[Digestion] Digestion of Honey Waste

[Anand Karve]

Dear Brent,
In India, biogas is used as cooking fuel and it is always used as it is.  We
have two biogas plants at our training centre at Phaltan, Maharashtra State,
India. We use food waste and kitchen waste from our hostel as the feedstock.
The gas from one of the plants is used for cooking and that from the other
is used for operating an internal combustion engine for generating
electricity. The engine is started on petrol and then switched over to
operate with biogas alone. We do not purify the gas, neither for the cooking
nor for running the internal combustion engine. The H2S has so far corroded
neither our cookstove nor our engine. I consulted a U.S.American Professor
about the use of biogas in an internal combustion engine. He comes to my
city (Pune, India), as a consultant to an automobile manufacturer. He said
that the so called oxygen that the engine draws in contains 80% nitrogen.
Biogas has about 40% CO2, which does not interfere with the functioning of
the engine. The moisture in the biogas also does not harm the engine, as the
external air being drawn into the engine also contains moisture, especially
when it is raining. As to the H2S, he said that the whole world was using
diesel with a high sulphur content until about 20 years ago. It never harmed
the engine. We stopped using it to reduce atmospheric pollution. After
seeing our example, there are now several farmers, who use biogas in their
diesel engines (80% biogas and 20% diesel) for pumping water and for
generating electricity.. Biogas has a lower calorific value than petrol and
diesel. We overcome this problem by increasing the flow rate of biogas.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:58 AM, bingham <bingham at zekes.com> wrote:

>  Dear Anand,
> Are you saying you have an AD system that produces Biogas which does not
> require the expenditure of any energy?
> Alcohol can be burned in diesel and gas engines at 100 proof replacing
> $3.00++ automotive fuel. I do not understand
> your point about "use the fuel where it is generated" but one of alcohol's
> good points is it can be transported
> inexpensively or used "where it is generated". With the advent of vacuum
> operated alcohol distillation systems
> direct sun light  is all the external heat that is needed to produce
> alcohol at 190 proof.
>
> We do not know if the honey facility can even use biogas "as it is",  or
> has a need for it. Our natural gas boilers cannot use raw biogas
> "as it is", we must scrub out all H2S to prevent damaging another boiler
> and or most of the CO2  to avoid spending
> thousands to modify the burners to burn both natural gas and biogas. I do
> not know where or how you use biogas
> "as it is" we tried it in unit heaters in our livestock buildings and
> destroyed them in a year.
>
> The fact is in the last 45 years, we have found almost no application for
> the long term use of biogas ,that H2S is not a factor.
> Cooking stoves, lighting, boilers, unite heaters, water heaters, inferred
> heaters all experienced significantly shorter lives from using
> biogas "as it is". Some of the failures were out right dangerous.
>
> Anand, I believe you are being misleading to the point of being
> untruthful. This could result in someone being hurt or killed,
> who might take what you said "Biogas can be burned as it is" as fact and
> use it with out precautions.
> Standard residential plumbing and appliances contain metals that do not
> stand up under long term exposure to H2S. Especially in high heat high
> humidity conditions. Steel plumbing is used in most places that were setup
> to use natural gas or propane. To suggest you can just pump
> biogas"as it is" in place of other fuels is just wrong on many levels. We
> are strong proponents of AD but the "Bad Press" the list is
> currently discussing could be warranted in some instances. AD is not the
> "highest and best" technology for all applications.
>
> Highest and best use principles require the use of an energy audit and some
> study to determine which system is best suited to each situation. My father,
> grand father
> and my uncles refused to believe that the effluent from the AD system was
> better for the crops than the runoff from the livestock buildings. It was
> only after the areas
> around the farms began to build up with new homes and the complaints of
> smell threatened to shut us down that they allowed me to build our first AD
> system. They then
> could see an increase in crop yields in later years, (and the smell went
> away). I know corn farmers that use corn in there pellet stoves as fuel
> to heat there house because fuel pellets cost more to buy than they were
> paid for their corn.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Anand Karve <adkarve at gmail.com>
> *To:* For Discussion of Anaerobic Digestion<digestion at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 15, 2011 6:01 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Digestion] Digestion of Honey Waste
>
> Dear Brent,
> for alcohol to be useful as fuel, it has to be distilled, which again
> requires expenditure of energy. Biogas can be burned as it is. So, if you
> want to use the fuel where it is generated, biogas is more advantageous than
> alcohol.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
>
>
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> for more information about digestion, see
> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>
>
>


-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

*Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *
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