[Terrapreta] Part II comments on John Cowan's "thoughts"

[Ron Larson]

Hi all:

1.  Yesterday,  John  said:
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Cowan" <johncowan at earthlink.net>
To: <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 5:40 PM
Subject: [Terrapreta] some thoughts about Terra Preta


    <snip>

> 
> Here is another idea worth pondering - "magic coal" made by pressure 
> cooking biomass. It avoids certain problems with making charcoal but has 
> some new issues to overcome.
> http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2071791,00.html
> 

2.  
John Cowan said:

Here is another idea worth pondering - "magic coal" made by pressure 
cooking biomass. It avoids certain problems with making charcoal but has 
some new issues to overcome.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2071791,00.html


a. Like John, I found this new and very interesting. By scouting around for more on the subject, I also found http://peswiki.com/index.php/Translate:MPG:Coal_from_Biomass

b. Some more observations:

  1.. I see the use of the word "coal" here - as we did with "charcoal" >> "coal" in Russian
    b.  This "coal" is described as being brown.

    c.  After 15 hours at 180 C, one ends up only with water and tiny "coal" spheres - with the system being exothermal! (in the presence of a [secret?] undisclosed catalyst)

    d.  They talked about doing the research outside because of the dangers of an explosion. This reminds me of the similar (?) high pressure work of Mike Antal. But there is a big difference, with Mike getting his (similarly, batch) charcoal in minutes (?), I believe (and without the added water and catalyst).

    e. They talk about using the "coal" in a fuel cell - no discussion of use as a soil augmentation, so maybe this product is not as permanent as we might desire.  It also may have little surface area.

    f.  I wonder how much energy is released? Is it worth using a heat exchanger to drive a turbine? Could it be part of a concentrating solar power system? (With concern about explosions - perhaps there is considerable energy here.) 
3.  I hope that we can hear more!   John, thanks for calling our attention to this very interesting new technology. I would be skeptical of all this, if Dr. Markus Antonietti's credentials were not impeccable.

4.  Anyone (hoping especially to hear from Mike Antal) able to shed more light on more details? (There are some references that look worth tracking down, but no time yet to do that.)

Ron


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