[Digestion] Biogas Flashback, does it really happen?

[David]

Mark,

On 8/2/2012 3:29 PM, Mark Wells wrote:
> Hi folks,
> I have been wondering if it is really possible to blow up a 
> digester, has any one actually ever seen this happen?
> There is very little info on the web about this subject except 
> boring hype from flame and flashback arrestor manufactures.

You have to be more specific. There are a modest number of reports 
from the 20s through, say, the 40s of catastrophic explosive accidents 
involving municipal digesters. (See copies of the venerable "Sewage 
Works Journal".) It is harder to find information about explosive 
failures of low-tech and smaller digesters, but some may argue that 
part of the reason there are so few reports is that these incidents 
are bound to affect few people, in areas where accidental death is not 
uncommon (i.e. it may not be newsworthy), and where such incidents 
might be reported by those who installed the digester(s), they have a 
vested interest in not so doing.... In any case, it seems to be a 
fairly rare consequence.

In response to the most general interpretation of the question, then, 
yes: it is possible to blow up a digester.



d.
-- 
David William House
"The Complete Biogas Handbook" |www.completebiogas.com|
/Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com

|
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"Make no search for water.   But find thirst,
And water from the very ground will burst."
(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77)

http://bahai.us/
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