" are 2
>sections, and can easily be separated, the one I did, had the central
>"oiler" built onto the cast Iron side of the unit (I used a small fish tank
>pump for the oil circulator, I simply removed the intake impeller, installed
>a #10 chain sprocket and configured a bracket for the motor.

Good one Greg, this is what I proposed for the recirculator in our
charcoal retort but it was dumped in favour of a high tech (but less
efficient) method. Do you have trouble with oil seeping from the
bearing, I am told in the car they depend on exhaust pressure to
resist the oil pressure lubricating the bearings?

AJH

From a31ford at INETLINK.CA Sat May 15 09:54:46 2004
From: a31ford at INETLINK.CA (a31ford)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: High Temperature Blower or Fan
In-Reply-To: <kurba0hbl5hltnt3brhstdbcd98in5hqpb@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.15.MAY.2004.085446.0500.A31FORD@INETLINK.CA>

Hi Andrew and all,

Andrew brings an important point up, the oil from the bearing did seep
somewhat, I replaced the original needle bearing with a micro roller bearing
(about $3.00 CDN) it contained "sealed sides" because the turbo is no longer
running in the 10's of thousands RPM area, I felt that the leaky needle
replacement was ok. The roller also seeped somewhat, but was much less than
the original bearing, I don't know if this was because the original was worn
(Turbo was used from the auto wreckers) or if that was the intended method
(to keep particles out of the bearing).

The Time period during the original bearing I was getting about 8 (4) drops
an hour, and with the roller, about 4 (2), I have doubled the numbers
because I could only see the outer drops, the ones behind the impeller I
would assume got converted to smoke in the gas stream....

Greg Manning

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: The Gasification Discussion List
[mailto:GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]On Behalf Of Andrew Heggie
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 5:25 AM
To: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Subject: Re: High Temperature Blower or Fan

On Fri, 14 May 2004 20:49:17 -0500, a31ford wrote:

>
>As far as a "High-temp" blower or fan, try the fan from a pellet stove.

The fans on our pellet stoves all operate as induced draught, after
the heat exchanger, thus they only move flue gases <200C.
>
>Another one is by using the exhaust portion of a smaller car's "Turbo"
being
>driven by a chain drive from an electric motor, most smaller "turbo's" are
2
>sections, and can easily be separated, the one I did, had the central
>"oiler" built onto the cast Iron side of the unit (I used a small fish tank
>pump for the oil circulator, I simply removed the intake impeller,
installed
>a #10 chain sprocket and configured a bracket for the motor.

AJH

From snkm at BTL.NET Sat May 15 11:11:06 2004
From: snkm at BTL.NET (Peter Singfield)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: High Temperature Blower or Fan
Message-ID: <SAT.15.MAY.2004.091106.0600.SNKM@BTL.NET>

I built only one gasifier in my life -- that around 1978. A small prototype
device.

The fuel was chunks of car tire.

Temperature of operation was extremely high -- solves the problem by using
induced draft "tempered" with lots of extra air.

That is the fan was much larger capacity than required -- but a few feet
before the fan was a regulated air passage that mixed room air with flue
gasses -- thus drastically lowering flue gas temps before they reached fan.

The small gasifier was two stage -- internally -- first a ring around
central column that was down draft -- then up draft through the central
column -- where more air was bled in for more partial combustion. The burn
area was this a ring around a central "pipe".

It worked very well indeed.

The idea was to build a larger model where entire tires would be thrown in
the ring -- the tire center fitting around the secondary gasification stack
-- but it never went beyond prototype size.

This design -- once warmed up -- caused pyrolization of tire "first" --
which released gasses (very rich butanols) and lot's of carbon dust. The
carbon dust flowed down to a grate where extra air was added for
gasification -- then this all returned up draft -- further air -- further
gasification.

Actually -- it was 3 stage -- pyrolysis -- down draft gasification --
updraft gasification.

By shutting down the second air channel over the carbon bed one could yield
much pure carbon -- lamp black quality.

The iron an fiberglass was purged easily by lifting out and shaking every
time a new charge was added.

One ended up with clean iron -- clean fiberglass.

The zinc from the wires condensed in a separate expansion chamber after the
updraft flue exit.

Then from their tempered with the right amount of air and thus this
premixed mixture ready to burn just right.

The only other solution was to use an automotive turbo charge unit at much
lower than designed rpm and run at full flue gas temperatures in that manner.

"Pushing" rather than "drawing" air through this unit never could be
accomplished for succesful operation.

I still say we have huge stockpiles of easily available energy in scrap car
tires -- and economic means of extracting such -- without causing pollution.

Peter / Belize

At 11:24 AM 5/15/2004 +0100, Andrew Heggie wrote:
>On Fri, 14 May 2004 20:49:17 -0500, a31ford wrote:
>
>>
>>As far as a "High-temp" blower or fan, try the fan from a pellet stove.
>
>The fans on our pellet stoves all operate as induced draught, after
>the heat exchanger, thus they only move flue gases <200C.
>>
>>Another one is by using the exhaust portion of a smaller car's "Turbo" being
>>driven by a chain drive from an electric motor, most smaller "turbo's" are 2
>>sections, and can easily be separated, the one I did, had the central
>>"oiler" built onto the cast Iron side of the unit (I used a small fish tank
>>pump for the oil circulator, I simply removed the intake impeller, installed
>>a #10 chain sprocket and configured a bracket for the motor.
>
>Good one Greg, this is what I proposed for the recirculator in our
>charcoal retort but it was dumped in favour of a high tech (but less
>efficient) method. Do you have trouble with oil seeping from the
>bearing, I am told in the car they depend on exhaust pressure to
>resist the oil pressure lubricating the bearings?
>
>AJH
>

From amount at CENTRAL.NTUA.GR Mon May 17 02:56:38 2004
From: amount at CENTRAL.NTUA.GR (Antonios Mountouris)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Synthesis gas engine
Message-ID: <MON.17.MAY.2004.095638.0300.AMOUNT@CENTRAL.NTUA.GR>

Hi,

I am a PhD student from Greece and I am studying the gasification of organic waste materials. In the present time, I try to find out what is the minimum requirement (in composition of synthesis gas) of a gas engine in order to efficiently used for electricity production. My fuel gas is a synthesis gas, mainly composed by hydrogen and carbon monoxide (sum of their volume percents ~20%), and I want to use a gas engine to produce electrical energy (another relevant question is what would be the electrical efficiency percent of this engine).

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

Mr. Antonios J. Mountouris,
School of Chemical Engineering
National Technical University of Athens

From scoditti at CASACCIA.ENEA.IT Mon May 17 04:18:00 2004
From: scoditti at CASACCIA.ENEA.IT (Emanuele Scoditti)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: who knows Italian supplier of small 25- 50 kWel gas engines?
Message-ID: <MON.17.MAY.2004.101800.0200.SCODITTI@CASACCIA.ENEA.IT>

The Italian supplier of small gas engine is:
TESSARI ENERGIA S.r.l

Via Venezia 69

35100 Padova - Italy -

Tel. ++49-8076233

Fax. ++49-8071618

info@tessarienergia.it

Emanuele Scoditti

From FMurrl at AOL.COM Mon May 17 09:28:53 2004
From: FMurrl at AOL.COM (FMurrl@AOL.COM)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Synthesis gas engine
Message-ID: <MON.17.MAY.2004.092853.EDT.>

In a message dated 5/17/2004 3:12:31 AM Eastern Standard Time,
amount@CENTRAL.NTUA.GR writes:
I try to find out what is the minimum requirement (in composition of
synthesis gas) of a gas engine in order to efficiently used for electricity
production.
Our best sense is that Jennbacher offers the best bet right now for low value
process gas. They seem to be able to run a generator set at a gas value of
about 300 Btu/CF; maybe lower. Others are working on this, as well, and we like
the efforts of Mann B&W in this area. Interesting days.

Regards,
Fred Murrell
Biomass Development Company
www.biomassdev.com

From a31ford at INETLINK.CA Mon May 17 20:02:40 2004
From: a31ford at INETLINK.CA (a31ford)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Synthesis gas engine
In-Reply-To: <003d01c43bdc$1a1a6d80$f2ddfea9@ANTONIS>
Message-ID: <MON.17.MAY.2004.190240.0500.A31FORD@INETLINK.CA>

Hi Antonios and all,
I'm taking an excerpt for a paper by:

Malcolm D. Lefcort, Sc.D., Engineering Manager,
Heuristic Engineering Inc., Vancouver, BC Canada V6M 3T4

<Quote starts Here:>
Gasification of Wood Waste
The combustion of wood waste always includes a stage of gasification.
Consider, for example, the
case of a fresh log placed on top of a stack of logs already burning in a
fireplace. The new log
hisses while its moisture is driven off; the heat of evaporation coming from
the already burning logs
in the fireplace. After the log has dried tongues of flame can be seen
extending upward, along the
length of the log. With time the number of tongues of flame increases.
Finally, the flames die out
and the now, fissured, black log glows red and yellow as it slowly burns
down to a grey, powdery
ash. In this fireplace example, the tongues of flame are burning forms of
producer gas. The
fissured log is made up of fixed carbon.

It so happens that typical bone dry wood is composed of between 75% and 80%
volatile matter and
20% to 25% fixed carbon. In other words, if a piece of bone dry wood is
placed in a suitably hot,
oxygen-free chamber, 75% to 80% of its mass will volatilize. It also so
happens that the fixed
carbon in the remaining 20% to 25% mass fraction contains about 50% of the
wood's initial Btu's.
Therefore, converting wood into charcoal increases the energy density by a
factor of between 2 and
2.5. This is the reason why, particularly in the third world where,
frequently, fuel must be transported
on one's back, wood is often converted into charcoal before it is delivered
to end users for cooking
or heating purposes.

Wood Waste Gasifiers

The fireplace example is a simplified explanation of a batch gasification
process. Most gasification
processes are continuous. Wood waste gasifiers are designed to ensure that
wood waste flows
continuously into the gasifier, that the wood waste is dried, that its
volatiles are pyrolyzed, that the
tarry, long chain molecules contained in the pyrolyzed volatiles are
cracked, i.e., thermally "snipped"
into short chain molecules which, when cooled, do not condense, that the
wood waste's residual
char is converted into carbon monoxide and that the mineral matter brought
in with the wood is
removed by the gasifier's built-in ash removal system. Achieving these
sequential steps becomes
increasingly more difficult as the wood waste's moisture content rises above
about 20%.
As noted, heat is required to bring about the decomposition of the wood
waste. While heat can be
added by external heaters, the majority of gasifiers generate this heat
internally by oxidizing some
of their fixed carbon with oxygen brought into the gasifier from outside. In
most cases the external
oxygen comes from air drawn from ambient by forced draft fans.
Air brings with it a significant amount of nitrogen; each pound of oxygen in
air is accompanied by
3.25 pounds of nitrogen. The nitrogen dilutes the Btu value of the producer
gas to between 120 and
200 Btu/sdcf (standard dry cubic foot). Substituting pure oxygen for air
eliminates the nitrogen and
results in a gas Btu value of between 300 and 500 Btu/sdcf. Some processes
obtain part of their
necessary oxygen by injecting steam; the steam contains oxygen cf., H2O. For
reference purposes
the Btu value of natural gas is about 1,000 Btu/sdcf. In what follows, the
oxidizing agent is outside
air.

Note: That this is an average for dry wood, if one uses a "monorator" style
upper container, the wood does NOT need to be dry, in fact, it can be
soaking wet, and will still burn with almost the same heating value. I
realize that you are referring to "Organic Waste" (wood can fall into that
category, somewhat :)

I'm currently in the process of installing two 6.0 L V-8 engines to run a
50kw 220vac Alternator on wood gas (only one engine operating at a time). as
far as I know (I could be wrong, and/or corrected) a minimum (Decent) gas
composition for I/C (Internal Combustion) Engines is the following, or
better:

(AN analysis of my gasifier's gas content, in "normal conditions", with some
calculations by Steve Goldthorpe from NZ (Thanks again Steve)).

DB % WB %
CO 13.2 10.5
CO2 17.0 13.3
CH4 2.4 1.8
H2 22.9 17.9
H2O 0.0 21.7
Balance to 100% is construed as "non-ignitable" product.

Assuming that the "non-ignitable" 34.8 % of your gas mixture is nitrogen
from your gasification air, then I calculate that your gas has a gross
calorific value of 5.55 megajoules per normal cubic meter (net CV 5.0
MJ/nm3). I calculate that it has a stoichiometric air requirement of
1.072kg air per kg whole fuel gas. I calculate that under perfect
stoichoimetric combustion conditions the theoretical maximum adiabatic flame
temperature for that gas would be 1337 centigrade.

Hope all this Helps.....

Greg Manning,

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: The Gasification Discussion List
[mailto:GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]On Behalf Of Antonios Mountouris
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 1:57 AM
To: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Subject: Synthesis gas engine

Hi,

I am a PhD student from Greece and I am studying the gasification of organic
waste materials. In the present time, I try to find out what is the minimum
requirement (in composition of synthesis gas) of a gas engine in order to
efficiently used for electricity production. My fuel gas is a synthesis gas,
mainly composed by hydrogen and carbon monoxide (sum of their volume
percents ~20%), and I want to use a gas engine to produce electrical energy
(another relevant question is what would be the electrical efficiency
percent of this engine).

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

Mr. Antonios J. Mountouris,
School of Chemical Engineering
National Technical University of Athens

From graeme at POWERLINK.CO.NZ Mon May 17 22:23:39 2004
From: graeme at POWERLINK.CO.NZ (Graeme Williams)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Synthesis gas engine
Message-ID: <TUE.18.MAY.2004.142339.1200.GRAEME@POWERLINK.CO.NZ>

Hi Antonios

I have understood your question to relate to Producer Gas which is made by
using atmospheric air, rather than synthesis gas which is made from oxygen
or steam. For a gasifier designed to convert uncarbonised fuel into a gas
appropriate for engines, the average calorific value is around 5 MJ / NM?.
This low calorific gas is capable of fuelling any spark ignition engine, but
the power output is much lower and has to be calculated accordingly. Your
second question I assume relates to the efficiency of converting fuel
through a gasifier, engine generator into electricity. This is not an easy
question to answer because of different system variables, but I have been
given a figure of 23% efficiency calculated for one of our earlier gasified
engine systems.

It is a well established fact that efficiencies are low compared to other
power generating technologies, but this is less important when you are able
to create electricity from a pile of waste.

Hope this helps

Regards

Doug Williams
Fluidyne Gasification

----- Original Message -----
From: "Antonios Mountouris" <amount@CENTRAL.NTUA.GR>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 6:56 PM
Subject: [GASL] Synthesis gas engine

Hi,

I am a PhD student from Greece and I am studying the gasification of organic
waste materials. In the present time, I try to find out what is the minimum
requirement (in composition of synthesis gas) of a gas engine in order to
efficiently used for electricity production. My fuel gas is a synthesis gas,
mainly composed by hydrogen and carbon monoxide (sum of their volume
percents ~20%), and I want to use a gas engine to produce electrical energy
(another relevant question is what would be the electrical efficiency
percent of this engine).

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

Mr. Antonios J. Mountouris,
School of Chemical Engineering
National Technical University of Athens

From graeme at POWERLINK.CO.NZ Tue May 18 03:53:42 2004
From: graeme at POWERLINK.CO.NZ (Graeme Williams)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Fluidyne Update Report.
Message-ID: <TUE.18.MAY.2004.195342.1200.GRAEME@POWERLINK.CO.NZ>

Dear Gasification Colleagues

In September 2000, Fluidyne's first large scale engine gasifier, the Mega
Class, was commissioned for testing in Canada. This test programme was of
longer duration than expected due to delays outside of their control, and
was concluded in September 2003. My Canadian associates requested that
during these early trials, that I refrain from drawing attention to their
project, and still wish to remain out of the limelight until their project
is complete. For those of us who share an interest to take gasification
passed the WW2 levels of understanding, to fulfil a role in both waste
disposal and energy production, I have been given permission to show you the
Mark 2 Mega Class and the power generation system currently under
construction in Canada. You can access the photographs on the Fluidyne
Archive www.fluidynenz.250x.com

The design for the Mark 2 Mega Class was developed with the assistance of
our associated company Innovation Technologies Ireland Ltd. (ITI) and the
fabrication completed in Winnipeg, Canada. As a prototype, this Mark 2
version has been scaled up again from one to two tonnes per hour, producing
enough gas to generate approximately 2 MWe and will be operated on a 100%
duty cycle, 7x24.

I was asked to visit Canada to supervise the first start-up of this gasifier
on the 27th April 2004 and from the point of ignition, gas was burning on
the test flare in 15 minutes. Work has now commenced to add the fuel
feeding, and gas cleaning/cooling systems, some of which I will supervise
myself during another visit in June.

The basic gasifier as shown is being used to establish the actual reality of
collecting waste heat from the casings, utilising high temperature gas heat
800>degrees C after exiting the gas making process, and researching the
limitations of established Fluidyne gas cleaning technology for engines.
The existing cyclones were fitted for the test firing to compare cyclonic
designs, but will be replaced with a Fluidyne cluster system.

The Canadian team are also developing their own engine systems optimised
for producer gas, and surprised me with a multiple engine configuration
incorporating 6 x V8 502 cubic inch engines to drive the alternator.
Primarily it is to explore the reduction of costs associated with single
large gas engines, which for the moment price themselves out of this area of
technology application.

In September 2003, I witnessed one of these engines connected to a
dynamometer fuelled from the Mark 1 Mega Class gasifier, and the outputs
exceeded by a considerable margin the calculations we previously used for
standard unmodified spark ignition engines. The multiple connection of
engines does of course introduce potential technical problems, but the need
to explore this option with all associated risks are accepted by the team.
Rather than give test figures, I will wait to give you the actual
performance under normal working conditions. Further information will be
submitted on this project as it progresses.

Closer to home here in New Zealand, on the 15th May 2004, I commissioned a
Pacific Class gasifier [No15] that has been built using contracted
fabricators for the owner of a eucalyptus forest. He has been a fan of
gasification since he first planted the trees 25 years ago, and is now
setting up the sawmill, driers, and waste wood power generating system. It
is intended to provide an example of how all these technologies can be
implemented in a sustainable manner and the facility will be available for
forestry engineering students and other study groups. You can see some
photographs of the test on the Fluidyne Archive.

Trust this of interest.

Doug Williams
Fluidyne Gasification.

From dickgallien at THEWINONAFARM.COM Tue May 18 09:34:20 2004
From: dickgallien at THEWINONAFARM.COM (Dick Gallien)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: big wood gasifier
Message-ID: <TUE.18.MAY.2004.083420.0500.>

I'm looking for suggestions. So far, everyone that I've asked, who couldn't
see a dime in it for themselves, has said I was crazy and you'll probably
agree.

I've had a "community service" compost site on my farm, for the last l2
years, open every day, from dawn until dark and operating on an honor system
(I'm an organic fanatic--also collect and feed hogs food waste). My last
650 hp tub grinding bill was over $l0,000, which didn't include the stumps/
big wood, because it is too expensive and they are afraid of hitting rocks
or steel. For the last 3 years I've dozed the trees and brush into a draw,
so have a 40' high pile, which should break down in l0 years. This would
seem best environmentally, except I'm running out of draw and most have no
such place, which is why over 90% of land cleared trees here are torched or
buried.

I have a 30'Xl0' dia. railroad tank, 1" thick and over 30,000 lbs., which I
want to stand on end and top/batch feed with my old log truck, which will be
l4' above grade, so as to be closer to the top. The purpose is to make use
of this wood, without chipping or grinding. At 72, this will be my last
obsession, especially if she blows.

These are some small thoughts/questions, from zero experience. Can/has a
gasifier using whole brush and logs worked?--haven't been able to find any
information. What would be the best base to set it on--should the base be
water sealed? If the tank is fire bricked, from a few feet deep at the
base, ending l0' up, with air added around base and run at l500 F., how
would you predict the exposed steel would react, especially with that
weight? What high temp insulation would be best? I have old fuel tanks, so
could make a jacket to hold insulation. Need sealed, insulated, removable
lid and run at negative pressure? Where in the tank and how, would you
collect the gas?--and the questions go on. Would appreciate any response.

We've collected food waste from supermarkets, including their wax boxes,
which usually go to the landfill. With our crude 8' dia. burn barrel, with
a 7' dia.cooking pot hung inside with 2 ton of food waste, we can have it
boiling in under ten minutes, (federal law) with only 50 wax boxes for fuel.
It would save the supermarkets and environment, if they baled their wax
boxes, as they do their cardboard boxes and they could be gasified.

