[Gasification] rotary valve sources/experience?

[Robert Kana]

Dear Jim,
It was hard for us to stop the air leak for the smaller gasifiers with 
wood chips. Since ash was so little, we used water lock on the ash 
outlet and for feeding the wood chips, we just turn off the pump, open 
the top and refill. We had several units operating almost 6 months now 
and no complaints from the customers, very little smoke comes out for 30 
seconds.
On the larger rice husk or chicken waste gasifiers, bio char is so much 
and we do not want to wet it. After so many trials, we enlarge the char 
area and are using now screw to take out the char. We also extend the 
screw a little longer to stop the smoke coming out. For the shaft seal 
we used asbes sealer, that is working fine.
If we use to blow the air, we feed the gasifier with screw feeding 
system with air tight tubes. For suction units, suction blower is 
installed after cooling and washing the gas and small air leaks to 
gasifier is not a problem.
Regards,
Robert