<div><br></div>tom, you were some time ago expressing your dissatisfaction with electro static precipitators (ESPs). i have never used one, but have been intrigued. other than the explosive risk (non-trivial), they appear a cleanable, footprint dense, low maintenance final filtration option. what's your summary of the pros and cons after years of using them?<div>
<br></div><div>most all the final filtration options i'm not terribly excited about. baghouses, hot candles, packed beds, venturi scrubbers, mist scrubbers, oiled foam, paper filters, and etc etc all have pro and con sketches that seem to largely sum to con. i currently don't have any final filtration solution that i really like. </div>
<div><br></div><div>i can make our multistage packed bed and foam filters operate reasonable, using local materials, but they are operator dependent. and operators are highly variable, leading to errant filter packing that compromises filter performance. what is diy simple and "appropriate technology" can also have operator dependencies and general maintenance intensities that compromise real use value of the solution.</div>
<div><br></div><div>my current biases for what to do next lead towards trying to do as much as possible in the cyclone stage, using a multistage array of small ones after the first large one, then an esp or candles for the final stage. do this all above the condensation point so you don't have to deal with water fouling the filter. and have compressed air onboard so you can auto purge them to clean. still not simple, but at least less operator dependent.</div>
<div><br></div><div>this of course assumes you've dealt with the tar problem in the reactor, and are not relying on the filters to solve it. the above will mostly only deal with particulates. if you want to solve your tar problem in your filtering, you've got a much larger problem to deal with.</div>
<div><br></div><div>the other option i like is using water cleaning of some type, then recycling it back into the reactor. this assumes you have the thermal budget of the reactor worked out well enough through heat recycling that you can handle some extra water back into the reactor. but water systems are always complicated, and they always require water addition, and they don't work in cold environs. i'm currently in minnesota working between snow storms and freezes. happily i do not have a water based filter system on this trip. but i do have a packed bed based filter system, which is annoying to repack.</div>
<div><br></div><div>so tom, what's the answer?</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>jim</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><br></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 5:35 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:LINVENT@aol.com" target="_blank">LINVENT@aol.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><font face="arial,helvetica"><font color="#000000" face="Geneva"> The Japanese have had incinerators, using supercompressed MSW for ocean fill which didn't work as the bales decompressed, plasma, dual stage combustors, pyrolyzers and a host of systems that were very expensive and could only be justified with the Japanese economics of disposal and power value. Thermoselect's only remaining operating system that I am aware of is in Japan. This pyrolysis/combustion system had serious problems of operating costs and emissions in Europe and were subjects of legal actions against the personnel for violating hazardous waste and emissions reporting. <br>
There are plenty of "paper designs" that haven't been reduced to practice and if built, have serious problems. There are innumerable systems that have been proposed using the same tried and failed systems that appear to be fit for Clarendon, the insane asylum where Marquis de Sade wrote some of his most interesting works, the rule being the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. It is easy to spot "engineer" designed systems, they typically will use baghouses, cyclones, water sprays, venturi scrubbers, for gas cleaning, solid surface heat exchanging, sulfur or other contaminant removal units and a host of other systems that don't work or are too expensive when applied to the gasification field. <br>
We have plenty of folks who are looking for gasification systems and some of the most popular ones have had their customers discuss with Thermogenics their problems of operations, typically difficulty with feeding, engine instable operation, very narrow range feed acceptablity, high carbon/ash yield, and in the case of MSW/RDF, having a small particle size for fluidized bed or plasma operation that isn't necessary. </font><font color="#000000" face="Geneva"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><font color="#000000" face="Geneva">Sincerely,<br>
<br>
</font><font color="#000000" face="Sand" lang="0">Leland T. "Tom" Taylor<br>
</font><font color="#000000" face="Geneva">President<br>
Thermogenics Inc.<br>
701 Madison St. NE<br>
Albuquerque, NM 87110<br>
project site: 511 Ave. G<br>
Lubbock, Texas 79401<br>
<a href="tel:505-463-8422" value="+15054638422" target="_blank">505-463-8422</a><br>
<a href="http://www.thermogenics.com" target="_blank">www.thermogenics.com</a></font><font color="#000000" face="Geneva"><br>
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