Thanks for listening, Dick

Dick Gallien
The Winona Farm
22501 East Burns Valley Rd
Winona MN 55987
http://winfarm.home.rconnect.com/

From vanpaasen at ECN.NL Tue May 18 11:17:05 2004
From: vanpaasen at ECN.NL (Paasen, S.V.B. van)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Electrostatics for aerosols.
Message-ID: <TUE.18.MAY.2004.171705.0200.VANPAASEN@ECN.NL>

Dear Ken Calvert,

At ECN (Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands) we operate a wet
Electrostatic Precipitator (wet ESP) downstream a 500 kWth circulating
fluidized bed biomass gasifier. The wet gas cleaning downstream the gas
cooler and cyclone (@350?C) comprises of a quench scrubber, for cooling the
gas from 300-350?C to 20?C, and a wet ESP at 10 to 20?C for the removal of
fine particles and tar droplets (aerosols). The wet ESP removes the fine
dust and tar droplets very efficiently.

In December 2003 we performed a parametric study with the wet ESP. In the
parametric study we investigated the influence of the gas residence time (or
gas treatment time) and voltage on the ESP performance. The gas residence
time in the ESP was changed between 4 and 11s and the voltage between 28 and
36 kV. At 28 kV and a gas residence time of 5.4s or at 35kV and a gas
residence time of 4s, all tar droplets were removed, resulting in a product
gas that does not contain condensable tars. With other words, the tar
dewpoint equals the gas temperature (for info on tar dewpoints see
http://www.thersites.nl). Last week, the results of the parametric study
were presented on the biomass conference in Rome. The paper includes cost
data (for a 2.2 and 10 MWth scale) for conceptual cost evaluations. At the
end of next week you can download the paper from the ECN internet site:
http://www.ecn.nl/library/reports/2004/bm.html.

Very best regards,

Sander van Paasen.
ECN Biomass
+31(0)224 564879
vanpaasen@ecn.nl
http://www.ecn.nl/biomass

> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Ken Calvert [SMTP:renertech@XTRA.CO.NZ]
> Verzonden: zondag 9 mei 2004 3:54
> Aan: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
> Onderwerp: Re: [GASL] Electrostatics for aerosols.
>
> Here we go again. 8 months ago, I promised to try and find a paper on the
> cleanup of woodgas with an electrostatic precipitator. I still haven't
> found the article but I can see the discussion heading that way again,
> especially as I hear Tom talking about cyclones not being much good for
> aerosols. So, I will try and describe the basic outline.
>
> We were alerted to the technology by a paper by Stuart Hoenig in the
> early 80's.
> You can find his paper in the WIRE Library or by searching Google on
> "Hoenig, electrostatic precipitator". He dangled a piece of chain down the
> centre of about 6ft of 6-8" metal pipe and applied a high voltage source.
> When you blow smoke up or down the pipe, the cleanup is dramatic.
> Our electronic guru took a 12volt auto ignition coil, and excited
> it
> with one of those kits that were all the rage 20 years ago for souping up
> your car's ignition system. By the end of the project he had built his own
> energiser which pumped a rapid succession of sparks into a high voltage
> capacitor, and built up something like 30,000 volts of static voltage from
> a
> 12 volt battery. The secret is to cool the gas down to just below the
> point
> where all the smoke particles become nuclei for the moisture to condense
> around and you get a fog rather than just smoke. Then I forget whether
> it
> was the positive or the negative terminal that went on the chain, but all
> the gas is whipped over to the inside surface of the pipe. If you can keep
> the pipe as cool as possible then you will get the wet tarry condensate
> dripping down to build up in the bottom of the pipe. It works fine for
> stationary operations but if the chain swings off line there is the usual
> cascade of sparks and over heated power supplies. And, if you think that
> you can tie the thing down by applying some tension at the bottom you will
> be frustrated by the moisture causing flashover of that bottom insulator.
> And be warned you will even have problems in keeping the top insulator
> clean
> and dry as well! I will try again to find the conference proceedings that
> the paper is in, but for the meantime happy dreams and schemes. Ken C.

From VHarris001 at AOL.COM Wed May 19 12:08:42 2004
From: VHarris001 at AOL.COM (Vernon Harris)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: FYI: Gasification System - Solid Wastes
Message-ID: <WED.19.MAY.2004.120842.EDT.>

Gasification System Produces Fossil Fuel Replacement from Solid Wastes At
Economic Levels

Genoray Advanced Technologies Ltd. explains that the Company's Gasification
System can convert solid waste into usable gas at a cost of less than $2.50 per
million BTU, today's price for natural gas is over $6.00 per mmcf. Genoray
has developed modular gasification units which can produce up to 100 million BTU
per hour per module....

http://www.solidwaste.com/nl/91403/310078

From kchisholm at CA.INTER.NET Wed May 19 12:50:20 2004
From: kchisholm at CA.INTER.NET (Kevin Chisholm)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: FYI: Gasification System - Solid Wastes
Message-ID: <WED.19.MAY.2004.135020.0300.KCHISHOLM@CA.INTER.NET>

Dear Vernon

I went to the URL you suggested, and then to their press release at:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040517/sfm105_1.html

It doesn't really say much.

I then went to their web site at: http://www.genoray.net/

Their site doesn't tell much other than:
"This technology encompasses proprietary design, experimental information,
specialized know-how, secret formulae and data and other industrial property
rights relating to the manufacturing and operation of gasification and
combustion systems capable of using high ash and other biomass fuels
(hereinafter termed "gasifier") and has developed and demonstrated certain
machinery and apparatus in the form of such gasifiers."

I then clicked on: http://quote.stockwatch.com/sw/chart.dbm?Q:GATL

It would appear that this tells it all, wouldn't you say?

Kevin Chisholm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Vernon Harris" <VHarris001@AOL.COM>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 1:08 PM
Subject: [GASL] FYI: Gasification System - Solid Wastes

> Gasification System Produces Fossil Fuel Replacement from Solid Wastes At
> Economic Levels
>
> Genoray Advanced Technologies Ltd. explains that the Company's
Gasification
> System can convert solid waste into usable gas at a cost of less than
$2.50 per
> million BTU, today's price for natural gas is over $6.00 per mmcf. Genoray
> has developed modular gasification units which can produce up to 100
million BTU
> per hour per module....
>
> http://www.solidwaste.com/nl/91403/310078

From arnt at C2I.NET Thu May 20 11:38:46 2004
From: arnt at C2I.NET (Arnt Karlsen)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: FYI: Gasification System - Solid Wastes
In-Reply-To: <001401c43dc1$82921250$4d9a0a40@kevin>
Message-ID: <THU.20.MAY.2004.173846.0200.ARNT@C2I.NET>

On Wed, 19 May 2004 13:50:20 -0300, Kevin wrote in message
<001401c43dc1$82921250$4d9a0a40@kevin>:

> Dear Vernon
>
> I went to the URL you suggested, and then to their press release at:
> http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040517/sfm105_1.html
>
> It doesn't really say much.
>
> I then went to their web site at: http://www.genoray.net/
>
> Their site doesn't tell much other than:
> "This technology encompasses proprietary design, experimental
> information, specialized know-how, secret formulae and data and other
> industrial property rights relating to the manufacturing and operation
> of gasification and combustion systems capable of using high ash and
> other biomass fuels(hereinafter termed "gasifier") and has developed
> and demonstrated certain machinery and apparatus in the form of such
> gasifiers."
>
> I then clicked on: http://quote.stockwatch.com/sw/chart.dbm?Q:GATL
>
> It would appear that this tells it all, wouldn't you say?

..juuust what we need, another Enron or SCO type pump-n-dump:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SCOX&t=5d&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&q=SCO+Linux&scoring=d
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/May/05202004/business/168053.asp

..we gas people could use another http://groklaw.net/ or
http://yah.warmcat.com/~warmcat/stockscape/scox-2004-05.html
or http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/strikeout/ or http://twiki.iwethey.org/FUD

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-)
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.

From VHarris001 at AOL.COM Thu May 20 12:15:18 2004
From: VHarris001 at AOL.COM (Vernon Harris)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: FYI: Gasification System - Solid Wastes
Message-ID: <THU.20.MAY.2004.121518.EDT.>

In a message dated 2004-05-19 12:51:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
kchisholm@ca.inter.net writes:

> Dear Vernon
>
> I went to the URL you suggested, and then to their press release at:
> http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040517/sfm105_1.html
>
> It doesn't really say much.
>
> I then went to their web site at: http://www.genoray.net/
>
> Their site doesn't tell much other than:
> "This technology encompasses proprietary design, experimental information,
> specialized know-how, secret formulae and data and other industrial property
> rights relating to the manufacturing and operation of gasification and
> combustion systems capable of using high ash and other biomass fuels
> (hereinafter termed "gasifier") and has developed and demonstrated certain
> machinery and apparatus in the form of such gasifiers."
>
> I then clicked on: http://quote.stockwatch.com/sw/chart.dbm?Q:GATL
>
> It would appear that this tells it all, wouldn't you say?
>
> Kevin Chisholm
>

Hi Kevin,

I gave up trying to keep abreast of solid waste gasification technology
several years ago when I decided it wasn't going to work for my particular
application. Although I very much like the idea of two-stage combustion to help
minimize the release of nasty stuff into the gas stream, it seems the best solution
for MSW off-gas remains direct combustion for CHP.

Still, when I see articles in the literature, I usually post the URL here, on
the assumption that others might be interested.

I'm glad there are plenty of listers with a discriminating eye and a strong
sense of skepticism about both the technologies and the companies proposing
them.

Thanks for your research on this one.

Best wishes,

Vernon Harris

From tombreed at COMCAST.NET Sun May 23 08:44:19 2004
From: tombreed at COMCAST.NET (TBReed)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Charcoal burning to CO2
Message-ID: <SUN.23.MAY.2004.064419.0600.TOMBREED@COMCAST.NET>

Dear Alex, ADK, Das, Tom Miles and All :

As a chemist and thermodynamicist, I ponder things I don't have time to
investigate. Consider the following:

Alex is correct that a major product of air passing through an incandescent
(T>700C) bed of hot charcoal is CO, the reactions being

1) 2 C (in excess) + O2 ==> 2CO 28 kcal/mole produced
2) C + O2 ===> CO2 96 kcal/mole produced

At temperatures over 900 C (yellow to white heat), reaction 1 dominates.
Below 700 C, 2) dominates. If you wish to know the exact equilibrium ratios
of CO/CO2, it is necessary to calculate it from the free energies and
equilibrium constants from 700 to 900.

If there is a source of more oxygen above the charcoal bed and temperature
can be kept above 700 C, the CO will continue to burn to CO2 and one can
typically see beautiful blue flames above a bed of hot char. But excess air
above also can quench the flames, resulting in a house full of CO and dead
people.

~~~~~~~~~
The reaction temperature for 1) with air is about 1200 C. (A blacksmith's
forge approximates this...) The temperature for 2) with air would be about
2100C, except that in the presence of excess carbon 1) would dominate.

So reaction 1) is great for gasification and the CO can then be used to
power cars etc.
~~~~~~
I speculate that if one passed a mixture of air and sufficient recycled
combustion products through a bed of charcoal, one would have a much lower
reaction temperature that would favor reaction 2) and still produce heat in
the neighborhood of 500-700 C with very low CO content , sufficient for most
purposes. It would be easy enough to aspirate the exhaust gases into the
intake air in a controlled manner with an ejector.

With all the discussion of making charcoal from junk biomass here at the
web, someone should investigate this as a method of producing safe heat for
drying etc.

Yours truly,

TOM REED THE BEF STOVEWORKS

----- Original Message -----
From: <english@kingston.net>
To: <STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 4:54 AM
Subject: Re: [STOVES] Gas and Biomass

> Dear Paul and A.D.
> I don't think you need to do anything special to generate lots of CO
> from charcoal. My informal testing showed higher CO/CO2 from thiner
> beds, including single layers, of burning charcoal.
>
> Where the Sarai Cooker likely shines from a CO emissions point of
> view is it total per task, grams/meal.
>
> I guess we need to see the more data.
>
> Alex
>
> > AD Karve has answered part of my question in a different message:
> >
> > He wrote:
> > ... the stove [Sarai Cooker] is so designed that it
> > would accept just a single layer of briquettes. In this way, the hot
flue
> > gases do not pass through a bed of uncombusted coal to generate carbon
> > monoxide.
> >
> > Makes sense: If there is no provision for the combustion of the CO,
then
> > the thick layers of char (intended to gasify to get the CO) can be
> > detrimental.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > ******** old message is below ************
> >
> > At 11:58 PM 5/13/04 +0100, Andrew Heggie wrote:
> > snip
> > >OK I suggest you are citing the special case when the fire bed is not
> > >deep enough to generate CO, in your case because you meter in the
> > >fuel.
> >
> > What is a sufficient or desirable depth of the char / and/or fire bed?
> >
> > In the IDD (Tom Reed version = TLUD = top lit up draft) gasifiers, the
char
> > accumulates during the pyrolysis process, and then after pyrolysis the
char
> > is consumed (or can be removed). So the TLUD gasifiers can make the
depth
> > needed.
> >
> > But what is the minimal depth before the advantages of char depth stop?
> >
> > Concerning burning of coal in steam locomotives, I have heard that the
> > depth should be 15 times the average diameter of the fuel chunks? But
if
> > the fuel is of long sticks vertical in a gasifier, then the air flow
might
> > become increasingly easy (less resistance) as the fuel sticks shrink in
size.
> >
> > Regarding charcoal, I visualize a Weber cooker with a single layer of
> > charcoal. Is that the "low temp" way for the total heat, as opposed to
> > stacking the charcoal and getting more TOTAL heat??
> >
> > Paul
> > Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D., Fulbright Prof. to Mozambique 8/99 - 7/00
> > Rotary University Teacher Grantee to Mozambique >10 mo of 2001-2003
> > Dept of Geography - Geology (Box 4400), Illinois State University
> > Normal, IL 61790-4400 Voice: 309-438-7360; FAX: 309-438-5310
> > E-mail: psanders@ilstu.edu - Internet items: www.ilstu.edu/~psanders
> >

From arnt at C2I.NET Sun May 23 12:14:39 2004
From: arnt at C2I.NET (Arnt Karlsen)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Charcoal burning to CO2
In-Reply-To: <00bf01c440c3$aa76cf90$6401a8c0@TOM>
Message-ID: <SUN.23.MAY.2004.181439.0200.ARNT@C2I.NET>

On Sun, 23 May 2004 06:44:19 -0600, TBReed wrote in message
<00bf01c440c3$aa76cf90$6401a8c0@TOM>:

> Dear Alex, ADK, Das, Tom Miles and All :
>
> As a chemist and thermodynamicist, I ponder things I don't have time
> to investigate. Consider the following:
>
> Alex is correct that a major product of air passing through an
> incandescent(T>700C) bed of hot charcoal is CO, the reactions being
>
> 1) 2 C (in excess) + O2 ==> 2CO 28 kcal/mole produced
> 2) C + O2 ===> CO2 96 kcal/mole produced

..http://fmb.no/gas/likevekt.jpg for an idea, shoot for 1050
degrees Celsius where you exit your reduction zone.

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-)
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.

From Gavin at AA3GENERGI.FORCE9.CO.UK Sun May 23 15:28:26 2004
From: Gavin at AA3GENERGI.FORCE9.CO.UK (Gavin Gulliver-Goodall)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Charcoal burning to CO2
In-Reply-To: <00bf01c440c3$aa76cf90$6401a8c0@TOM>
Message-ID: <SUN.23.MAY.2004.202826.0100.GAVIN@AA3GENERGI.FORCE9.CO.UK>

Tom,
On a commercial scale for Hydronic heating of large buildings there is
already a patented combustor doing exactly that. See www.koeb-schaefer.com

As well as many FGR burners particularly in the fluidised bed technology.

Don't know how to make it small, cheap and controllable for producing a
cooking stove though?!
Gavin
Gavin Gulliver-Goodall
3G Energi,

-----Original Message-----
From: The Gasification Discussion List
[mailto:GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]On Behalf Of TBReed
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 13:44
To: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Subject: [GASL] Charcoal burning to CO2

Dear Alex, ADK, Das, Tom Miles and All :

As a chemist and thermodynamicist, I ponder things I don't have time to
investigate. Consider the following:

Alex is correct that a major product of air passing through an incandescent
(T>700C) bed of hot charcoal is CO, the reactions being

1) 2 C (in excess) + O2 ==> 2CO 28 kcal/mole produced
2) C + O2 ===> CO2 96 kcal/mole produced

With all the discussion of making charcoal from junk biomass here at the
web, someone should investigate this as a method of producing safe heat for
drying etc.

Yours truly,

TOM REED THE BEF STOVEWORKS

----- Original Message -----
From: <english@kingston.net>
To: <STOVES@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 4:54 AM
Subject: Re: [STOVES] Gas and Biomass

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 07:20:03 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: The Perfect Diesel Engine to Gas Conversion - Smartplugs
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.072003.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Has anyone seen these before? I was thinking that it would be a wonderful
solution for coupling a gasifier to an engine. We all know that diesels
are more efficient than spark ignited engines, and that is because the
compression ratio is higher. Most gasifier setups using diesels use the
"dual fuel" configuration, which was not desirable for me anyway, as some
diesel is always consumed.

I came across these: http://www.smartplugs.com/indexi.html

Let me know what you think. It will allow easy conversion of a diesel to
spark WITHOUT changing the compression ratio. The Otto cycle is also more
efficient than the diesel cycle when given the same compression ratio (up
to 5% more). So a diesel of 35% efficient with the same compression ratio
and "smartplug" ignition should get near 40% efficiency, very cheaply, and
much more economical than standard spark ignition and dual fuel.

P.S. This is my first posting to the gasification mailing list! Hey
everybody! :)

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 08:18:18 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Flexible Gas hoses?
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.081818.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Hello everyone, I am contemplating building my own gasifier and I am just
doing an inventory on the materials that I will need. One thing I have
noticed on some gasifiers are these flexible hoses which connect the
cooled and filtered gas to the intake manifold. They look something like
vaccuum cleaner hoses, ribbed, they almost look plastic! It looks like it
would really help prevent gas leaks due to vibration. Does anyone know
what these are or where the gasifier manufacturers get them from?

I don't want to get the wrong materials and have something go wrong like
the hoses melting! lol

Oh also, I am having trouble finding out how to govern a diesel converted
to spark ignition. The gas composition would probably change, so the
air-fuel mixture must be changed on the fly to keep a constant rpm. I have
heard of using cruise control kits, but the details are a little too vague
to be of use. I am looking for very cheap, simple solutions that could fit
the budget of a student! (next to nothing!! lol)

thanks!

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 09:09:44 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Flexible Gas hoses?
In-Reply-To: <002801c4470a$eceebb10$1900a8c0@a31server>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.090944.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Now THAT is a lot simpler than I thought! Thanks!
I am sure I will have a lot more questions when the time comes that I put
this thing together.

You're using two chevy 350's for your chp system? That sounds pretty big!
You must be doing what I am thinking of: sending power to the grid??

How many kw's does that baby put out? I was thinking of using Chinese
diesel engines for my system as they are cheap, rugged, and efficient.
However, your system sounds much less expensive (while maybe having a
slightly lower electrical efficiency)

How do those chevy engines hold up under continued load? I was under the
impression that automotive engines just couldn't hack it in the long run
when it came to those kinds of applications. I am thinking of building a
system which will run nearly 24/7, so that is why I wanted to use the
"heavy iron" diesels.

Thanks for the info! That sure was fast!

On Mon, 31 May 2004 07:29:31 -0500, a31ford <a31ford@inetlink.ca> wrote:

> Hi Matthew,
>
> In my findings, rubber hose is much better at handling heat, than
> plastic, I
> simply used "Rad" hose to make the intake connections to my pair of Chevy
> 350's that are on my stationary CHP system.
>
> best wishes,
>
> Greg Manning,
>
> Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
>
--

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 05:38:26 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: The Perfect Diesel Engine to Gas Conversion - Smartplugs
In-Reply-To: <opr8u23p1n6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.043826.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

After looking at the site, I'm a bit mystified as to how these are supposed
to work with diesels. If you replace the injectors with these smartplugs, how
does the fuel get into the cylinder? Obviously, if you are converting the engine
to run on producer gas, this isn't a problem, but he claims you can simply put
in these plugs and run on diesel fuel, with "no machining". I sure wish they
gave more actual info on how these work and also which specific engines they are
available for.
The site also claims that you don't need any distributor, etc., so how is
ignition timing enacted? Simply by compression? Even with a diesel (compression
ignition) the actual timing is variable and determined by the settings of the
pump (or computer in newer engines).
I don't know -- I'm thinking I smell a bit of snake oil here. I recall a guy
at the EAA airshow trying to drum up investment in his spark plug replacements
that converted water to H2O and O2 and let you run on pure water. 8-)

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 07:20:03AM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> Has anyone seen these before? I was thinking that it would be a wonderful
> solution for coupling a gasifier to an engine. We all know that diesels
> are more efficient than spark ignited engines, and that is because the
> compression ratio is higher. Most gasifier setups using diesels use the
> "dual fuel" configuration, which was not desirable for me anyway, as some
> diesel is always consumed.
>
> I came across these: http://www.smartplugs.com/indexi.html
>
> Let me know what you think. It will allow easy conversion of a diesel to
> spark WITHOUT changing the compression ratio. The Otto cycle is also more
> efficient than the diesel cycle when given the same compression ratio (up
> to 5% more). So a diesel of 35% efficient with the same compression ratio
> and "smartplug" ignition should get near 40% efficiency, very cheaply, and
> much more economical than standard spark ignition and dual fuel.
>
> P.S. This is my first posting to the gasification mailing list! Hey
> everybody! :)

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 11:07:41 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: LARGE Lister style engines
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.110741.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Hey everyone. I've noticed that some of you have been recommending listers
for this type of small scale power using a gasifier. I was actually
looking at that before I got into gasification for the use of waste
cooking oil. Most of these listers are in the 6-20 horsepower range. Now
small scale home power is all fine and good, but I am thinking MUCH, MUCH
bigger for my purposes. I know of a large supply of free biomass in my
area (thousands and thousands of tonnes) available, delivered, for free.
So I want to make some money obviously! :)

I've been looking at Chinese diesel engines. They are available from very
small sizes, down to very large sizes up to 1 Megawatt. They are heavy,
cast iron, slow speed engines. The 500kw is 500rpm!!

