[Terrapreta] Cellulosic biomass into Ethanol conversion.

[Duane Pendergast]

Thanks for that Sean. My only direct experience with actual charcoal making
goes back some 55 years and I'm now 69. My brother and I made some charcoal
for my fathers iron working forge. We put a collection of sticks into a
large can with a small hole or two punched in the lid. We put the can on a
large pile of brush and set the brush on fire. I would guess very little
atmospheric oxygen got to the wood inside the can. We saw first smoke -
likely steam - escaping from the holes which later ignited and burned off
over a fairly long time. 

 

When the whole thing cooled down, we retrieved our sticks. I recall being
surprised at how perfectly the form of the sticks was preserved. Aside from
being black and brittle charcoal they looked just about the same as when
they went in with growth rings and knots nicely preserved.

 

Unfortunately there is no documentation.  That's too bad as we might have
set a record for the most inefficient production of charcoal ever achieved.
I would guess we burned a ton of wood to make 10 pounds of charcoal.

 

We tried something similar once with a sealed can of gasoline trying to
generate a mushroom cloud like the ones we heard about in school from atomic
weapons. When the can exploded releasing the gasoline we did get a nice
mushroom cloud. The flying sticks ignited nearby brush and grass  burning
off most of a quarter section. Our father shrugged his shoulders wishing
we'd done it a few days later for a dryer day and better burn on the quarter
section.

 

I'm afraid that kind of freedom is no longer available to Canadians.

 

Duane

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean K. Barry [mailto:sean.barry at juno.com] 
Sent: November 9, 2007 11:44 AM
To: still.thinking at computare.org
Cc: terrapreta
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Cellulosic biomass into Ethanol conversion.

 

Hi Duane,

 

The thermo-chemical conversion of cellulosic biomass (pyrolysis/FT) into
Ethanol is quite different than the bio-chemical conversion of cellulosic
biomass into (steam explosion/enzymatic fermentation) or the bio-chemical
conversion of plant sugars into Ethanol (yeast fermentation).   Only
pyrolysis/FT has the potential to produce biochar as a co-product.

 

 

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