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

[Michael J. Antal, Jr.]

Hi Ron: over 25 years ago at Princeton my student William Mok showed that
the pyrolytic reactions which offer high yields of charcoal release energy
(are exothermic).  His work was published in JAAP.  Nothing new about the
exothermicity in "magic coal".

You are right: our Flash Carbonization process takes minutes (not hours) and
realizes the theoretical yield of carbon from many feedstocks with no
catalysts.  Also, as a result of the findings of one of my recent graduate
students (Sam Wade), we can engineer a Flash Carbonization reactor so that
there is absolutely no danger of explosions.  This is why our State Boiler
Inspector has given us a permit to operate our Demonstration Reactor on
campus.

Finally I remark that the thermodynamics of chemical equilibrium demand the
formation of CO2 in addition to H2O during the pyrolytic formation of carbon
from biomass.  The claim being made by the "magic coal" workers that only
H2O is released is magic indeed!

Regards, Michael.
  -----Original Message-----
  From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org]On Behalf Of Ron Larson
  Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 1:13 PM
  To: John Cowan; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Part II comments on John Cowan's "thoughts"


  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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