I like the lister clones, however. What we need to find are listers that
are manufactured in larger sizes, like 50-100 hp. I could have sworn that
I saw some on an indian manufacturers site, but that was a long time ago
and I have long lost the links!! Somebody has to find it again! I am
looking! :)

Has anyone seen one of these? They would be incredibly useful.
Now for 200kw plus, you can't beat the chinese, honestly.

http://www.extremesamoa.com/500kw_diesel.htm

I am just drooling over this baby. Unless I can find something even better!

By the way, I have seen that some of you seem to be jaded about this
gasification thing, like it's dead?!? or dying?? I've only recently
learned about it, but my impression is more that it is ONLY JUST
BEGINNING!

Maybe it will not recplace fossil fuels entirely, but the few people who
have knowledge about this sort of thing are sitting on something very
valuable. With some courage and ingenuity, things can really be turned
around on a local level! Forget global, it has to start in YOUR local
area! Especially when it comes to waste management, can you not see the
potential?

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 11:27:03 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: The Perfect Diesel Engine to Gas Conversion - Smartplugs
In-Reply-To: <20040531093826.GB2419@cybershamanix.com>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.112703.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Hmmm, that is one point that I was thinking of. If you replace the
injectors, obviously you could not inject diesel fuel, ethanol, or any
other liquid fuel. I would be interested in what their answer to that
would be.

I think they instead put it where the glow plug in a diesel engine would
normally fit. For a spark ignition engine, they replace the spark plugs.
So you are not necessarily always replacing the injectors.

Now now, don't be TOO skeptical here. I would hardly compare it to a "free
energy" device! lol. It uses a heated element coated with a catalyst to
ignite the fuel, and works kind of like a cross between a glow plug and a
pre-combustion chamber. The smartplugs are custom designed for the
particular engine you are installing it in. They need to know the specs of
the engine, that way they can adjust the size of the plugs, which
determines the timing.

The plugs are heated electrically at first like a standard glow plug, but
once the engine is heated up, it is heated by the compression of the
engine and the catalyst allows combustion to occur at lower temperatures
than would normally be needed to autoignite the fuel.

So there seems to be nothing suspicious or "magical" about it to me. It's
simply a glowplug, enhanced with a catalyst. I would have to contact them
further and maybe test it out myself and get back to you guys.

On Mon, 31 May 2004 04:38:26 -0500, Harmon Seaver
<hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:

> After looking at the site, I'm a bit mystified as to how these are
> supposed
> to work with diesels. If you replace the injectors with these
> smartplugs, how
> does the fuel get into the cylinder? Obviously, if you are converting
> the engine
> to run on producer gas, this isn't a problem, but he claims you can
> simply put
> in these plugs and run on diesel fuel, with "no machining". I sure wish
> they
> gave more actual info on how these work and also which specific engines
> they are
> available for.
> The site also claims that you don't need any distributor, etc., so
> how is
> ignition timing enacted? Simply by compression? Even with a diesel
> (compression
> ignition) the actual timing is variable and determined by the settings
> of the
> pump (or computer in newer engines).
> I don't know -- I'm thinking I smell a bit of snake oil here. I
> recall a guy
> at the EAA airshow trying to drum up investment in his spark plug
> replacements
> that converted water to H2O and O2 and let you run on pure water. 8-)
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 07:20:03AM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>> Has anyone seen these before? I was thinking that it would be a
>> wonderful
>> solution for coupling a gasifier to an engine. We all know that diesels
>> are more efficient than spark ignited engines, and that is because the
>> compression ratio is higher. Most gasifier setups using diesels use the
>> "dual fuel" configuration, which was not desirable for me anyway, as
>> some
>> diesel is always consumed.
>>
>> I came across these: http://www.smartplugs.com/indexi.html
>>
>> Let me know what you think. It will allow easy conversion of a diesel to
>> spark WITHOUT changing the compression ratio. The Otto cycle is also
>> more
>> efficient than the diesel cycle when given the same compression ratio
>> (up
>> to 5% more). So a diesel of 35% efficient with the same compression
>> ratio
>> and "smartplug" ignition should get near 40% efficiency, very cheaply,
>> and
>> much more economical than standard spark ignition and dual fuel.
>>
>> P.S. This is my first posting to the gasification mailing list! Hey
>> everybody! :)
>
> --
> Harmon Seaver
> CyberShamanix
> http://www.cybershamanix.com
> Hoka hey!

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 11:36:13 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Smartplug - timing
In-Reply-To: <opr8vejdvo6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.113613.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

In answer of your question of how the timing is achieved, I found the
answer! Pretty much all of your questions are answered in the FAQ on their
page. Not very specific, but they have the basics down.

Q: How do you control the timing of a SmartPlug?
As an engine speeds up and slows down the timing of when ignition takes
places must also change. If not, the fuel may ignite too soon causing
pinging (that awful noise you hear under your hood). This is very hard on
the engine. If the fuel ignites too late, you lose power. This is very
inefficient. For engines that run at a constant RPM, a specific SmartPlug
is built for optimum performance at whatever the given RPM is. For engines
that have variable timing, the SmartPlug system is equipped with a
electronic circuit to change the timing. This device is called a timing
controller.

Seems legit enough. We shall see. It would definitely be of significant
value!

RTFM!! haha :)

http://www.smartplugs.com/faq.htm

>
> --
>
> Matthew Pottinger
>
> Student
> Environmental Technology Program
> Durham College
> Ontario, Canada
>
> "Never underestimate people's
> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
> economically feasible."

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From kchisholm at CA.INTER.NET Mon May 31 11:54:12 2004
From: kchisholm at CA.INTER.NET (Kevin Chisholm)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: The Perfect Diesel Engine to Gas Conversion - Smartplugs
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.125412.0300.KCHISHOLM@CA.INTER.NET>

Dear Harmon

I think your "snake oil radar" probably registered a legitimate hit. ;-)

Firstly, their page "Grants" is cleverly worded "
Grants Recognizing the SmartPlug Technology!

If these "Granting Agencies" found that the technology worked, then it would
be reasonable to assume that Smartplugs would have the results plastered all
over the place. There are no test results reported at the site. It suggests
that the Smartplug People are adept at getting Grants.Somebody should ask
Smartplug for a copy of the Final Report and test results from the test
programs where they got Grants.

At : http://www.smartplugs.com/fuels/aqueousfuels.htm
they make the following claims:

* 90%+ Reduction in All Emissions (w/ near zero NOx)
* 50% Gain in Thermal Efficiency
* 30% Cooler Temperatures
* 20 % Gain in Horsepower
* No Catalytic Converter Necessary
* Capable of 17:1 compression ratios with no detonation
* Better Fuel Efficiency
* Better Power Density
* Better Torque

For one thing, a claim that they get a "50% gain in thermal efficiency"
implies that under similar conditions, a spark ignition system results in
combustion of only 66% of the fuel. Then they say "30% cooler temperature"
and "20% gain in horsepower". This doesn't hang together.

Most "advanced" ignition systems claim "hotter spark", "hotter ignition",
etc. It is very difficult to see how they can get higher efficiencies with
lower temperatures.

It strikes me that they have a connection to Simplot, who make aqueous
ethanol fuel, such as Peter Singfield was suggesting. There might be a
chance of these systems acting as an effective igniter for a specific engine
run at constant speed and constant load, if the ignitor was designed
specifically for that engine under those conditions.

However, there are areas of concern here: if the "plug cylinder was loaded
with fuel vapor, and it fired once, how would it become recharged with fuel
vapor to fire a second time? Even if the compression stroke could accomplish
this, why is there any reason to believe that the flame resulting from
catalytic combustion inside a tiny combustion chamber, with lots of wall
area to rob heat, could give ignition which was superior to a flame front
from a spark plug ignited fuel?

Note that they also have an "Investor Information" page....

I think your concerns are well grounded.

Kevin Chisholm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harmon Seaver" <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 6:38 AM
Subject: Re: [GASL] The Perfect Diesel Engine to Gas Conversion - Smartplugs

> After looking at the site, I'm a bit mystified as to how these are
supposed
> to work with diesels. If you replace the injectors with these smartplugs,
how
> does the fuel get into the cylinder? Obviously, if you are converting the
engine
> to run on producer gas, this isn't a problem, but he claims you can simply
put
> in these plugs and run on diesel fuel, with "no machining". I sure wish
they
> gave more actual info on how these work and also which specific engines
they are
> available for.
> The site also claims that you don't need any distributor, etc., so how
is
> ignition timing enacted? Simply by compression? Even with a diesel
(compression
> ignition) the actual timing is variable and determined by the settings of
the
> pump (or computer in newer engines).
> I don't know -- I'm thinking I smell a bit of snake oil here. I recall
a guy
> at the EAA airshow trying to drum up investment in his spark plug
replacements
> that converted water to H2O and O2 and let you run on pure water. 8-)
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 07:20:03AM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> > Has anyone seen these before? I was thinking that it would be a
wonderful
> > solution for coupling a gasifier to an engine. We all know that diesels
> > are more efficient than spark ignited engines, and that is because the
> > compression ratio is higher. Most gasifier setups using diesels use the
> > "dual fuel" configuration, which was not desirable for me anyway, as
some
> > diesel is always consumed.
> >
> > I came across these: http://www.smartplugs.com/indexi.html
> >
> > Let me know what you think. It will allow easy conversion of a diesel to
> > spark WITHOUT changing the compression ratio. The Otto cycle is also
more
> > efficient than the diesel cycle when given the same compression ratio
(up
> > to 5% more). So a diesel of 35% efficient with the same compression
ratio
> > and "smartplug" ignition should get near 40% efficiency, very cheaply,
and
> > much more economical than standard spark ignition and dual fuel.
> >
> > P.S. This is my first posting to the gasification mailing list! Hey
> > everybody! :)
>
> --
> Harmon Seaver
> CyberShamanix
> http://www.cybershamanix.com
> Hoka hey!

From psanders at ILSTU.EDU Mon May 31 12:29:51 2004
From: psanders at ILSTU.EDU (Paul S. Anderson)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re: [GASL]
LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vdm3mh6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.112951.0500.PSANDERS@ILSTU.EDU>

Matthew,

Your dreams and enthusiasm are highly welcome.

Much prior discussion has related to the tars in the gases. Keep studying
that.

For ALL on the Gasifier list:

I lack your understanding of the engines, but please clarify a question for me:

When speaking of Lister engines and other IC engines, can ANY of them
tolerate the tars and impurities? And if so, what is needed to combust
TAR-laden gases in such an engine?

I am thinking that if the gases are kept HOT (higher than the condensation
point of the tars), then that might work. (If so, then a different problem
is How to keep the temperature of those gases above the condensation point,
but we can work on that separately.)

I know we say that it is best to destroy the tars in the gasifiers rather
than try to remove them later. But I am asking if we can avoid removing
the tars (or some amount of tars) and STILL use the gases in an internal
combustion engine of ANY type, large or small.

Paul

At 11:07 AM 5/31/04 -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>Hey everyone. I've noticed that some of you have been recommending listers
>for this type of small scale power using a gasifier. I was actually
>looking at that before I got into gasification for the use of waste
>cooking oil. Most of these listers are in the 6-20 horsepower range. Now
>small scale home power is all fine and good, but I am thinking MUCH, MUCH
>bigger for my purposes. I know of a large supply of free biomass in my
>area (thousands and thousands of tonnes) available, delivered, for free.
>So I want to make some money obviously! :)
>
>I've been looking at Chinese diesel engines. They are available from very
>small sizes, down to very large sizes up to 1 Megawatt. They are heavy,
>cast iron, slow speed engines. The 500kw is 500rpm!!
>
>I like the lister clones, however. What we need to find are listers that
>are manufactured in larger sizes, like 50-100 hp. I could have sworn that
>I saw some on an indian manufacturers site, but that was a long time ago
>and I have long lost the links!! Somebody has to find it again! I am
>looking! :)
>
>Has anyone seen one of these? They would be incredibly useful.
>Now for 200kw plus, you can't beat the chinese, honestly.
>
>http://www.extremesamoa.com/500kw_diesel.htm
>
>I am just drooling over this baby. Unless I can find something even better!
>
>
>By the way, I have seen that some of you seem to be jaded about this
>gasification thing, like it's dead?!? or dying?? I've only recently
>learned about it, but my impression is more that it is ONLY JUST
>BEGINNING!
>
>Maybe it will not recplace fossil fuels entirely, but the few people who
>have knowledge about this sort of thing are sitting on something very
>valuable. With some courage and ingenuity, things can really be turned
>around on a local level! Forget global, it has to start in YOUR local
>area! Especially when it comes to waste management, can you not see the
>potential?
>
>
>
>Matthew Pottinger
>
>Student
>Environmental Technology Program
>Durham College
>Ontario, Canada
>
>"Never underestimate people's
>ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
>"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
>but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."

Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D.
Dept of Geography - Geology (Box 4400), Illinois State University
Normal, IL 61790-4400 Voice: 309-438-7360; FAX: 309-438-5310
E-mail: psanders@ilstu.edu - Internet items: www.ilstu.edu/~psanders
NOTE: Retired from teaching. Active in Stoves development.
For fastest contact, please call home phone: 309-452-7072

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 12:46:37 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: The Perfect Diesel Engine to Gas Conversion - Smartplugs
In-Reply-To: <007a01c4472b$385f6c00$2d9a0a40@kevin>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.124637.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Interesting. It looks like you are better than I at detecting the inflated
claims of these devices. A sobering reminder that there are far too many
frauds on the internet. I would say that this one doesn't fit the typical
profile of some _really_ ridiculous energy devices, but I can see that
your skepticism is well founded.

It appears the only solution then for me would be a dual fuel setup. That
is no problem. I was mainly concerned with the use of fossil fuels, but
biodiesel or SVO could be substitutes as the pilot fuel. That is more than
acceptable! Oh well! Some things are too good to be true I guess!

Thanks!

On Mon, 31 May 2004 12:54:12 -0300, Kevin Chisholm
<kchisholm@ca.inter.net> wrote:

> Dear Harmon
>
> I think your "snake oil radar" probably registered a legitimate hit. ;-)
>
> Firstly, their page "Grants" is cleverly worded "
> Grants Recognizing the SmartPlug Technology!
>
> If these "Granting Agencies" found that the technology worked, then it
> would
> be reasonable to assume that Smartplugs would have the results plastered
> all
> over the place. There are no test results reported at the site. It
> suggests
> that the Smartplug People are adept at getting Grants.Somebody should ask
> Smartplug for a copy of the Final Report and test results from the test
> programs where they got Grants.
>
> At : http://www.smartplugs.com/fuels/aqueousfuels.htm
> they make the following claims:
>
> * 90%+ Reduction in All Emissions (w/ near zero NOx)
> * 50% Gain in Thermal Efficiency
> * 30% Cooler Temperatures
> * 20 % Gain in Horsepower
> * No Catalytic Converter Necessary
> * Capable of 17:1 compression ratios with no detonation
> * Better Fuel Efficiency
> * Better Power Density
> * Better Torque
>
> For one thing, a claim that they get a "50% gain in thermal efficiency"
> implies that under similar conditions, a spark ignition system results in
> combustion of only 66% of the fuel. Then they say "30% cooler
> temperature"
> and "20% gain in horsepower". This doesn't hang together.
>
> Most "advanced" ignition systems claim "hotter spark", "hotter ignition",
> etc. It is very difficult to see how they can get higher efficiencies
> with
> lower temperatures.
>
> It strikes me that they have a connection to Simplot, who make aqueous
> ethanol fuel, such as Peter Singfield was suggesting. There might be a
> chance of these systems acting as an effective igniter for a specific
> engine
> run at constant speed and constant load, if the ignitor was designed
> specifically for that engine under those conditions.
>
> However, there are areas of concern here: if the "plug cylinder was
> loaded
> with fuel vapor, and it fired once, how would it become recharged with
> fuel
> vapor to fire a second time? Even if the compression stroke could
> accomplish
> this, why is there any reason to believe that the flame resulting from
> catalytic combustion inside a tiny combustion chamber, with lots of wall
> area to rob heat, could give ignition which was superior to a flame front
> from a spark plug ignited fuel?
>
> Note that they also have an "Investor Information" page....
>
> I think your concerns are well grounded.
>
> Kevin Chisholm
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Harmon Seaver" <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>
> To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
> Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 6:38 AM
> Subject: Re: [GASL] The Perfect Diesel Engine to Gas Conversion -
> Smartplugs
>
>
>> After looking at the site, I'm a bit mystified as to how these are
> supposed
>> to work with diesels. If you replace the injectors with these
>> smartplugs,
> how
>> does the fuel get into the cylinder? Obviously, if you are converting
>> the
> engine
>> to run on producer gas, this isn't a problem, but he claims you can
>> simply
> put
>> in these plugs and run on diesel fuel, with "no machining". I sure wish
> they
>> gave more actual info on how these work and also which specific engines
> they are
>> available for.
>> The site also claims that you don't need any distributor, etc., so
>> how
> is
>> ignition timing enacted? Simply by compression? Even with a diesel
> (compression
>> ignition) the actual timing is variable and determined by the settings
>> of
> the
>> pump (or computer in newer engines).
>> I don't know -- I'm thinking I smell a bit of snake oil here. I
>> recall
> a guy
>> at the EAA airshow trying to drum up investment in his spark plug
> replacements
>> that converted water to H2O and O2 and let you run on pure water. 8-)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 07:20:03AM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>> > Has anyone seen these before? I was thinking that it would be a
> wonderful
>> > solution for coupling a gasifier to an engine. We all know that
>> diesels
>> > are more efficient than spark ignited engines, and that is because the
>> > compression ratio is higher. Most gasifier setups using diesels use
>> the
>> > "dual fuel" configuration, which was not desirable for me anyway, as
> some
>> > diesel is always consumed.
>> >
>> > I came across these: http://www.smartplugs.com/indexi.html
>> >
>> > Let me know what you think. It will allow easy conversion of a diesel
>> to
>> > spark WITHOUT changing the compression ratio. The Otto cycle is also
> more
>> > efficient than the diesel cycle when given the same compression ratio
> (up
>> > to 5% more). So a diesel of 35% efficient with the same compression
> ratio
>> > and "smartplug" ignition should get near 40% efficiency, very cheaply,
> and
>> > much more economical than standard spark ignition and dual fuel.
>> >
>> > P.S. This is my first posting to the gasification mailing list! Hey
>> > everybody! :)
>>
>> --
>> Harmon Seaver
>> CyberShamanix
>> http://www.cybershamanix.com
>> Hoka hey!

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From snkm at BTL.NET Mon May 31 12:51:28 2004
From: snkm at BTL.NET (Peter Singfield)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Smartplug - timing
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.105128.0600.SNKM@BTL.NET>

Dear Matt;

As I am looking to use "strong-Rum" as my survival fuel here in Belize I
found the information at:

http://www.smartplugs.com/fuels/aqueousfuels.htm

Very interesting indeed!!

Pure ethanol is a difficult "chemical" to produce -- strong rum is easy.

Water and alcohol mixtures are extremely hard to ignite -- yet this company
says no problemo.

Water an alcohol mixtures can be used at standard diesel compression
rations for very high efficiency. but normally one has to dual fuel -- a
little diesel -- for ignition.

Using this "SmartPlug" -- apparently -- no problems directly igniting.

One need just add a properly modified (bored out main jet) to the intake --
and the fat lady sings.

I have a 6 HP -- 650 RPM -- old style -- new -- Lister "clone" sitting
ready to experiment with.

Your right about the heavy metal Chinese diesels -- low RPM -- etc.

Thanks for this ignition info.

Only problem is they have none forr sale at present!! But it certainly
points to a possible option.

Peter / Belize

At 11:36 AM 5/31/2004 -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>In answer of your question of how the timing is achieved, I found the
>answer! Pretty much all of your questions are answered in the FAQ on their
>page. Not very specific, but they have the basics down.
>
>Q: How do you control the timing of a SmartPlug?
>As an engine speeds up and slows down the timing of when ignition takes
>places must also change. If not, the fuel may ignite too soon causing
>pinging (that awful noise you hear under your hood). This is very hard on
>the engine. If the fuel ignites too late, you lose power. This is very
>inefficient. For engines that run at a constant RPM, a specific SmartPlug
>is built for optimum performance at whatever the given RPM is. For engines
>that have variable timing, the SmartPlug system is equipped with a
>electronic circuit to change the timing. This device is called a timing
>controller.
>
>Seems legit enough. We shall see. It would definitely be of significant
>value!
>
>RTFM!! haha :)
>
>http://www.smartplugs.com/faq.htm
>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Matthew Pottinger
>>
>> Student
>> Environmental Technology Program
>> Durham College
>> Ontario, Canada
>>
>> "Never underestimate people's
>> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>>
>> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
>> economically feasible."
>
>
>
>--
>
>Matthew Pottinger
>
>Student
>Environmental Technology Program
>Durham College
>Ontario, Canada
>
>"Never underestimate people's
>ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
>"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
>economically feasible."
>

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 07:52:30 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:51 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20040531111756.02633160@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.065230.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 11:29:51AM -0500, Paul S. Anderson wrote:
> Matthew,
>
> Your dreams and enthusiasm are highly welcome.
>
> Much prior discussion has related to the tars in the gases. Keep studying
> that.
>
> For ALL on the Gasifier list:
>
> I lack your understanding of the engines, but please clarify a question for
> me:
>
> When speaking of Lister engines and other IC engines, can ANY of them
> tolerate the tars and impurities? And if so, what is needed to combust
> TAR-laden gases in such an engine?
>
> I am thinking that if the gases are kept HOT (higher than the condensation
> point of the tars), then that might work. (If so, then a different problem
> is How to keep the temperature of those gases above the condensation point,
> but we can work on that separately.)

The problem with that is you lose a lot of power if you don't cool the gases
to enable more actual gas to be packed into the cylinder.

>
> I know we say that it is best to destroy the tars in the gasifiers rather
> than try to remove them later. But I am asking if we can avoid removing
> the tars (or some amount of tars) and STILL use the gases in an internal
> combustion engine of ANY type, large or small.
>

I think it's as Tom Reed has said many times -- don't create the tars in the
first place, design the gasifier to run at a high enough temp and tars won't be
a problem. Otherwise, you have to filter. And you have to filter anyway, or
you'll quickly ruin the engine with very abrasive fly ash, and those filters
will clog rather quickly if you're producing a lot of tar, right?
I'm wondering if adding refractory insulation all around the inside of the
gasifier, and then more insulation on the outside, wouldn't help keep temps high
enough. But in looking at a number of small gasifier (not the stove
type) designs, I don't see anyone doing that. Why not?

> Paul
>
> At 11:07 AM 5/31/04 -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> >Hey everyone. I've noticed that some of you have been recommending listers
> >for this type of small scale power using a gasifier. I was actually
> >looking at that before I got into gasification for the use of waste
> >cooking oil. Most of these listers are in the 6-20 horsepower range. Now
> >small scale home power is all fine and good, but I am thinking MUCH, MUCH
> >bigger for my purposes. I know of a large supply of free biomass in my
> >area (thousands and thousands of tonnes) available, delivered, for free.
> >So I want to make some money obviously! :)
> >
> >I've been looking at Chinese diesel engines. They are available from very
> >small sizes, down to very large sizes up to 1 Megawatt. They are heavy,
> >cast iron, slow speed engines. The 500kw is 500rpm!!
> >
> >I like the lister clones, however. What we need to find are listers that
> >are manufactured in larger sizes, like 50-100 hp. I could have sworn that
> >I saw some on an indian manufacturers site, but that was a long time ago
> >and I have long lost the links!! Somebody has to find it again! I am
> >looking! :)
> >
> >Has anyone seen one of these? They would be incredibly useful.
> >Now for 200kw plus, you can't beat the chinese, honestly.
> >
> >http://www.extremesamoa.com/500kw_diesel.htm
> >
> >I am just drooling over this baby. Unless I can find something even better!
> >
> >
> >By the way, I have seen that some of you seem to be jaded about this
> >gasification thing, like it's dead?!? or dying?? I've only recently
> >learned about it, but my impression is more that it is ONLY JUST
> >BEGINNING!
> >
> >Maybe it will not recplace fossil fuels entirely, but the few people who
> >have knowledge about this sort of thing are sitting on something very
> >valuable. With some courage and ingenuity, things can really be turned
> >around on a local level! Forget global, it has to start in YOUR local
> >area! Especially when it comes to waste management, can you not see the
> >potential?
> >
> >
> >
> >Matthew Pottinger
> >
> >Student
> >Environmental Technology Program
> >Durham College
> >Ontario, Canada
> >
> >"Never underestimate people's
> >ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
> >
> >"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
> >but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."
>
> Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D.
> Dept of Geography - Geology (Box 4400), Illinois State University
> Normal, IL 61790-4400 Voice: 309-438-7360; FAX: 309-438-5310
> E-mail: psanders@ilstu.edu - Internet items: www.ilstu.edu/~psanders
> NOTE: Retired from teaching. Active in Stoves development.
> For fastest contact, please call home phone: 309-452-7072

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From oscar at GEPROP.CU Mon May 31 12:59:43 2004
From: oscar at GEPROP.CU (oscar)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20040531111756.02633160@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.185943.0200.OSCAR@GEPROP.CU>

..... whenever we start talking about TARS and their destroying results when
entering in ANY engine, the only smart answer is to completely eliminate
TARS either breaking them down in the reactor or washing them off before
getting the engine itself...no doubt on that...!!!

kind regards.

Oscar.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: The Gasification Discussion List
[mailto:GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG]En nombre de Paul S. Anderson
Enviado el: lunes, 31 de mayo de 2004 18:30
Para: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Asunto: [GASL] Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines

Matthew,

Your dreams and enthusiasm are highly welcome.

Much prior discussion has related to the tars in the gases. Keep studying
that.

For ALL on the Gasifier list:

I lack your understanding of the engines, but please clarify a question for
me:

When speaking of Lister engines and other IC engines, can ANY of them
tolerate the tars and impurities? And if so, what is needed to combust
TAR-laden gases in such an engine?

Paul

From kchisholm at CA.INTER.NET Mon May 31 13:03:39 2004
From: kchisholm at CA.INTER.NET (Kevin Chisholm)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.140339.0300.KCHISHOLM@CA.INTER.NET>

Dear Paul

Visitor to England: "Why do you put the plumbing on the outside of the
house?"
Englishman: "It is easier to repair when it freezes."

Visitor to Japanese Steel Plant: "How do you manage to do such a good job of
cleaning slag spills off the floor?"
Japanese Steelman: "We don't spill it on the floor in the first place."

Paul, I would suggest that the fundamentally best way to proceed is to
design a tar free gasifier, or if this is not an optimal solution, then look
at finding ways to "live with the tar."

Many thousands of experimenters have tried to burn tarry gas, and there
don't seem to be many engines now running on tarry gas. This strongly
suggests that tarry gas is not the way to go.

That make sense?

Kevin Chisholm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul S. Anderson" <psanders@ILSTU.EDU>
To: <GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 1:29 PM
Subject: [GASL] Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re: [GASL]
LARGE Lister style engines

> Matthew,
>
> Your dreams and enthusiasm are highly welcome.
>
> Much prior discussion has related to the tars in the gases. Keep studying
> that.
>
> For ALL on the Gasifier list:
>
> I lack your understanding of the engines, but please clarify a question
for me:
>
> When speaking of Lister engines and other IC engines, can ANY of them
> tolerate the tars and impurities? And if so, what is needed to combust
> TAR-laden gases in such an engine?
>
> I am thinking that if the gases are kept HOT (higher than the condensation
> point of the tars), then that might work. (If so, then a different
problem
> is How to keep the temperature of those gases above the condensation
point,
> but we can work on that separately.)
>
> I know we say that it is best to destroy the tars in the gasifiers rather
> than try to remove them later. But I am asking if we can avoid removing
> the tars (or some amount of tars) and STILL use the gases in an internal
> combustion engine of ANY type, large or small.
>
> Paul
>
> At 11:07 AM 5/31/04 -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> >Hey everyone. I've noticed that some of you have been recommending
listers
> >for this type of small scale power using a gasifier. I was actually
> >looking at that before I got into gasification for the use of waste
> >cooking oil. Most of these listers are in the 6-20 horsepower range. Now
> >small scale home power is all fine and good, but I am thinking MUCH, MUCH
> >bigger for my purposes. I know of a large supply of free biomass in my
> >area (thousands and thousands of tonnes) available, delivered, for free.
> >So I want to make some money obviously! :)
> >
> >I've been looking at Chinese diesel engines. They are available from very
> >small sizes, down to very large sizes up to 1 Megawatt. They are heavy,
> >cast iron, slow speed engines. The 500kw is 500rpm!!
> >
> >I like the lister clones, however. What we need to find are listers that
> >are manufactured in larger sizes, like 50-100 hp. I could have sworn that
> >I saw some on an indian manufacturers site, but that was a long time ago
> >and I have long lost the links!! Somebody has to find it again! I am
> >looking! :)
> >
> >Has anyone seen one of these? They would be incredibly useful.
> >Now for 200kw plus, you can't beat the chinese, honestly.
> >
> >http://www.extremesamoa.com/500kw_diesel.htm
> >
> >I am just drooling over this baby. Unless I can find something even
better!
> >
> >
> >By the way, I have seen that some of you seem to be jaded about this
> >gasification thing, like it's dead?!? or dying?? I've only recently
> >learned about it, but my impression is more that it is ONLY JUST
> >BEGINNING!
> >
> >Maybe it will not recplace fossil fuels entirely, but the few people who
> >have knowledge about this sort of thing are sitting on something very
> >valuable. With some courage and ingenuity, things can really be turned
> >around on a local level! Forget global, it has to start in YOUR local
> >area! Especially when it comes to waste management, can you not see the
> >potential?
> >
> >
> >
> >Matthew Pottinger
> >
> >Student
> >Environmental Technology Program
> >Durham College
> >Ontario, Canada
> >
> >"Never underestimate people's
> >ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
> >
> >"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
> >but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."
>
> Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D.
> Dept of Geography - Geology (Box 4400), Illinois State University
> Normal, IL 61790-4400 Voice: 309-438-7360; FAX: 309-438-5310
> E-mail: psanders@ilstu.edu - Internet items: www.ilstu.edu/~psanders
> NOTE: Retired from teaching. Active in Stoves development.
> For fastest contact, please call home phone: 309-452-7072

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 13:19:23 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product
In-Reply-To: <20040531115230.GA4384@cybershamanix.com>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.131923.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Has anyone tried Ed Burton's "horse dung" filter method?

http://www.clean-air.org/Ed%20Burton%20Story/wood_chips_to_bio.htm

it seems like one of the problems people are having is that scrubbing the
tars with water is possible, but produces a toxic wastewater problem, the
more water you use, the more tars you remove, bigger the problem.

Now how about using these "waste products" and producing a viable
fertilizer by-product?

I have been fascinated by the current work going on with carbon
sequestration through pyrolysis. The idea is that char takes a long time
to break down in the soil and also can make a great soil amendment.
Biomass energy therefore becomes not only carbon neutral, but also has the
added benefit of increasing crop yields AND fixing carbon in the soil for
hundreds, if not thousands of years.

I simply love the idea, as many waste products such as sewage, manure, and
paper sludge are spread on farmers fields for their nutrient value. Why
not extract the energy value of this material though PARTIAL gasification,
producing a fair amount of char, use the char as fertilizer instead of the
entire biomass.

I do not see tars as a useless waste, nor do I see them as a fuel. Tars
contain valuable ammonia do they not? Should there not be a way to recover
this nitrogen from the biomass instead of wasting it?

I have seen a few approaches out there, but Ed Burton's "horse manure
filter", bionox, seems like a nice low tech solution for recovering this
nutrient value, putting it where it belongs, instead of in the gas, or
simply cracking it.

What do you think? I really think it is a better way of approaching it in
many situations. We do not want gasification to conflict with the
interests of nutrient recovery.

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 14:00:39 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Tar solution)
In-Reply-To: <opr8vlj1t86c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.140039.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

------- Forwarded message -------
From: Matthew Pottinger <mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca>
To: Matthew Pottinger <mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca>
Subject: Re: Fertilizer as a by-product
Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 13:58:39 -0400

>
> Have any of you seen this?
>
> http://www.eprida.com/
>
>
> this is the type of concept I am speaking of. It may not be applicable
> in all situations, depending on the biomass feedstock as some places
> might not have a need for fertilizer nearby, but I see this _carbon
> negative_ type of energy system to be extremely appealing.
>
> Now their process is patented, but the basic idea can be broadly applied
> in many different ways. The basic idea is that while using biomass for
> energy, you make sure that you preserve as much of the nutrient value as
> possible, and also convert some of the biomass into a form which will
> not break down quickly, thus sequestering the carbon and taking it out
> of the atmosphere instead of simply being carbon neutral, you are carbon
> negative.
>
> Eprida actually produces ammonia from the hydrogen in the syngas, but I
> however feel that this is unnecessary as there is already ammonia in
> many biomass feedstocks, and there are also ways of fixing nitrogen from
> the NOx produced during power generation. I find their use of ammonia
> synthesis to be a little too capital intensive, but I really like the
> overall concept.
>
>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 14:21:42 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <OHELLACBBAAHKPJOPJABIECDCAAA.oscar@geprop.cu>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.142142.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

I agree. I am more in favor of washing them off instead of breaking them
down. I do not see how this is a problem other than the waste water
problem. This is where I will concentrate on. If the gas is washed
vigorously enough, I do not see tars as being the problem. The problem is
what to do with it after it is washed. I suggest making it into something
useful, more specifically, fertilizer, using micro-organisms to break down
the waste.

Apparently horse manure contains such organisms! I wish to see for myself!

On Mon, 31 May 2004 18:59:43 +0200, oscar <oscar@GEPROP.CU> wrote:

> ..... whenever we start talking about TARS and their destroying results
> when
> entering in ANY engine, the only smart answer is to completely eliminate
> TARS either breaking them down in the reactor or washing them off before
> getting the engine itself...no doubt on that...!!!
>
>
> kind regards.
>
> Oscar.
>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 14:54:14 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Tar solution)
In-Reply-To: <opr8vlndxn6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.145414.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Bio-oil (also known as tar), has already been known to be of use as a slow
release fertilizer.

Bio-oil from flash pyrolysis, which I am assuming to be similar if not
identical to tar from gasification can be stabilized either microbially,
or by adding ammonia. Tar reacts with ammonia to produce a cocktail of
non-toxic compounds suitable for use as a slow release fertilizer.

Now, what I am not sure about is if diluted tar from gas-washing
applications would be _too_ diluted for this application. I suspect that
it should not prevent it from being possible.

http://www.btgworld.com/technologies/bio-oil-applications.html

So listers, can simply quenching with lots of cold water and using simple
bed filters like sand, sawdust, and manure be sufficient to remove the
tars, maybe even using really cold water, like ice water. I have no
practical experience but this seems to be really simple to me, assuming
that the tars can now become a value added by-product stream, with much
reduced or zero disposal costs if there is a market for this fertilizer.

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From santo at POCZTA.FM Mon May 31 15:22:05 2004
From: santo at POCZTA.FM (Krzysztof Lis)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vmmgf16c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.212205.0200.SANTO@POCZTA.FM>

M> I agree. I am more in favor of washing them off instead of breaking
M> them down. I do not see how this is a problem other than the waste
M> water problem. This is where I will concentrate on. If the gas is
M> washed vigorously enough, I do not see tars as being the problem.
M> The problem is what to do with it after it is washed. I suggest
M> making it into something useful, more specifically, fertilizer,
M> using micro-organisms to break down the waste.

I think that washing off tars might create another problem (if my idea
of washing off is proper). You would introduce some amounts of water
vapor into the gas, which you'd have to remove later. This way of
cleaning gas means also that it has lower temperature, so it is
possible, that no additional cooler will be necessary. But if so, how
to remove the vapor from gas introduced into engine? Water vapor is
not combustible, so I think of it as of gas pollutant ('cause it redu-
ces heating values) and because of that I think that it should be re-
moved. Other aspects of vapor in gas (as increased corrosion) are pro-
bably less important, since may be cured with different techniques.

--
Best regards,
Krzysztof Lis / Poland
also student :)

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 15:34:05 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <747551931.20040531212205@poczta.fm>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.153405.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

This is where I think it might actually be a better solution: water vapor
will reduce nitrous oxide emissions!

as long as corrosion is not an issue, it is well known that introducing
water vapour on the intake of an engine can help reduce NOx emissions,
with only a small reduction in efficiency, so in this case, it can be a
good thing.

Water injection has been used since WWII. It is used today in some large
wartsila engines to lower emissions. If you do a search you will find that
there are many references to this. It is also used with gas turbines, also
steam injection is often used to improve the efficiency of gas turbines.

So, I think there is a possibility that it will not only clean the gas
very cheaply, but reduce emissions also. Some spark ignited engines have
problems with moisture, however, dual fuel diesels are a different story
and may benefit from this, if corrosion is not a problem.

On Mon, 31 May 2004 21:22:05 +0200, Krzysztof Lis <santo@poczta.fm> wrote:

> M> I agree. I am more in favor of washing them off instead of breaking
> M> them down. I do not see how this is a problem other than the waste
> M> water problem. This is where I will concentrate on. If the gas is
> M> washed vigorously enough, I do not see tars as being the problem.
> M> The problem is what to do with it after it is washed. I suggest
> M> making it into something useful, more specifically, fertilizer,
> M> using micro-organisms to break down the waste.
>
> I think that washing off tars might create another problem (if my idea
> of washing off is proper). You would introduce some amounts of water
> vapor into the gas, which you'd have to remove later. This way of
> cleaning gas means also that it has lower temperature, so it is
> possible, that no additional cooler will be necessary. But if so, how
> to remove the vapor from gas introduced into engine? Water vapor is
> not combustible, so I think of it as of gas pollutant ('cause it redu-
> ces heating values) and because of that I think that it should be re-
> moved. Other aspects of vapor in gas (as increased corrosion) are pro-
> bably less important, since may be cured with different techniques.
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Krzysztof Lis / Poland
> also student :)

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From santo at POCZTA.FM Mon May 31 15:50:48 2004
From: santo at POCZTA.FM (Krzysztof Lis)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vpy3fm6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.215048.0200.SANTO@POCZTA.FM>

M> Water injection has been used since WWII. It is used today in some
M> large wartsila engines to lower emissions. If you do a search you
M> will find that there are many references to this. It is also used
M> with gas turbines, also steam injection is often used to improve
M> the efficiency of gas turbines.

Not exactly... HAT (Humid Air Turbines) work normally without water
injection, because 'dry air' has better efficiency than gas / vapor
mixture. But addition of water to combustion chamber allows for great
increase of power going out from the machine, so it is used on war-
ships when really needed (e.g. trying to escape a chasing torpedo).

Introducing water to IC engines running on gasoline will help avoiding
knocking (tested very recently (less than week ago) on small (650 ccm
/ 24HP) engine with high compression ratio by a guy I know), but kno-
cking is not a problem when thinking about producer / wood gas.

--
Best regards,
Krzysztof Lis / Poland

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 16:00:01 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Smartplug - timing
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.160001.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Dear Peter

You have one of those listers?!?! I am envious of you! :) I just drool
over those things! Ah, one day I will scrounge up the money to purchase
one, but not for some time.

It seems a lot of people are doubtful about the legitimacy of this
smartplug device. It seemed promising at first, but I will admit that
there is far too much fraud and "crack pot" inventions out there. The
concept is so appealing that I bought into it. I still do not write it off
as a total fraud yet, however, if it is, dual fuel is an ok option. I was
mostly concerned with having to use diesel because of it, but waste
cooking oil is abundant here so I am not worried about that! :) Hmmm if
you can use an ethanol water mixture with diesel as a pilot fuel for that,
I am thinking of maybe using a vegetable oil/water emulsion as a pilot
fuel for producer gas!

Current dual fuels achieve 10-20% pilot fuel useage correct?

Maybe mixing with water will allow less to be used? Only use _just_ enough
to get ignition. A 50/50 water emulsion has been known to work I think,
and it should especially work with the presence of the gas. Reduce pilot
consumption to 5% or less is what I'm thinking! The added water would
reduce emissions further also!

We shall see! Smartplugs or no smartplugs! :) We're moving forward!

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 16:08:04 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vridfm6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.160804.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

------- Forwarded message -------
From: Matthew Pottinger <mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca>
To: Krzysztof Lis <santo@poczta.fm>
Subject: Re: [GASL] Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases??
Re: [GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 16:07:15 -0400

>
> Hmmm, well I'm not so much thinking about efficiency though, because I
> am sure the efficiency drop in say, a diesel would not be too
> significant, but as long as the presence of the water does not cause a
> problem otherwise, it should be ok to leave it in, with no need to
> remove the water after gas cleaning. This would greatly simplify things,
> and what I am hoping (almost sure) is that it should also reduce NOx
> emissions by slightly lowering the temperature. With this in mind I see
> a simple solution to the tar problem. However, there are people here who
> are much more experienced than I, so I am not sure what the major issues
> with this would be. The only problem I can see is the wastewater, which
> I have offered a cheap solution, other than that, I don't see any
> difficulties!
>
> The only way to know is to test! Right now I have few resources though!
> :)
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 21:50:48 +0200, Krzysztof Lis <santo@poczta.fm>
> wrote:
>
>> M> Water injection has been used since WWII. It is used today in some
>> M> large wartsila engines to lower emissions. If you do a search you
>> M> will find that there are many references to this. It is also used
>> M> with gas turbines, also steam injection is often used to improve
>> M> the efficiency of gas turbines.
>>
>> Not exactly... HAT (Humid Air Turbines) work normally without water
>> injection, because 'dry air' has better efficiency than gas / vapor
>> mixture. But addition of water to combustion chamber allows for great
>> increase of power going out from the machine, so it is used on war-
>> ships when really needed (e.g. trying to escape a chasing torpedo).
>>
>> Introducing water to IC engines running on gasoline will help avoiding
>> knocking (tested very recently (less than week ago) on small (650 ccm
>> / 24HP) engine with high compression ratio by a guy I know), but kno-
>> cking is not a problem when thinking about producer / wood gas.
>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>> Krzysztof Lis / Poland
>
>
>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 16:31:22 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vsglcd6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.163122.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

On Mon, 31 May 2004 16:27:47 -0400, Matthew Pottinger
<mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca> wrote:

>
> Hmm, well I looked up humid air turbines and what it says is that
> efficiency is actually ~3% higher due to cooling of the air flow into
> the turbine, so I am not sure if you are correct there.
>
> Here is the reference:
>
> Converting the heat in a GT exhaust into steam and then converting steam
> into electric power through a conventional steam cycle involves losses
> and inefficiencies which reduce the overall cycle efficiency. One
> feature of a GT is that it already has a turbine creating mechanical
> power from a flowing gas stream, and this power output can be increased
> (within limits) by increasing the mass flow of gas. In the case of an
> IGCC (IGCC) the fuel gas can be cooled by saturating it with steam,
> created by injecting water which evaporates as it cools the gas. This
> increases the mass flow of gas through the GT's turbine. This effect
> can be taken further by injecting steam from the waste heat boiler into
> the GT upstream or in the combustion chamber. Such cycles are known as
> Humid Air Cycles. This different conversion route can produce a rise in
> efficiency of about 3% points compared to a standard IGCC plant,
> depending on the precise cycle parameters. Needs for development are
> still great: there are no commercially available GT's suited to this
> application.
>
> So the water itself does not improve the efficiency, but the COOLING
> does. I think the cooling effect of the water is more important than
> anything else. The gas cleaning stage using water spray will cool the
> gas and allow a higher mass of producer gas into the engine, thus
> increasing power output.
>
> If the gas is cool enough it should not hold too much water, and I am
> not sure of how it will affect efficiency, but I am hoping not too much!
>
> I am really in favour of simpler, low tech solutions rather than high
> tech solutions! This is what we need in this day and age to make these
> technologies accessible to everyone.
>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 21:50:48 +0200, Krzysztof Lis <santo@poczta.fm>
> wrote:
>
>> M> Water injection has been used since WWII. It is used today in some
>> M> large wartsila engines to lower emissions. If you do a search you
>> M> will find that there are many references to this. It is also used
>> M> with gas turbines, also steam injection is often used to improve
>> M> the efficiency of gas turbines.
>>
>> Not exactly... HAT (Humid Air Turbines) work normally without water
>> injection, because 'dry air' has better efficiency than gas / vapor
>> mixture. But addition of water to combustion chamber allows for great
>> increase of power going out from the machine, so it is used on war-
>> ships when really needed (e.g. trying to escape a chasing torpedo).
>>
>> Introducing water to IC engines running on gasoline will help avoiding
>> knocking (tested very recently (less than week ago) on small (650 ccm
>> / 24HP) engine with high compression ratio by a guy I know), but kno-
>> cking is not a problem when thinking about producer / wood gas.
>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>> Krzysztof Lis / Poland
>
>
>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 11:45:17 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product
In-Reply-To: <opr8vjqlbz6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.104517.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 01:19:23PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> Has anyone tried Ed Burton's "horse dung" filter method?
>
> http://www.clean-air.org/Ed%20Burton%20Story/wood_chips_to_bio.htm
>
> it seems like one of the problems people are having is that scrubbing the
> tars with water is possible, but produces a toxic wastewater problem, the
> more water you use, the more tars you remove, bigger the problem.
>
> Now how about using these "waste products" and producing a viable
> fertilizer by-product?

You might want to take a closer look at what these "waste products" consist
of -- this is extremely toxic stuff, don't know how you can make fertilzer out
of it. Remember that gasifiers provided all the gas lights and gas cooking
ranges with fuel back around the turn of the century for most american cities --
and there are still some extremely toxic waste places needing cleaning up from
way back then.
Why not just do it right and don't make the tars in the first place?

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 16:56:52 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <20040531154517.GA4430@cybershamanix.com>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.165652.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Yeah there are some pretty toxic compounds in the raw tars, that I know,
phenols, benzene, ammonia, etc. I've read it all.

You see using it in that form as fertilizer is not what I am suggesting. I
am not suggesting simply "dumping" the toxic compounds themselves straight
into the soil. I am no expert, but apparently these compounds are also
highly unstable and reactive. If you read on bio-oil, which is comprised
of the same nasty stuff, they have done experiments where they added
ammonia to it, and this tar reacts with it to produce stable amines, a
non-toxic slow release fertilizer.

Now also look at the link I posted, this guy is using the microbes in
horse manure to break down these compounds. Microbes are some amazing
creatures aren't they? :) Certain organisms can break this stuff down.

So no, you misunderstood what I was saying. I mean to *convert* this stuff
first! It's not like it's lead that you can't break down, these are
organic molecules.

On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:45:17 -0500, Harmon Seaver
<hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:

> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 01:19:23PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>> Has anyone tried Ed Burton's "horse dung" filter method?
>>
>> http://www.clean-air.org/Ed%20Burton%20Story/wood_chips_to_bio.htm
>>
>> it seems like one of the problems people are having is that scrubbing
>> the
>> tars with water is possible, but produces a toxic wastewater problem,
>> the
>> more water you use, the more tars you remove, bigger the problem.
>>
>> Now how about using these "waste products" and producing a viable
>> fertilizer by-product?
>
> You might want to take a closer look at what these "waste products"
> consist
> of -- this is extremely toxic stuff, don't know how you can make
> fertilzer out
> of it. Remember that gasifiers provided all the gas lights and gas
> cooking
> ranges with fuel back around the turn of the century for most american
> cities --
> and there are still some extremely toxic waste places needing cleaning
> up from
> way back then.
> Why not just do it right and don't make the tars in the first place?
>
>
> --
> Harmon Seaver
> CyberShamanix
> http://www.cybershamanix.com
> Hoka hey!

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 17:03:36 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vsglcd6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.170336.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Also, take a look at this link:
http://www.wartsila.com/english/pdf/en_direct_water_inj.pdf

water injection is not only used for temporarily boosting power
it is also being adopted for emissions controls
in these applications, water is used continuously.

So this is the reason why I think water would not be a problem. It is
widely used it to reduce NOx.

On Mon, 31 May 2004 16:27:47 -0400, Matthew Pottinger
<mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca> wrote:

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 12:13:55 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <opr8vts2uh6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.111355.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

Sure, okay, but -- once again, why not just do it right in the first place
and not have the tar problem to begin with? You get a much better, much more
powerful gas that way, and one of the major problems with running engines on
producer gas is that you get so little power out of it.

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 04:56:52PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> Yeah there are some pretty toxic compounds in the raw tars, that I know,
> phenols, benzene, ammonia, etc. I've read it all.
>
> You see using it in that form as fertilizer is not what I am suggesting. I
> am not suggesting simply "dumping" the toxic compounds themselves straight
> into the soil. I am no expert, but apparently these compounds are also
> highly unstable and reactive. If you read on bio-oil, which is comprised
> of the same nasty stuff, they have done experiments where they added
> ammonia to it, and this tar reacts with it to produce stable amines, a
> non-toxic slow release fertilizer.
>
> Now also look at the link I posted, this guy is using the microbes in
> horse manure to break down these compounds. Microbes are some amazing
> creatures aren't they? :) Certain organisms can break this stuff down.
>
> So no, you misunderstood what I was saying. I mean to *convert* this stuff
> first! It's not like it's lead that you can't break down, these are
> organic molecules.
>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:45:17 -0500, Harmon Seaver
> <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:
>
> >On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 01:19:23PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> >>Has anyone tried Ed Burton's "horse dung" filter method?
> >>
> >>http://www.clean-air.org/Ed%20Burton%20Story/wood_chips_to_bio.htm
> >>
> >>it seems like one of the problems people are having is that scrubbing
> >>the
> >>tars with water is possible, but produces a toxic wastewater problem,
> >>the
> >>more water you use, the more tars you remove, bigger the problem.
> >>
> >>Now how about using these "waste products" and producing a viable
> >>fertilizer by-product?
> >
> > You might want to take a closer look at what these "waste products"
> >consist
> >of -- this is extremely toxic stuff, don't know how you can make
> >fertilzer out
> >of it. Remember that gasifiers provided all the gas lights and gas
> >cooking
> >ranges with fuel back around the turn of the century for most american
> >cities --
> >and there are still some extremely toxic waste places needing cleaning
> >up from
> >way back then.
> > Why not just do it right and don't make the tars in the first place?
> >
> >
> >--
> >Harmon Seaver
> >CyberShamanix
> >http://www.cybershamanix.com
> >Hoka hey!
>
>
>
> --
>
> Matthew Pottinger
>
> Student
> Environmental Technology Program
> Durham College
> Ontario, Canada
>
> "Never underestimate people's
> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
> economically feasible."

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 12:24:11 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vt4al66c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.112411.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 05:03:36PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> Also, take a look at this link:
> http://www.wartsila.com/english/pdf/en_direct_water_inj.pdf
>
> water injection is not only used for temporarily boosting power
> it is also being adopted for emissions controls
> in these applications, water is used continuously.
>
> So this is the reason why I think water would not be a problem. It is
> widely used it to reduce NOx.

Have you looked at what kind of power you get from producer gas? You
definitely don't want to do anything that will make it worse. I'd really like to
put a gasifier on my '91 Toyota 4x4 pickup, for example. But with the power I've
got right now from my 2.4L 4cyl gasoline engine, I can cruise at 75mph, but not
much more, and can't even make 50mph up some of the big hills on my way to work
without dropping down to 3rd gear. So if I only got 50% of my rated power, which
is about what I can expect with a gasifier, my already one hour drive to work
would be so horribly slow I'm not sure it's worth it. OTOH, since I know gas
prices are going to keep going up, and probably rather rapidly as world
situations continue to deteriorate, I'm not sure I have a choice.

>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 16:27:47 -0400, Matthew Pottinger
> <mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca> wrote:
>
> >
> >Hmm, well I looked up humid air turbines and what it says is that
> >efficiency is actually ~3% higher due to cooling of the air flow into
> >the turbine, so I am not sure if you are correct there.
> >
> >Here is the reference:
> >
> >Converting the heat in a GT exhaust into steam and then converting steam
> >into electric power through a conventional steam cycle involves losses
> >and inefficiencies which reduce the overall cycle efficiency. One
> >feature of a GT is that it already has a turbine creating mechanical
> >power from a flowing gas stream, and this power output can be increased
> >(within limits) by increasing the mass flow of gas. In the case of an
> >IGCC (IGCC) the fuel gas can be cooled by saturating it with steam,
> >created by injecting water which evaporates as it cools the gas. This
> >increases the mass flow of gas through the GT's turbine. This effect
> >can be taken further by injecting steam from the waste heat boiler into
> >the GT upstream or in the combustion chamber. Such cycles are known as
> >Humid Air Cycles. This different conversion route can produce a rise in
> >efficiency of about 3% points compared to a standard IGCC plant,
> >depending on the precise cycle parameters. Needs for development are
> >still great: there are no commercially available GT's suited to this
> >application.
> >
> >So the water itself does not improve the efficiency, but the COOLING
> >does. I think the cooling effect of the water is more important than
> >anything else. The gas cleaning stage using water spray will cool the
> >gas and allow a higher mass of producer gas into the engine, thus
> >increasing power output.
> >
> >If the gas is cool enough it should not hold too much water, and I am
> >not sure of how it will affect efficiency, but I am hoping not too much!
> >
> >I am really in favour of simpler, low tech solutions rather than high
> >tech solutions! This is what we need in this day and age to make these
> >technologies accessible to everyone.
> >
> >
> >On Mon, 31 May 2004 21:50:48 +0200, Krzysztof Lis <santo@poczta.fm>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>M> Water injection has been used since WWII. It is used today in some
> >>M> large wartsila engines to lower emissions. If you do a search you
> >>M> will find that there are many references to this. It is also used
> >>M> with gas turbines, also steam injection is often used to improve
> >>M> the efficiency of gas turbines.
> >>
> >>Not exactly... HAT (Humid Air Turbines) work normally without water
> >>injection, because 'dry air' has better efficiency than gas / vapor
> >>mixture. But addition of water to combustion chamber allows for great
> >>increase of power going out from the machine, so it is used on war-
> >>ships when really needed (e.g. trying to escape a chasing torpedo).
> >>
> >>Introducing water to IC engines running on gasoline will help avoiding
> >>knocking (tested very recently (less than week ago) on small (650 ccm
> >>/ 24HP) engine with high compression ratio by a guy I know), but kno-
> >>cking is not a problem when thinking about producer / wood gas.
> >>
> >>--
> >>Best regards,
> >> Krzysztof Lis / Poland
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> Matthew Pottinger
>
> Student
> Environmental Technology Program
> Durham College
> Ontario, Canada
>
> "Never underestimate people's
> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
> economically feasible."

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 17:37:56 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <opr8vvbl1k6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.173756.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

------- Forwarded message -------
From: Matthew Pottinger <mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca>
To: Harmon Seaver <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: [GASL] Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 17:29:35 -0400

>
>
> Yeah you are definitely right about that! My only thought on that is
> that it takes more effort to find the perfect gasifier design right? So
> if you can design a tar free gasifier, that would be the FIRST route to
> take, if for some reason the tars just can not be eliminated, then I
> would do what I suggest.
>
> Now another reason why I am thinking NOT to design a tar free gasifier
> is that the conditions required for that would destroy the ammonia in
> the gas. This will not apply to everyone, but for my particular
> application it makes sense.
>
> Here is my scenario:
>
> There is a supplier of massive amounts of waste biomass who hauls their
> waste for land application on farms, as a low cost nutrient fertilizer.
> This stuff is mostly used for its nitrogen, and to a lesser extent, the
> minerals in the biomass.
>
> You, as a small power producer, come up and offer to dispose of their
> biomass, since they do not care what they do with it as long as they get
> rid of it.
>
> Now would you not have a much stronger bargaining position if you
> preserved what it was they were using it for in the first place? The
> nutrients, especially the nitrogen.
>
> If you crack the tars, you crack the ammonia.
>
> Charcoal also makes a very good fertilizer so you want to produce some
> of that to give back to them.
>
> The high temperatures required to crack tars would not allow this I do
> not think, and high temperatures could also cause the minerals to melt
> or vaporize, so you lose some of those, also.
>
> So, this whole thing might not be relevant to all gasifier operators,
> but then there are people like me, who could definitely benefit from
> this sort of use.
>
> Also, remember that charcoal can sequester carbon, which I am also
> interested in. I am not merely interested in the energy production value
> of the fuel.
>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 11:13:55 -0500, Harmon Seaver
> <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:
>
>> Sure, okay, but -- once again, why not just do it right in the first
>> place
>> and not have the tar problem to begin with? You get a much better, much
>> more
>> powerful gas that way, and one of the major problems with running
>> engines on
>> producer gas is that you get so little power out of it.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 04:56:52PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>>> Yeah there are some pretty toxic compounds in the raw tars, that I
>>> know,
>>> phenols, benzene, ammonia, etc. I've read it all.
>>>
>>> You see using it in that form as fertilizer is not what I am
>>> suggesting. I
>>> am not suggesting simply "dumping" the toxic compounds themselves
>>> straight
>>> into the soil. I am no expert, but apparently these compounds are also
>>> highly unstable and reactive. If you read on bio-oil, which is
>>> comprised
>>> of the same nasty stuff, they have done experiments where they added
>>> ammonia to it, and this tar reacts with it to produce stable amines, a
>>> non-toxic slow release fertilizer.
>>>
>>> Now also look at the link I posted, this guy is using the microbes in
>>> horse manure to break down these compounds. Microbes are some amazing
>>> creatures aren't they? :) Certain organisms can break this stuff down.
>>>
>>> So no, you misunderstood what I was saying. I mean to *convert* this
>>> stuff
>>> first! It's not like it's lead that you can't break down, these are
>>> organic molecules.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:45:17 -0500, Harmon Seaver
>>> <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:
>>>
>>> >On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 01:19:23PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>>> >>Has anyone tried Ed Burton's "horse dung" filter method?
>>> >>
>>> >>http://www.clean-air.org/Ed%20Burton%20Story/wood_chips_to_bio.htm
>>> >>
>>> >>it seems like one of the problems people are having is that scrubbing
>>> >>the
>>> >>tars with water is possible, but produces a toxic wastewater problem,
>>> >>the
>>> >>more water you use, the more tars you remove, bigger the problem.
>>> >>
>>> >>Now how about using these "waste products" and producing a viable
>>> >>fertilizer by-product?
>>> >
>>> > You might want to take a closer look at what these "waste
>>> products"
>>> >consist
>>> >of -- this is extremely toxic stuff, don't know how you can make
>>> >fertilzer out
>>> >of it. Remember that gasifiers provided all the gas lights and gas
>>> >cooking
>>> >ranges with fuel back around the turn of the century for most american
>>> >cities --
>>> >and there are still some extremely toxic waste places needing cleaning
>>> >up from
>>> >way back then.
>>> > Why not just do it right and don't make the tars in the first
>>> place?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >--
>>> >Harmon Seaver
>>> >CyberShamanix
>>> >http://www.cybershamanix.com
>>> >Hoka hey!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Matthew Pottinger
>>>
>>> Student
>>> Environmental Technology Program
>>> Durham College
>>> Ontario, Canada
>>>
>>> "Never underestimate people's
>>> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>>>
>>> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't
>>> be
>>> economically feasible."
>>
>> --
>> Harmon Seaver
>> CyberShamanix
>> http://www.cybershamanix.com
>> Hoka hey!
>
>
>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 17:47:42 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <20040531162411.GE4921@cybershamanix.com>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.174742.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Ah, I see your point! 50% power reduction? Yeah that is true with gasoline
engines the power loss is brutal. Diesels don't lose so much power. I see
your situation now. When I speak of gasification I am speaking purely from
the perspective of power generation, with very large, yet inexpensive
heavy duty diesel engines, which will be paying for themselves rapidly.

Vehicle applications are a different beast entirely, especially if the
vehicle is already bought! Alas a, vehicle investment is almost always a
loss.

So different situations have different concerns! We just have to find the
best solutions for each of them.

When it comes to a vehicle, I would just use SVO instead of a gasifier, if
such a supply of waste oil is available. No power loss to mention, and
much less complex! However you already have a gasoline vehicle in mind.
Ethanol production in order? :)

Best Regards, Matt

On Mon, 31 May 2004 11:24:11 -0500, Harmon Seaver
<hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:

> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 05:03:36PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>> Also, take a look at this link:
>> http://www.wartsila.com/english/pdf/en_direct_water_inj.pdf
>>
>> water injection is not only used for temporarily boosting power
>> it is also being adopted for emissions controls
>> in these applications, water is used continuously.
>>
>> So this is the reason why I think water would not be a problem. It is
>> widely used it to reduce NOx.
>
>
> Have you looked at what kind of power you get from producer gas? You
> definitely don't want to do anything that will make it worse. I'd really
> like to
> put a gasifier on my '91 Toyota 4x4 pickup, for example. But with the
> power I've
> got right now from my 2.4L 4cyl gasoline engine, I can cruise at 75mph,
> but not
> much more, and can't even make 50mph up some of the big hills on my way
> to work
> without dropping down to 3rd gear. So if I only got 50% of my rated
> power, which
> is about what I can expect with a gasifier, my already one hour drive to
> work
> would be so horribly slow I'm not sure it's worth it. OTOH, since I know
> gas
> prices are going to keep going up, and probably rather rapidly as world
> situations continue to deteriorate, I'm not sure I have a choice.
>
>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 31 May 2004 16:27:47 -0400, Matthew Pottinger
>> <mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Hmm, well I looked up humid air turbines and what it says is that
>> >efficiency is actually ~3% higher due to cooling of the air flow into
>> >the turbine, so I am not sure if you are correct there.
>> >
>> >Here is the reference:
>> >
>> >Converting the heat in a GT exhaust into steam and then converting
>> steam
>> >into electric power through a conventional steam cycle involves losses
>> >and inefficiencies which reduce the overall cycle efficiency. One
>> >feature of a GT is that it already has a turbine creating mechanical
>> >power from a flowing gas stream, and this power output can be increased
>> >(within limits) by increasing the mass flow of gas. In the case of an
>> >IGCC (IGCC) the fuel gas can be cooled by saturating it with steam,
>> >created by injecting water which evaporates as it cools the gas. This
>> >increases the mass flow of gas through the GT's turbine. This effect
>> >can be taken further by injecting steam from the waste heat boiler into
>> >the GT upstream or in the combustion chamber. Such cycles are known as
>> >Humid Air Cycles. This different conversion route can produce a rise
>> in
>> >efficiency of about 3% points compared to a standard IGCC plant,
>> >depending on the precise cycle parameters. Needs for development are
>> >still great: there are no commercially available GT's suited to this
>> >application.
>> >
>> >So the water itself does not improve the efficiency, but the COOLING
>> >does. I think the cooling effect of the water is more important than
>> >anything else. The gas cleaning stage using water spray will cool the
>> >gas and allow a higher mass of producer gas into the engine, thus
>> >increasing power output.
>> >
>> >If the gas is cool enough it should not hold too much water, and I am
>> >not sure of how it will affect efficiency, but I am hoping not too
>> much!
>> >
>> >I am really in favour of simpler, low tech solutions rather than high
>> >tech solutions! This is what we need in this day and age to make these
>> >technologies accessible to everyone.
>> >
>> >
>> >On Mon, 31 May 2004 21:50:48 +0200, Krzysztof Lis <santo@poczta.fm>
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >>M> Water injection has been used since WWII. It is used today in some
>> >>M> large wartsila engines to lower emissions. If you do a search you
>> >>M> will find that there are many references to this. It is also used
>> >>M> with gas turbines, also steam injection is often used to improve
>> >>M> the efficiency of gas turbines.
>> >>
>> >>Not exactly... HAT (Humid Air Turbines) work normally without water
>> >>injection, because 'dry air' has better efficiency than gas / vapor
>> >>mixture. But addition of water to combustion chamber allows for great
>> >>increase of power going out from the machine, so it is used on war-
>> >>ships when really needed (e.g. trying to escape a chasing torpedo).
>> >>
>> >>Introducing water to IC engines running on gasoline will help avoiding
>> >>knocking (tested very recently (less than week ago) on small (650 ccm
>> >>/ 24HP) engine with high compression ratio by a guy I know), but kno-
>> >>cking is not a problem when thinking about producer / wood gas.
>> >>
>> >>--
>> >>Best regards,
>> >> Krzysztof Lis / Poland
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Matthew Pottinger
>>
>> Student
>> Environmental Technology Program
>> Durham College
>> Ontario, Canada
>>
>> "Never underestimate people's
>> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>>
>> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't
>> be
>> economically feasible."
>
> --
> Harmon Seaver
> CyberShamanix
> http://www.cybershamanix.com
> Hoka hey!

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 13:29:08 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)]
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.122908.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

Yes, I've thought quite a bit about setting up a gasifier to do
biosolids. Here in Wisconsin (and most places, I believe) the spreading of the
biosolids on farm land is about to come to a screeching halt. Too many toxic
heavy metals in them polluting the soil and groundwater. But you, as the
gasifier operator (if they will even give you a permit in the first place to
build one the size you're talking about) have a similar problem -- the ash will
be a major toxic waste, unless you have some method to refine the toxic metals
into something salable.
I also don't see how you figure you'll have any sort of charcoal and/or
fertilzer left from the gasifier, even the the lower functioning (tar
producing) gasifiers are running at least 600C, I think. Not going to be much
left but ashes.
And it's not a matter of having to invent any new design to get rid of tars,
people have been doing this for quite awhile. This being a holiday weekend,
there's not too many people around, but I'm sure Tom Reed and others will chime
in shortly on this thread.

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 05:29:35PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>
>
> Yeah you are definitely right about that! My only thought on that is that
> it takes more effort to find the perfect gasifier design right? So if you
> can design a tar free gasifier, that would be the FIRST route to take, if
> for some reason the tars just can not be eliminated, then I would do what
> I suggest.
>
> Now another reason why I am thinking NOT to design a tar free gasifier is
> that the conditions required for that would destroy the ammonia in the
> gas. This will not apply to everyone, but for my particular application it
> makes sense.
>
> Here is my scenario:
>
> There is a supplier of massive amounts of waste biomass who hauls their
> waste for land application on farms, as a low cost nutrient fertilizer.
> This stuff is mostly used for its nitrogen, and to a lesser extent, the
> minerals in the biomass.
>
> You, as a small power producer, come up and offer to dispose of their
> biomass, since they do not care what they do with it as long as they get
> rid of it.
>
> Now would you not have a much stronger bargaining position if you
> preserved what it was they were using it for in the first place? The
> nutrients, especially the nitrogen.
>
> If you crack the tars, you crack the ammonia.
>
> Charcoal also makes a very good fertilizer so you want to produce some of
> that to give back to them.
>
> The high temperatures required to crack tars would not allow this I do not
> think, and high temperatures could also cause the minerals to melt or
> vaporize, so you lose some of those, also.
>
> So, this whole thing might not be relevant to all gasifier operators, but
> then there are people like me, who could definitely benefit from this sort
> of use.
>
> Also, remember that charcoal can sequester carbon, which I am also
> interested in. I am not merely interested in the energy production value
> of the fuel.
>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 11:13:55 -0500, Harmon Seaver
> <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:
>
> > Sure, okay, but -- once again, why not just do it right in the first
> >place
> >and not have the tar problem to begin with? You get a much better, much
> >more
> >powerful gas that way, and one of the major problems with running
> >engines on
> >producer gas is that you get so little power out of it.
> >
> >
> >On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 04:56:52PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> >>Yeah there are some pretty toxic compounds in the raw tars, that I know,
> >>phenols, benzene, ammonia, etc. I've read it all.
> >>
> >>You see using it in that form as fertilizer is not what I am
> >>suggesting. I
> >>am not suggesting simply "dumping" the toxic compounds themselves
> >>straight
> >>into the soil. I am no expert, but apparently these compounds are also
> >>highly unstable and reactive. If you read on bio-oil, which is comprised
> >>of the same nasty stuff, they have done experiments where they added
> >>ammonia to it, and this tar reacts with it to produce stable amines, a
> >>non-toxic slow release fertilizer.
> >>
> >>Now also look at the link I posted, this guy is using the microbes in
> >>horse manure to break down these compounds. Microbes are some amazing
> >>creatures aren't they? :) Certain organisms can break this stuff down.
> >>
> >>So no, you misunderstood what I was saying. I mean to *convert* this
> >>stuff
> >>first! It's not like it's lead that you can't break down, these are
> >>organic molecules.
> >>
> >>
> >>On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:45:17 -0500, Harmon Seaver
> >><hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 01:19:23PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> >>>>Has anyone tried Ed Burton's "horse dung" filter method?
> >>>>
> >>>>http://www.clean-air.org/Ed%20Burton%20Story/wood_chips_to_bio.htm
> >>>>
> >>>>it seems like one of the problems people are having is that scrubbing
> >>>>the
> >>>>tars with water is possible, but produces a toxic wastewater problem,
> >>>>the
> >>>>more water you use, the more tars you remove, bigger the problem.
> >>>>
> >>>>Now how about using these "waste products" and producing a viable
> >>>>fertilizer by-product?
> >>>
> >>> You might want to take a closer look at what these "waste products"
> >>>consist
> >>>of -- this is extremely toxic stuff, don't know how you can make
> >>>fertilzer out
> >>>of it. Remember that gasifiers provided all the gas lights and gas
> >>>cooking
> >>>ranges with fuel back around the turn of the century for most american
> >>>cities --
> >>>and there are still some extremely toxic waste places needing cleaning
> >>>up from
> >>>way back then.
> >>> Why not just do it right and don't make the tars in the first
> >>place?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>--
> >>>Harmon Seaver
> >>>CyberShamanix
> >>>http://www.cybershamanix.com
> >>>Hoka hey!
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>--
> >>
> >>Matthew Pottinger
> >>
> >>Student
> >>Environmental Technology Program
> >>Durham College
> >>Ontario, Canada
> >>
> >>"Never underestimate people's
> >>ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
> >>
> >>"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't
> >>be
> >>economically feasible."
> >
> >--
> >Harmon Seaver
> >CyberShamanix
> >http://www.cybershamanix.com
> >Hoka hey!
>
>
>
> --
>
> Matthew Pottinger
>
> Student
> Environmental Technology Program
> Durham College
> Ontario, Canada
>
> "Never underestimate people's
> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
> economically feasible."

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

----- End forwarded message -----

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 18:32:00 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <20040531171741.GF4921@cybershamanix.com>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.183200.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

aha! :) So I'm not the only one eh? I do not think it is coming to a
screeching halt here, in fact it is increasing. The municipalities here
are pushing land application to the max. I have a lot of unconventional
ideas.

The toxic metal problem, I have a an idea for a solution to that problem,
which I will eventually put to the test. ;) Hey, anyway, here that problem
is non-existant! biosolids are beneficial! remember! ;) I will have no ash
to speak of, only charcoal that is for sure! ;) activated charcoal
possibly which is used to remove toxins.

Now the permitting thing, that is an interesting thing you brought up. I
did not see that as a problem, since renewable energy is being pushed and
hyped up so hard around here. Maybe it will be an issue, but not a show
stopper, definitely I hope not. Nothing is a piece of cake, but nothing is
going to stop me from getting a peice of the pie either.

On Mon, 31 May 2004 12:17:41 -0500, Harmon Seaver
<hseaver@cybershamanix.com> wrote:

> Yes, I've thought quite a bit about setting up a gasifier to do
> biosolids. Here in Wisconsin (and most places, I believe) the spreading
> of the
> biosolids on farm land is about to come to a screeching halt. Too many
> toxic
> heavy metals in them polluting the soil and groundwater. But you, as the
> gasifier operator (if they will even give you a permit in the first
> place to
> build one the size you're talking about) have a similar problem -- the
> ash will
> be a major toxic waste, unless you have some method to refine the toxic
> metals
> into something salable.
> I also don't see how you figure you'll have any sort of charcoal
> and/or
> fertilzer left from the gasifier, even the the lower functioning (tar
> producing) gasifiers are running at least 600C, I think. Not going to be
> much
> left but ashes.
> And it's not a matter of having to invent any new design to get rid
> of tars,
> people have been doing this for quite awhile. This being a holiday
> weekend,
> there's not too many people around, but I'm sure Tom Reed and others
> will chime
> in shortly on this thread.
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 05:29:35PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>>
>>
>> Yeah you are definitely right about that! My only thought on that is
>> that
>> it takes more effort to find the perfect gasifier design right? So if
>> you
>> can design a tar free gasifier, that would be the FIRST route to take,
>> if
>> for some reason the tars just can not be eliminated, then I would do
>> what
>> I suggest.
>>
>> Now another reason why I am thinking NOT to design a tar free gasifier
>> is
>> that the conditions required for that would destroy the ammonia in the
>> gas. This will not apply to everyone, but for my particular application
>> it
>> makes sense.
>>
>> Here is my scenario:
>>
>> There is a supplier of massive amounts of waste biomass who hauls their
>> waste for land application on farms, as a low cost nutrient fertilizer.
>> This stuff is mostly used for its nitrogen, and to a lesser extent, the
>> minerals in the biomass.
>>
>> You, as a small power producer, come up and offer to dispose of their
>> biomass, since they do not care what they do with it as long as they get
>> rid of it.
>>
>> Now would you not have a much stronger bargaining position if you
>> preserved what it was they were using it for in the first place? The
>> nutrients, especially the nitrogen.
>>
>> If you crack the tars, you crack the ammonia.
>>
>> Charcoal also makes a very good fertilizer so you want to produce some
>> of
>> that to give back to them.
>>
>> The high temperatures required to crack tars would not allow this I do
>> not
>> think, and high temperatures could also cause the minerals to melt or
>> vaporize, so you lose some of those, also.
>>
>> So, this whole thing might not be relevant to all gasifier operators,
>> but
>> then there are people like me, who could definitely benefit from this
>> sort
>> of use.
>>
>> Also, remember that charcoal can sequester carbon, which I am also
>> interested in. I am not merely interested in the energy production value
>> of the fuel.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 31 May 2004 11:13:55 -0500, Harmon Seaver
>> <hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:
>>
>> > Sure, okay, but -- once again, why not just do it right in the first
>> >place
>> >and not have the tar problem to begin with? You get a much better, much
>> >more
>> >powerful gas that way, and one of the major problems with running
>> >engines on
>> >producer gas is that you get so little power out of it.
>> >
>> >
>> >On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 04:56:52PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>> >>Yeah there are some pretty toxic compounds in the raw tars, that I
>> know,
>> >>phenols, benzene, ammonia, etc. I've read it all.
>> >>
>> >>You see using it in that form as fertilizer is not what I am
>> >>suggesting. I
>> >>am not suggesting simply "dumping" the toxic compounds themselves
>> >>straight
>> >>into the soil. I am no expert, but apparently these compounds are also
>> >>highly unstable and reactive. If you read on bio-oil, which is
>> comprised
>> >>of the same nasty stuff, they have done experiments where they added
>> >>ammonia to it, and this tar reacts with it to produce stable amines, a
>> >>non-toxic slow release fertilizer.
>> >>
>> >>Now also look at the link I posted, this guy is using the microbes in
>> >>horse manure to break down these compounds. Microbes are some amazing
>> >>creatures aren't they? :) Certain organisms can break this stuff down.
>> >>
>> >>So no, you misunderstood what I was saying. I mean to *convert* this
>> >>stuff
>> >>first! It's not like it's lead that you can't break down, these are
>> >>organic molecules.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:45:17 -0500, Harmon Seaver
>> >><hseaver@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 01:19:23PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>> >>>>Has anyone tried Ed Burton's "horse dung" filter method?
>> >>>>
>> >>>>http://www.clean-air.org/Ed%20Burton%20Story/wood_chips_to_bio.htm
>> >>>>
>> >>>>it seems like one of the problems people are having is that
>> scrubbing
>> >>>>the
>> >>>>tars with water is possible, but produces a toxic wastewater
>> problem,
>> >>>>the
>> >>>>more water you use, the more tars you remove, bigger the problem.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>Now how about using these "waste products" and producing a viable
>> >>>>fertilizer by-product?
>> >>>
>> >>> You might want to take a closer look at what these "waste
>> products"
>> >>>consist
>> >>>of -- this is extremely toxic stuff, don't know how you can make
>> >>>fertilzer out
>> >>>of it. Remember that gasifiers provided all the gas lights and gas
>> >>>cooking
>> >>>ranges with fuel back around the turn of the century for most
>> american
>> >>>cities --
>> >>>and there are still some extremely toxic waste places needing
>> cleaning
>> >>>up from
>> >>>way back then.
>> >>> Why not just do it right and don't make the tars in the first
>> >>place?
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>--
>> >>>Harmon Seaver
>> >>>CyberShamanix
>> >>>http://www.cybershamanix.com
>> >>>Hoka hey!
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>--
>> >>
>> >>Matthew Pottinger
>> >>
>> >>Student
>> >>Environmental Technology Program
>> >>Durham College
>> >>Ontario, Canada
>> >>
>> >>"Never underestimate people's
>> >>ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>> >>
>> >>"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't
>> >>be
>> >>economically feasible."
>> >
>> >--
>> >Harmon Seaver
>> >CyberShamanix
>> >http://www.cybershamanix.com
>> >Hoka hey!
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Matthew Pottinger
>>
>> Student
>> Environmental Technology Program
>> Durham College
>> Ontario, Canada
>>
>> "Never underestimate people's
>> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>>
>> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't
>> be
>> economically feasible."
>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From LINVENT at AOL.COM Mon May 31 19:03:21 2004
From: LINVENT at AOL.COM (LINVENT@AOL.COM)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.190321.EDT.>

There are some benefits of using carbon applications to the land, but these
deteriorate over time unless appropriate carbon balancing elements are used.
Heavy metals and even non-heavy metals like aluminum will accumulate in the soil
and cause serious microbiological interference in the plant assimilation
pathways. If one takes a look at the economic radius of application of a waste
material such as char/ash combination, it is a short lived economic event.
Otherwise, the many composting operations around the world would have much better
economics. Most of the concepts of using waste or organic based systems for
plant nutrition are seriously flawed and do not understand the complex nature of
soil/plant systems. A good example of this is the iron nutritional pathway.
Innumerable articles, books, reports have been written on it and most are off the
point on iron nutrition. Iron nutrition will be dramatically upset by using
organics and any metals which are not in the right relation to iron in
formation and amounts. A good measuring stick for plant nutrition on organic based
programs is the aluminum content in plant leaves.
I admire your excitement, now some learning can set in.

Sincerely,
Leland T."Tom" Taylor
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
President
Agronics Inc. 7100-E 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107 phone-505-761-1454,
fax:505-341-0424 e-mail:linvent@aol.com website:agronicsinc.com

Sincerely,
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
President
Thermogenics Inc.
Phone: US 505-761-5633, fax:341-0424, Website: thermogenics.com

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 14:31:41 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines
In-Reply-To: <opr8vrjqan6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.133141.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

BTW, as far as I know, diesels derate pretty badly as well. I think if you can
get 60% of rated power running a diesel on producer gas, you are doing
well. Look at the BTU ratings of the fuels.

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 19:35:34 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <148.2aeba2c1.2ded13b9@aol.com>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.193534.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Now there's an eye opener! Now scrap this idea! lol ;)

hmm I have read a lot about the benefits of carbon applications, few about
the drawbacks. I will definitely have to do further reading. Thank you
very much. Argghh, too bad, I really liked the idea of carbon
sequestration using this method, too good to be true then? Oh well, if
that is the case, we have ASH to deal with! hmmm I have seen ways of
recycling ash also, but given what I've seen now I am probably in for a
disappointment!

Fly ash is used as a cement additive is it not? Also used for road
building, etc? Coal ash contains all of the worst metals you would ever
find in biomass does it not? What do they do with THEIR ash? lol come on
people I need something positive here! Too much bad news in one day! :)

On Mon, 31 May 2004 19:03:21 EDT, <LINVENT@AOL.COM> wrote:

> There are some benefits of using carbon applications to the land, but
> these
> deteriorate over time unless appropriate carbon balancing elements are
> used.
> Heavy metals and even non-heavy metals like aluminum will accumulate in
> the soil
> and cause serious microbiological interference in the plant assimilation
> pathways. If one takes a look at the economic radius of application of a
> waste
> material such as char/ash combination, it is a short lived economic
> event.
> Otherwise, the many composting operations around the world would have
> much better
> economics. Most of the concepts of using waste or organic based systems
> for
> plant nutrition are seriously flawed and do not understand the complex
> nature of
> soil/plant systems. A good example of this is the iron nutritional
> pathway.
> Innumerable articles, books, reports have been written on it and most
> are off the
> point on iron nutrition. Iron nutrition will be dramatically upset by
> using
> organics and any metals which are not in the right relation to iron in
> formation and amounts. A good measuring stick for plant nutrition on
> organic based
> programs is the aluminum content in plant leaves.
> I admire your excitement, now some learning can set in.
>
> Sincerely,
> Leland T."Tom" Taylor
> Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
> President
> Agronics Inc. 7100-E 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107 phone-505-761-1454,
> fax:505-341-0424 e-mail:linvent@aol.com website:agronicsinc.com
>
> Sincerely,
> Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
> President
> Thermogenics Inc.
> Phone: US 505-761-5633, fax:341-0424, Website: thermogenics.com

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From snkm at BTL.NET Mon May 31 19:44:10 2004
From: snkm at BTL.NET (Peter Singfield)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.174410.0600.SNKM@BTL.NET>

Dear Tom;

Forget Tars for a minute or so -- let's talk combustion ash.

Ash of fire -- or "char" or gasifier.

I remember reading one of the problems with the early combustion power
plant in Vermont was wood ash disposal.

What is the problem of simply dispersing wood ash back onto/into the ground??

The Maya here once practiced -- extensively -- slash and burn agriculture.
The soil of the yucatan is of extremely poor quality to grow anything in.
The only "fertilizer" was the ash of the bush felled and burned to clear
for a "milpa".

Karve over at the stove mail list has mentioned that India has known for
many years that certain bacteria are required to prepare minerals to plant
absorption routes. That these bacteria can be fed -- to greatly thrive --
with a little sugar.

Maybe mix a little sugar into the ash??

Does modern mechanized agricultural techniques consider past technologies??
Or is it all slam/bam -- old is out -- new is in -- and there is only one
way to skin this cat.

Certainly -- I have seen pure white marl here grow local corn in bounty
from the milpa methology. The bush is allowed to grow from 5 to 8 years --
then slash -- burn -- plant.

There is no nutrients in the white marl.

I would think the only nutrients are coming from the wood ash.

Wood ash is a toxic waste in the US -- wood ash is a fertilizer in the
tropical slash and burn systems.

So what gives?? Curious minds want to know ----

Also -- char is often automatically taken out from a running gasifier --
hot. Would hot char make a filter for producer gas to clean tars?? Would
enough char be coming out in a continuous manner to be able to filter all
gas produced??

Screw feed from chamber to chamber --- out of the gasifier -- to a holding
chamber where gas is cleaned -- then dumped.

Maybe a little steam added for some cracking of tars as well?? Or probably
-- sufficient humidity left in gas product stream for same??

So the char would dry and crack at the same time.

The final waste product -- char -- should be like milpa wood ash??

There is a lot of charcoal left in milpa wood ash though -- and that might
make it less toxic??

Peter / Belize

At 07:03 PM 5/31/2004 EDT, LINVENT@AOL.COM wrote:
>There are some benefits of using carbon applications to the land, but these
>deteriorate over time unless appropriate carbon balancing elements are used.
>Heavy metals and even non-heavy metals like aluminum will accumulate in
the soil
>and cause serious microbiological interference in the plant assimilation
>pathways. If one takes a look at the economic radius of application of a
waste
>material such as char/ash combination, it is a short lived economic event.
>Otherwise, the many composting operations around the world would have much
better
>economics. Most of the concepts of using waste or organic based systems for
>plant nutrition are seriously flawed and do not understand the complex
nature of
>soil/plant systems. A good example of this is the iron nutritional pathway.
>Innumerable articles, books, reports have been written on it and most are
off the
>point on iron nutrition. Iron nutrition will be dramatically upset by using
>organics and any metals which are not in the right relation to iron in
>formation and amounts. A good measuring stick for plant nutrition on
organic based
>programs is the aluminum content in plant leaves.
> I admire your excitement, now some learning can set in.
>
>Sincerely,
>Leland T."Tom" Taylor
>Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
>President
>Agronics Inc. 7100-E 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107 phone-505-761-1454,
>fax:505-341-0424 e-mail:linvent@aol.com website:agronicsinc.com
>
>Sincerely,
>Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
>President
>Thermogenics Inc.
>Phone: US 505-761-5633, fax:341-0424, Website: thermogenics.com
>

From arnt at C2I.NET Mon May 31 19:46:18 2004
From: arnt at C2I.NET (Arnt Karlsen)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Smartplug - timing
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.20040531104933.00a2d210@pop.btl.net>
Message-ID: <TUE.1.JUN.2004.014618.0200.ARNT@C2I.NET>

On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:51:28 -0600, Peter wrote in message
<3.0.32.20040531104933.00a2d210@pop.btl.net>:

> Dear Matt;
>
> As I am looking to use "strong-Rum" as my survival fuel here in Belize
> I found the information at:
>
> http://www.smartplugs.com/fuels/aqueousfuels.htm
>
> Very interesting indeed!!

..they are _clueless_ on NOx: http://fmb.no/gas/nox.html

> Pure ethanol is a difficult "chemical" to produce -- strong rum is
> easy.
>
> Water and alcohol mixtures are extremely hard to ignite -- yet this
> company says no problemo.
>
> Water an alcohol mixtures can be used at standard diesel compression
> rations for very high efficiency. but normally one has to dual fuel --
> a little diesel -- for ignition.

..Volvo played with this a coupla decades ago, they used 2 jet sets
per cylinder to spray in the fuel and water+alcohol (booze?) mix, one
jet for the fuel and the other jet set for the booze. The point is to
mix the booze spray with the fuel vapor, inside the cylinder.

..they ran gasoline up to a compression ratio of 21 in diesel engines
and diesel oil down to 6.5 in gasoline engines, I've also seen mention
of spraying 75% to 125% water+booze of fuel, for various performance
regimes.

.for a wee demo; put some diesel oil in a wheel cap or some other
vessel, light it, you have an orange sooty flame and smoke. Now,
try spray it with rum, beer, wine, soap water etc, to see the effects
on the flame and smoke.

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-)
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 19:48:40 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:52 2004
Subject: Gasification By-products (*was* fertilizer by-products)
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.194840.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

So the topic I am bringing up is what to do with the waste streams
produced during gasification. Depending on the conditions, this will be
ash and/or charcoal, and tars in wastewater. Tars, we won't worry about
too much

I thought charcoal addition to soil would be a good idea, but it seems
there are complexities to it which make it far less than feasible! Scratch
that, for now.

So, what can be done with ash or charcoal?

Ash: Cement additive

Charcoal: Activated charcoal

now is anyone here an expert on activated charcoal? Can useable activated
charcoal be created from char produced in gasification of wastes which
contain heavy metals? Activated charcoal is used for cleaning up such
wastes is it not? Could activated charcoal be _created_ from wastes
containing heavy metals? Would it then be considered a toxic waste?

What other uses have you found for ash and/or charcoal.

This is a problem which seems to be a major deciding factor in whether
small scale (500kw+) power generation is possible using waste biomass.

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 14:53:25 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <opr8v05ku76c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.135325.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

Not to say you should scrap the idea, just that you need to go into it with
*very* open eyes, especially if you're planning something commercial. There are
a whole lot of people here on this list with a great deal of real, hands-on,
experience over many years (not I) who haven't yet found a way to make money at
gasification, or at least not much more than keeping afloat.
If you just want home power, however....

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 07:35:34PM -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
> Now there's an eye opener! Now scrap this idea! lol ;)
>
> hmm I have read a lot about the benefits of carbon applications, few about
> the drawbacks. I will definitely have to do further reading. Thank you
> very much. Argghh, too bad, I really liked the idea of carbon
> sequestration using this method, too good to be true then? Oh well, if
> that is the case, we have ASH to deal with! hmmm I have seen ways of
> recycling ash also, but given what I've seen now I am probably in for a
> disappointment!
>
> Fly ash is used as a cement additive is it not? Also used for road
> building, etc? Coal ash contains all of the worst metals you would ever
> find in biomass does it not? What do they do with THEIR ash? lol come on
> people I need something positive here! Too much bad news in one day! :)
>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 19:03:21 EDT, <LINVENT@AOL.COM> wrote:
>
> >There are some benefits of using carbon applications to the land, but
> >these
> >deteriorate over time unless appropriate carbon balancing elements are
> >used.
> >Heavy metals and even non-heavy metals like aluminum will accumulate in
> >the soil
> >and cause serious microbiological interference in the plant assimilation
> >pathways. If one takes a look at the economic radius of application of a
> >waste
> >material such as char/ash combination, it is a short lived economic
> >event.
> >Otherwise, the many composting operations around the world would have
> >much better
> >economics. Most of the concepts of using waste or organic based systems
> >for
> >plant nutrition are seriously flawed and do not understand the complex
> >nature of
> >soil/plant systems. A good example of this is the iron nutritional
> >pathway.
> >Innumerable articles, books, reports have been written on it and most
> >are off the
> >point on iron nutrition. Iron nutrition will be dramatically upset by
> >using
> >organics and any metals which are not in the right relation to iron in
> >formation and amounts. A good measuring stick for plant nutrition on
> >organic based
> >programs is the aluminum content in plant leaves.
> > I admire your excitement, now some learning can set in.
> >
> >Sincerely,
> >Leland T."Tom" Taylor
> >Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
> >President
> >Agronics Inc. 7100-E 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107 phone-505-761-1454,
> >fax:505-341-0424 e-mail:linvent@aol.com website:agronicsinc.com
> >
> >Sincerely,
> >Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
> >President
> >Thermogenics Inc.
> >Phone: US 505-761-5633, fax:341-0424, Website: thermogenics.com
>
>
>
> --
>
> Matthew Pottinger
>
> Student
> Environmental Technology Program
> Durham College
> Ontario, Canada
>
> "Never underestimate people's
> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
> economically feasible."

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM Mon May 31 14:57:18 2004
From: hseaver at CYBERSHAMANIX.COM (Harmon Seaver)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.20040531174345.00a4e160@pop.btl.net>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.135718.0500.HSEAVER@CYBERSHAMANIX.COM>

Disposing of wood ash is no real problem, disposing of ash from biosolids as
Michael was proposing is a serious problem. Heavy metals. Biosolids are full of
them, that's why here in the US, cities, who have been paying farmers to let
them spread them on their land, and who were previously incinerating them,
are very soon going to have a serious disposal problem.

On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 05:44:10PM -0600, Peter Singfield wrote:
> Dear Tom;
>
> Forget Tars for a minute or so -- let's talk combustion ash.
>
> Ash of fire -- or "char" or gasifier.
>
> I remember reading one of the problems with the early combustion power
> plant in Vermont was wood ash disposal.
>
> What is the problem of simply dispersing wood ash back onto/into the ground??
>
> The Maya here once practiced -- extensively -- slash and burn agriculture.
> The soil of the yucatan is of extremely poor quality to grow anything in.
> The only "fertilizer" was the ash of the bush felled and burned to clear
> for a "milpa".
>
> Karve over at the stove mail list has mentioned that India has known for
> many years that certain bacteria are required to prepare minerals to plant
> absorption routes. That these bacteria can be fed -- to greatly thrive --
> with a little sugar.
>
> Maybe mix a little sugar into the ash??
>
> Does modern mechanized agricultural techniques consider past technologies??
> Or is it all slam/bam -- old is out -- new is in -- and there is only one
> way to skin this cat.
>
> Certainly -- I have seen pure white marl here grow local corn in bounty
> from the milpa methology. The bush is allowed to grow from 5 to 8 years --
> then slash -- burn -- plant.
>
> There is no nutrients in the white marl.
>
> I would think the only nutrients are coming from the wood ash.
>
> Wood ash is a toxic waste in the US -- wood ash is a fertilizer in the
> tropical slash and burn systems.
>
> So what gives?? Curious minds want to know ----
>
> Also -- char is often automatically taken out from a running gasifier --
> hot. Would hot char make a filter for producer gas to clean tars?? Would
> enough char be coming out in a continuous manner to be able to filter all
> gas produced??
>
> Screw feed from chamber to chamber --- out of the gasifier -- to a holding
> chamber where gas is cleaned -- then dumped.
>
> Maybe a little steam added for some cracking of tars as well?? Or probably
> -- sufficient humidity left in gas product stream for same??
>
> So the char would dry and crack at the same time.
>
> The final waste product -- char -- should be like milpa wood ash??
>
> There is a lot of charcoal left in milpa wood ash though -- and that might
> make it less toxic??
>
>
>
> Peter / Belize
>
>
> At 07:03 PM 5/31/2004 EDT, LINVENT@AOL.COM wrote:
> >There are some benefits of using carbon applications to the land, but these
> >deteriorate over time unless appropriate carbon balancing elements are used.
> >Heavy metals and even non-heavy metals like aluminum will accumulate in
> the soil
> >and cause serious microbiological interference in the plant assimilation
> >pathways. If one takes a look at the economic radius of application of a
> waste
> >material such as char/ash combination, it is a short lived economic event.
> >Otherwise, the many composting operations around the world would have much
> better
> >economics. Most of the concepts of using waste or organic based systems for
> >plant nutrition are seriously flawed and do not understand the complex
> nature of
> >soil/plant systems. A good example of this is the iron nutritional pathway.
> >Innumerable articles, books, reports have been written on it and most are
> off the
> >point on iron nutrition. Iron nutrition will be dramatically upset by using
> >organics and any metals which are not in the right relation to iron in
> >formation and amounts. A good measuring stick for plant nutrition on
> organic based
> >programs is the aluminum content in plant leaves.
> > I admire your excitement, now some learning can set in.
> >
> >Sincerely,
> >Leland T."Tom" Taylor
> >Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
> >President
> >Agronics Inc. 7100-E 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107 phone-505-761-1454,
> >fax:505-341-0424 e-mail:linvent@aol.com website:agronicsinc.com
> >
> >Sincerely,
> >Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
> >President
> >Thermogenics Inc.
> >Phone: US 505-761-5633, fax:341-0424, Website: thermogenics.com
> >

--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 20:10:42 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.201042.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Yeah, that is for sure. Now it seems like gasification has the same
drawbacks that incineration had. Ash disposal.

I see wastes like biosolids having so much potential as a low cost fuel,
yet this one problem stands in the way, and it is funny because it is the
whole reason WHY the stuff has no worth. If it was easy to use it for
gasification, it wouldn't be worthless as it is today. grrrr.

Technology IS out there to recover heavy metals in pure form, but i
suspect that it is not economical.

This is discouraging, however, there must be some low ash fuel stocks
which do not have the same drawbacks as biosolids. I will search some more.

I won't give up on biosolids though. That is an opportunity. He who solves
the dilemmas associated with it will have "financial security" I have no
doubt.

Not giving up yet! :)

Peace! Matt

> Disposing of wood ash is no real problem, disposing of ash from
> biosolids >as
> Michael was proposing is a serious problem. Heavy metals. Biosolids are
> >full of
> them, that's why here in the US, cities, who have been paying farmers to
> >let
> them spread them on their land, and who were previously incinerating
> them,
> are very soon going to have a serious disposal problem.

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race,
but it just wouldn't be economically feasible."

From arnt at C2I.NET Mon May 31 20:20:45 2004
From: arnt at C2I.NET (Arnt Karlsen)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Gasification By-products (*was* fertilizer by-products)
In-Reply-To: <opr8v1rez76c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <TUE.1.JUN.2004.022045.0200.ARNT@C2I.NET>

On Mon, 31 May 2004 19:48:40 -0400, Matthew wrote in message
<opr8v1rez76c175d@localhost>:

> So the topic I am bringing up is what to do with the waste streams
> produced during gasification. Depending on the conditions, this will
> be ash and/or charcoal, and tars in wastewater. Tars, we won't worry
> about too much

..flare'em. http://fmb.no/gas/ssrcolor.png ;-)

> I thought charcoal addition to soil would be a good idea, but it seems
> there are complexities to it which make it far less than feasible!
> Scratch that, for now.
>
> So, what can be done with ash or charcoal?
>
> Ash: Cement additive
>
> Charcoal: Activated charcoal

..it burns? ,-) Throw it back in. ;-)

> This is a problem which seems to be a major deciding factor in whether
> small scale (500kw+) power generation is possible using waste biomass.

....heh. 1/2MW small scale. Attitude. ;-)

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-)
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 20:35:36 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.20040531174345.00a4e160@pop.btl.net>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.203536.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

http://www.epri.com/corporate/discover_epri/news/2002releases/050202_FlyAsh.html

I see so many references out there to the possible uses of coal fly ash.

Isn't coal ash some of the nastiest ash that can be produced on this
earth? Is biosolids actually worse? Why is it then spread on fields?

I am still optimistic here. If I produce ash, somebody out there must be
able to take it off my hands! :)

Wood ash, biosolids ash, manure ash, rice husk ash, none of them could be
more toxic than coal ash, and it has plenty of uses right now.

Maybe charcoal land application has its problems, but getting rid of ash,
somebody must take this stuff?

Would gasification not be profitable then? Free fuel, low cost equipment
(relatively), I don't see why nobody has made a profit?!? has anyone TRIED?

On Mon, 31 May 2004 17:44:10 -0600, Peter Singfield <snkm@BTL.NET> wrote:

> Dear Tom;
>
> Forget Tars for a minute or so -- let's talk combustion ash.
>
> Ash of fire -- or "char" or gasifier.
>
> I remember reading one of the problems with the early combustion power
> plant in Vermont was wood ash disposal.
>
> What is the problem of simply dispersing wood ash back onto/into the
> ground??
>
> The Maya here once practiced -- extensively -- slash and burn
> agriculture.
> The soil of the yucatan is of extremely poor quality to grow anything in.
> The only "fertilizer" was the ash of the bush felled and burned to clear
> for a "milpa".
>
> Karve over at the stove mail list has mentioned that India has known for
> many years that certain bacteria are required to prepare minerals to
> plant
> absorption routes. That these bacteria can be fed -- to greatly thrive --
> with a little sugar.
>
> Maybe mix a little sugar into the ash??
>
> Does modern mechanized agricultural techniques consider past
> technologies??
> Or is it all slam/bam -- old is out -- new is in -- and there is only one
> way to skin this cat.
>
> Certainly -- I have seen pure white marl here grow local corn in bounty
> from the milpa methology. The bush is allowed to grow from 5 to 8 years
> --
> then slash -- burn -- plant.
>
> There is no nutrients in the white marl.
>
> I would think the only nutrients are coming from the wood ash.
>
> Wood ash is a toxic waste in the US -- wood ash is a fertilizer in the
> tropical slash and burn systems.
>
> So what gives?? Curious minds want to know ----
>
> Also -- char is often automatically taken out from a running gasifier --
> hot. Would hot char make a filter for producer gas to clean tars?? Would
> enough char be coming out in a continuous manner to be able to filter all
> gas produced??
>
> Screw feed from chamber to chamber --- out of the gasifier -- to a
> holding
> chamber where gas is cleaned -- then dumped.
>
> Maybe a little steam added for some cracking of tars as well?? Or
> probably
> -- sufficient humidity left in gas product stream for same??
>
> So the char would dry and crack at the same time.
>
> The final waste product -- char -- should be like milpa wood ash??
>
> There is a lot of charcoal left in milpa wood ash though -- and that
> might
> make it less toxic??
>
>
>
> Peter / Belize
>
>
> At 07:03 PM 5/31/2004 EDT, LINVENT@AOL.COM wrote:
>> There are some benefits of using carbon applications to the land, but
>> these
>> deteriorate over time unless appropriate carbon balancing elements are
>> used.
>> Heavy metals and even non-heavy metals like aluminum will accumulate in
> the soil
>> and cause serious microbiological interference in the plant assimilation
>> pathways. If one takes a look at the economic radius of application of a
> waste
>> material such as char/ash combination, it is a short lived economic
>> event.
>> Otherwise, the many composting operations around the world would have
>> much
> better
>> economics. Most of the concepts of using waste or organic based systems
>> for
>> plant nutrition are seriously flawed and do not understand the complex
> nature of
>> soil/plant systems. A good example of this is the iron nutritional
>> pathway.
>> Innumerable articles, books, reports have been written on it and most
>> are
> off the
>> point on iron nutrition. Iron nutrition will be dramatically upset by
>> using
>> organics and any metals which are not in the right relation to iron in
>> formation and amounts. A good measuring stick for plant nutrition on
> organic based
>> programs is the aluminum content in plant leaves.
>> I admire your excitement, now some learning can set in.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Leland T."Tom" Taylor
>> Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
>> President
>> Agronics Inc. 7100-E 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107
>> phone-505-761-1454,
>> fax:505-341-0424 e-mail:linvent@aol.com website:agronicsinc.com
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
>> President
>> Thermogenics Inc.
>> Phone: US 505-761-5633, fax:341-0424, Website: thermogenics.com
>>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 21:04:32 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Anecdotal Evidence for Fertilizer benefits
In-Reply-To: <opr8v3xmnr6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.210432.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Thanks for the input guys, but now I am really confused. I really thought
I had it all figured out. I will research further, but in the meantime, I
must emphasize that I am not the originator of these ideas, I am simply
going by what I learned from certain places.

http://www.eprida.com/hydro/anecdotal.htm

These people have been successful in growing plants in a mound of nothing
but charcoal.

http://www.geo.uni-bayreuth.de/bodenkunde/terra_preta/index.html

um, what about terra preta soils? Fertile soil produced by hundreds of
years of charcoal deposition.

So, I agree there may be comlplexities in soil science which are far
beyond my knowledge. Common sense tells me that after a forest fire,
plants grow back pretty darn well, and forests depend on it in fact for
their health, and there are many references with legitimate research into
the benefits of charcoal, tar, AND ash as soil amendments. If this upsets
the nutrient balance, then why do plants grow so well in pure charcoal? If
coal ash is used, why are biosolids so much more toxic?

This waste stream problem is a #1 problem in my books.

Tar elimination can be either way, cracking or scrubbing, I am not biased
towards either, choose between one or both. It seems it's all already been
done.

ECN also has a technology called OLGA to remove 100% of tars. (large scale
i believe)

But what on earth to do with this ash. I am sooo very not clear on this.

Landfilling is NOT and option.

My impression was that it does have many uses, from cement production to
fertilizer. If so, then there is no problem. So, what makes gasification
on a commercial scale not feasible? I don't understand it.

Peace out! Matt

On Mon, 31 May 2004 20:35:36 -0400, Matthew Pottinger
<mpottinger@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA> wrote:

> http://www.epri.com/corporate/discover_epri/news/2002releases/050202_FlyAsh.html
>
> I see so many references out there to the possible uses of coal fly ash.
>
> Isn't coal ash some of the nastiest ash that can be produced on this
> earth? Is biosolids actually worse? Why is it then spread on fields?
>
> I am still optimistic here. If I produce ash, somebody out there must be
> able to take it off my hands! :)
>
> Wood ash, biosolids ash, manure ash, rice husk ash, none of them could be
> more toxic than coal ash, and it has plenty of uses right now.
>
> Maybe charcoal land application has its problems, but getting rid of ash,
> somebody must take this stuff?
>
> Would gasification not be profitable then? Free fuel, low cost equipment
> (relatively), I don't see why nobody has made a profit?!? has anyone
> TRIED?
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 17:44:10 -0600, Peter Singfield <snkm@BTL.NET> wrote:
>
>> Dear Tom;
>>
>> Forget Tars for a minute or so -- let's talk combustion ash.
>>
>> Ash of fire -- or "char" or gasifier.
>>
>> I remember reading one of the problems with the early combustion power
>> plant in Vermont was wood ash disposal.
>>
>> What is the problem of simply dispersing wood ash back onto/into the
>> ground??
>>
>> The Maya here once practiced -- extensively -- slash and burn
>> agriculture.
>> The soil of the yucatan is of extremely poor quality to grow anything
>> in.
>> The only "fertilizer" was the ash of the bush felled and burned to clear
>> for a "milpa".
>>
>> Karve over at the stove mail list has mentioned that India has known for
>> many years that certain bacteria are required to prepare minerals to
>> plant
>> absorption routes. That these bacteria can be fed -- to greatly thrive
>> --
>> with a little sugar.
>>
>> Maybe mix a little sugar into the ash??
>>
>> Does modern mechanized agricultural techniques consider past
>> technologies??
>> Or is it all slam/bam -- old is out -- new is in -- and there is only
>> one
>> way to skin this cat.
>>
>> Certainly -- I have seen pure white marl here grow local corn in bounty
>> from the milpa methology. The bush is allowed to grow from 5 to 8 years
>> --
>> then slash -- burn -- plant.
>>
>> There is no nutrients in the white marl.
>>
>> I would think the only nutrients are coming from the wood ash.
>>
>> Wood ash is a toxic waste in the US -- wood ash is a fertilizer in the
>> tropical slash and burn systems.
>>
>> So what gives?? Curious minds want to know ----
>>
>> Also -- char is often automatically taken out from a running gasifier --
>> hot. Would hot char make a filter for producer gas to clean tars?? Would
>> enough char be coming out in a continuous manner to be able to filter
>> all
>> gas produced??
>>
>> Screw feed from chamber to chamber --- out of the gasifier -- to a
>> holding
>> chamber where gas is cleaned -- then dumped.
>>
>> Maybe a little steam added for some cracking of tars as well?? Or
>> probably
>> -- sufficient humidity left in gas product stream for same??
>>
>> So the char would dry and crack at the same time.
>>
>> The final waste product -- char -- should be like milpa wood ash??
>>
>> There is a lot of charcoal left in milpa wood ash though -- and that
>> might
>> make it less toxic??
>>
>>
>>
>> Peter / Belize
>>
>>
>> At 07:03 PM 5/31/2004 EDT, LINVENT@AOL.COM wrote:
>>> There are some benefits of using carbon applications to the land, but
>>> these
>>> deteriorate over time unless appropriate carbon balancing elements are
>>> used.
>>> Heavy metals and even non-heavy metals like aluminum will accumulate in
>> the soil
>>> and cause serious microbiological interference in the plant
>>> assimilation
>>> pathways. If one takes a look at the economic radius of application of
>>> a
>> waste
>>> material such as char/ash combination, it is a short lived economic
>>> event.
>>> Otherwise, the many composting operations around the world would have
>>> much
>> better
>>> economics. Most of the concepts of using waste or organic based systems
>>> for
>>> plant nutrition are seriously flawed and do not understand the complex
>> nature of
>>> soil/plant systems. A good example of this is the iron nutritional
>>> pathway.
>>> Innumerable articles, books, reports have been written on it and most
>>> are
>> off the
>>> point on iron nutrition. Iron nutrition will be dramatically upset by
>>> using
>>> organics and any metals which are not in the right relation to iron in
>>> formation and amounts. A good measuring stick for plant nutrition on
>> organic based
>>> programs is the aluminum content in plant leaves.
>>> I admire your excitement, now some learning can set in.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Leland T."Tom" Taylor
>>> Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
>>> President
>>> Agronics Inc. 7100-E 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107
>>> phone-505-761-1454,
>>> fax:505-341-0424 e-mail:linvent@aol.com website:agronicsinc.com
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
>>> President
>>> Thermogenics Inc.
>>> Phone: US 505-761-5633, fax:341-0424, Website: thermogenics.com
>>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Matthew Pottinger
>
> Student
> Environmental Technology Program
> Durham College
> Ontario, Canada
>
> "Never underestimate people's
> ability to suppress inconvenient realities."
>
> "We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
> economically feasible."

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 21:20:29 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Anecdotal Evidence for Fertilizer benefits
In-Reply-To: <opr8v49uyv6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.212029.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

Here is why I am so optimistic about this stuff. Industry deals with these
sorts of problems all the time. Power plants produce by-products.

Now, whether it is truly beneficial or not is to be debated, but there are
"beneficial" uses for any by-product you can imagine. Heck, I'm sure
radioactive wastes have some uses in skin rejuvination creams or
something!!! ok maybe a little too far! ;)

Ash Recycling
HRSD generates approximately 10,000 tons of incinerator ash annually. This
bio-ash is recycled into various products for use. The material has been
used as a flowable fill in a combined coal ash-biosolids ash mixture and
in a bio-ash natural mixture. It has been used extensively as a select
fill material and as a component of soil cement. Its unique properties
provide a higher compressive strength than many conventional materials.
Bio-ash has also been used as a component in landfill cover material and
potting soil mixes. The ash recycling program saves HRSD and its customers
an estimated $180,000 per year by diverting the ash from landfills to
recycling projects.

So no, I am not unrealistic, just ambitious ;)

I do not like to think small scale. Home power is all fine and good, but
it doesn't excite me like tackling a big project, not at all.

The industry can accomodate people such as myself I believe. Hmmmm, cement
plant not to far from here. *brainstorm*

From snkm at BTL.NET Mon May 31 21:21:10 2004
From: snkm at BTL.NET (Peter Singfield)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.192110.0600.SNKM@BTL.NET>

Kevin -- one of our list members -- designed an excellent furnace
specifically for "biosolids". It solved the ash/heavy metal disposal
problems by ejecting them as very compact -- solid -- "balls" of slag.

The basic principle was operation at exceedingly high temperatures to
destroy all toxic chemicals. And end up with a true hard slag instead of
ash. This slag could then be crushed as a replacement for aggregate.

The furnace was built -- tested -- and as far as I remember -- passed all
strict requirements for emissions. It could and did destroy toxic chemicals
such as PCBs.

I worked after the fact with Kevin in regards to harnessing energy
efficiently from this same furnace. I suggested applying ORC technology --
and found a supplier.

The people financing this venture had some personal problems -- and
everything fell apart.

But the technology is still good -- still valid -- still there. Price wise
it comes out the same per kwh as a gasifier -- but much longer life.

If your seriously considering Gasification -- and want to accomplish such
easily -- you must go for the very best fuel.

And in that case -- wood charcoal!!

So the process would be making charcoal -- then gasifying that charcoal so
produced.

That is why gasifiers were so popular during WWII -- they used charcoal!
And still they had problems -- but it worked.

India has spent many years developing biomass gasifiers -- but we have
heard little lately about how it worked out for them. As in -- is it cost
effective or not compared to combustion power plants.

Much development has occurred in combustion power plants -- many have
incorporated the best principles of Gasification -- such as Hurst Boilers.

Further -- in my opinion -- the man on this list best qualified -- I
believe still producing and installing large gasifier power plants -- is
Leland T."Tom" Taylor -- who just posted a while back.

You need just contact him for "quotes" -- there is no point in re-inventing
this wheel -- check out what is there first -- then if you find some space
left -- then improve.

For high tech "combustion" ask Kevin.

For Gasification -- ask Tom

Peter / Belize

At 08:10 PM 5/31/2004 -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>Yeah, that is for sure. Now it seems like gasification has the same
>drawbacks that incineration had. Ash disposal.
>
>I see wastes like biosolids having so much potential as a low cost fuel,
>yet this one problem stands in the way, and it is funny because it is the
>whole reason WHY the stuff has no worth. If it was easy to use it for
>gasification, it wouldn't be worthless as it is today. grrrr.
>
>Technology IS out there to recover heavy metals in pure form, but i
>suspect that it is not economical.
>
>This is discouraging, however, there must be some low ash fuel stocks
>which do not have the same drawbacks as biosolids. I will search some more.
>
>I won't give up on biosolids though. That is an opportunity. He who solves
>the dilemmas associated with it will have "financial security" I have no
>doubt.
>
>Not giving up yet! :)
>
>
>Peace! Matt
>

From mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA Mon May 31 21:56:48 2004
From: mpottinger at RENEWABLEPLANET.CA (Matthew Pottinger)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
In-Reply-To: <opr8v7hrnx6c175d@localhost>
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.215648.0400.MPOTTINGER@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA>

------- Forwarded message -------
From: Matthew Pottinger <mpottinger@renewableplanet.ca>
To: Peter Singfield <snkm@BTL.NET>
Subject: Re: [GASL] Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 21:52:29 -0400

>
> Now that's the kind of brilliant solution I am looking for!
>
> Hello! We have a winner! ding ding ding! ;)
>
> this is something I have seen done in plasma gasifiers, but never
> thought of doing it with a regular gasifier.
>
> Now, this furnace replaces the gasifier correct?
>
> Hmmm, I have another suggestion - would another heat source work? How
> much energy is required to melt ash into slag?
>
> How about using waste oil as a heat source? I have seen much on metal
> casting using waste oil burners. If they can melt metal, surely they can
> melt ash?
>
> This is a great solution. However, if ash has a market, then there is no
> need for the conversion to slag. If not, it is good to know that there
> IS another option!
>
> Beautiful!
>
> Over and out! Matt
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2004 19:21:10 -0600, Peter Singfield <snkm@BTL.NET> wrote:
>
>> Kevin -- one of our list members -- designed an excellent furnace
>> specifically for "biosolids". It solved the ash/heavy metal disposal
>> problems by ejecting them as very compact -- solid -- "balls" of slag.
>>
>> The basic principle was operation at exceedingly high temperatures to
>> destroy all toxic chemicals. And end up with a true hard slag instead of
>> ash. This slag could then be crushed as a replacement for aggregate.
>>
>> The furnace was built -- tested -- and as far as I remember -- passed
>> all
>> strict requirements for emissions. It could and did destroy toxic
>> chemicals
>> such as PCBs.
>>
>> I worked after the fact with Kevin in regards to harnessing energy
>> efficiently from this same furnace. I suggested applying ORC technology
>> --
>> and found a supplier.
>>
>> The people financing this venture had some personal problems -- and
>> everything fell apart.
>>
>> But the technology is still good -- still valid -- still there. Price
>> wise
>> it comes out the same per kwh as a gasifier -- but much longer life.
>>
>> If your seriously considering Gasification -- and want to accomplish
>> such
>> easily -- you must go for the very best fuel.
>>
>> And in that case -- wood charcoal!!
>>
>> So the process would be making charcoal -- then gasifying that charcoal
>> so
>> produced.
>>
>> That is why gasifiers were so popular during WWII -- they used charcoal!
>> And still they had problems -- but it worked.
>>
>> India has spent many years developing biomass gasifiers -- but we have
>> heard little lately about how it worked out for them. As in -- is it
>> cost
>> effective or not compared to combustion power plants.
>>
>> Much development has occurred in combustion power plants -- many have
>> incorporated the best principles of Gasification -- such as Hurst
>> Boilers.
>>
>> Further -- in my opinion -- the man on this list best qualified -- I
>> believe still producing and installing large gasifier power plants -- is
>> Leland T."Tom" Taylor -- who just posted a while back.
>>
>> You need just contact him for "quotes" -- there is no point in
>> re-inventing
>> this wheel -- check out what is there first -- then if you find some
>> space
>> left -- then improve.
>>
>> For high tech "combustion" ask Kevin.
>>
>> For Gasification -- ask Tom
>>
>>
>> Peter / Belize
>>
>> At 08:10 PM 5/31/2004 -0400, Matthew Pottinger wrote:
>>> Yeah, that is for sure. Now it seems like gasification has the same
>>> drawbacks that incineration had. Ash disposal.
>>>
>>> I see wastes like biosolids having so much potential as a low cost
>>> fuel,
>>> yet this one problem stands in the way, and it is funny because it is
>>> the
>>> whole reason WHY the stuff has no worth. If it was easy to use it for
>>> gasification, it wouldn't be worthless as it is today. grrrr.
>>>
>>> Technology IS out there to recover heavy metals in pure form, but i
>>> suspect that it is not economical.
>>>
>>> This is discouraging, however, there must be some low ash fuel stocks
>>> which do not have the same drawbacks as biosolids. I will search some
>>> more.
>>>
>>> I won't give up on biosolids though. That is an opportunity. He who
>>> solves
>>> the dilemmas associated with it will have "financial security" I have
>>> no
>>> doubt.
>>>
>>> Not giving up yet! :)
>>>
>>>
>>> Peace! Matt
>>>
>
>
>

Matthew Pottinger

Student
Environmental Technology Program
Durham College
Ontario, Canada

"Never underestimate people's
ability to suppress inconvenient realities."

"We could avoid the extinction of the human race, but it just wouldn't be
economically feasible."

From LINVENT at AOL.COM Mon May 31 23:36:54 2004
From: LINVENT at AOL.COM (LINVENT@AOL.COM)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: Fertilizer as a by-product (Toxicity)
Message-ID: <MON.31.MAY.2004.233654.EDT.>

In a message dated 5/31/04 5:39:13 PM, mpottinger@RENEWABLEPLANET.CA writes:

<< Fly ash is used as a cement additive is it not? Also used for road

building, etc? Coal ash contains all of the worst metals you would ever

find in biomass does it not? What do they do with THEIR ash? lol come on

people I need something positive here! Too much bad news in one day! :) >>

Coal flyash is used as a cement additive if it has adequate pozolinic
properties to be used. Bottom ash is not generally. There are distinct chemical and
physical differences. I have seen bricks made from 30% flyash and common dirt
mixed with water and compressed have better strength than regular block. Better
insulating properties also. I have a video of an automatic machine cranking
them out about 6/minute. Most gasifier ash passes TCLP testing for leachable
RCRA metals which are the ones of concern in landfills. This makes it easier to
dispose of in landfills. The concern about making bricks is that most gasifier
operators want energy not another marketing challenge.
A comment was made about forests regrowing after a fire very quickly. The
regrowth has several properties which need to be clarified. The first plants
emerging are brush, shrubs, grasses which are inhibited by the normal trees which
shade the ground. It takes some time for the trees to regrow as is expected
and eventually the forest moves closer to a monoculture, primarily trees.
Sunlight is a key component in the survival of the fittest in this jungle. Redwood
forests are real monocultures.
An additional reason growth is quick is the release of potassium hydroxide,
(soap, lye, caustic potash) which is highly mobile and available to the plants
which leaches from the ashes. I have seen potassium hydroxide applied to the
ground produce tumbleweeds 10 ft tall and as much around. More like trees than
tumbleweed.
Unfortunately in rain forests, the high rainfall causes serious leaching
and erosion of the soils which prevents rapid regrowth. The leaching causes
loss of primary soil constituents, calcium, magnesium, potassium and a collapse
of the porosity of the soil which prevents the root development.
If an organized approach was used to disposing of wastes on lands, none
of the metals content would be of concern. As an example, the disposal of hog
or poultry litter in the East Coast has caused serious problems with algae
growth and damaging the fishing in the bay areas. This is caused by phosphate, a
highly valued and costly fertilizer. It is also a ubiquitous toxin to the soil
because it interferes with all of the major cations and many of the minor
nutrients, iron, zinc,manganese, uptake. Having too much is worse than not having
enough as it is easy to fix the deficiency, but difficult to remove the
excess, unless you know how to do it which, all modesty aside, is what we are very
good at.
Peter, thanks for the compliment as to gasification capabilities. I have
found the challenges to be in the major area of material handling, and
developing subtle processes to solve complex problems in a simple manner. This is the
key to success, anything less is unacceptable in the marketplace. Some of the
final training I am receiving is how to make projects come to life. The
misconceptions about how to do projects is the major hurdle I have to overcome. The
financial world is a mystery cloaked in ego, fear, ignorance, misinformation
and distrust. One has to be relatively objective about it or else think they
are mad. I have stories which make the performances at Clarendon look like
nursery school.

Leland T. Taylor
President
Thermogenics Inc.
7100-F 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, New Mexico USA 87107 Phone: 505-761-5633, fax:
341-0424, website: thermogenics.com.
In order to read the compressed files forwarded under AOL, it is necessary to
download Aladdin's freeware Unstuffit at
http://www.stuffit.com/expander/index.html

From renertech at XTRA.CO.NZ Mon May 31 23:37:05 2004
From: renertech at XTRA.CO.NZ (Ken Calvert)
Date: Tue Aug 10 18:24:53 2004
Subject: FW: [GASL] the problems with tar!
Message-ID: <TUE.1.JUN.2004.153705.1200.RENERTECH@XTRA.CO.NZ>

-----Original Message-----
From: The Gasification Discussion List
[mailto:GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG] On Behalf Of Matthew Pottinger
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 7:34 AM
To: GASIFICATION@LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Subject: Re: [GASL] Internal combustion engines for tar-laden gases?? Re:
[GASL] LARGE Lister style engines

Dear Matthew, etal,
Having been there and done that 30 years ago during OPEC
1, let me make some practical comments.

1/. The problems with tars start long before you can get them into the
combustion chamber. When you have a gas stream containing a mist of small
particles, they don't like going round corners and when they impact on every
surface they soon build up a layer of very sticky go on every surface, which
clogs up everything and, believe you me is very hard to remove. One
example comes to mind. In the 1970s the French Electricity company in Tahiti
put in a 500kva generator set, like those Chinese ones you have spotted.
The idea was to gasify coconut shells and wastes from the big plantations
over there. The longest run they got was 14 days, between the need to
dismantle the cylinder head and clean out all the passages. And that was
with a gas that had been supposedly 'cleaned up'.
2/. Yes good clean charcoal has a fertilizer value, mainly as an ion
exchange and absorption material to hold soluble nutrients, but do not cross
reference that over to anything that has been in contact with gasifier tars.
They contain every phenolic chemical you can think of, and some of the most
potent carcinogens presently known. Commercially the material is known as
'Stockholm tar' and it will kill a horse at 50 yds!
The watery emulsion was known as 'Jeyes fluid' and was once used as a
disinfectant! However, it could kill you too!

3/.The sort of flexible piping that you are thinking off is used for
coupling up exhaust systems and is made of steel. It consists of a spiral of
interlocking metal strip. One commercial brand is called 'Squarelok flexible
metal tubing'.
4/. When it comes to engines that will run on Tar laden gases, you have to
go back to the Gas engine technology prevalent before 1930. These engines
ran on gas from coal, wood, agricultural wastes, you name it. However,
their very low efficiency, and the cost of making them today, due to the
weight of metal involved, is not on. So, you will have to have to persist
with tar cleanup practice and use present day engine technology.
Concerning gas cleanup, can I suggest that you look back into the subject of
electrostatic precipitation, which was discussed on this Group just a few
weeks ago.
Keep thinking!
Ken C.

BioEnergy Lists: Gasifiers & Gasification

May 2004 Gasification Archive