[Stoves] An Application of the Anderson TLUD stove in USA - and maybe making electricity

Wed Apr 20 16:39:24 CDT 2011

Dear Ray and All:

Lucky you, living in Texas where Mesquite is a weed.  I read that the lignin
content of most wood is 15-25%, but that Mesquite is 64%.  I know everything
in Texas is bigger and better, but 3 times more?  Since the lignin in wood
is the precursor to the charcoal yield, I wonder if there are any other "off
the chart" lignin woods.

Tom Reed    BEF

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Paul S. Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu>wrote:

> Dear Ray and all,
>
> You have substantial practical experience with TLUD gasifier stoves, AND it
> is in the USA/developed world.  Highly unusual, and so we appreciate your
> telling us your experiences.
>
> Please consider preparing some report with photos, etc that can be posted
> at the Stoves website via Tom Miles.
>
> Have you been sun-drying your saved charcoal before storage?  How much time
> needed for drying.
>
> We are interested in your char-gasifier for making kinetic energy (engines
> and gensets).  Are you on the Gasification Listserv?  What is your timetable
> for activities?
>
> This topic is important to Stoves Listserv because when the stove produces
> the fuel (charcoal) that can give CLEAN (minimal filtering) gases for
> running gensets and pumps, then remote villages could get critical
> electricity because of shifting their type of cookstove.
>
> Thanks for your fine efforts!!!!!!
>
> Paul
> --
> Paul S. Anderson, PhD
> Known to some as:  Dr. TLUD    Doc    Professor
> Phone (USA): 309-452-7072   SKYPE: paultlud   Email: psanders at ilstu.edu
> www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/giz2011-en-micro-gasification.pdf   (Best ref.)
>
>
> Quoting Ray Menke <ray.menke at gmail.com>:
>
>  Thanks for the comments.  I will put a note in the video description
>> area correcting the definition of TLUD.
>> I have been experimenting with about ten different wood gas stoves,
>> and always dump the char into the bucket of water.  Usually, I pour
>> the liquid with the pieces of char into another bucket with a screen
>> over the top to catch any pieces larger than about 1 cm.  This second
>> bucket with the fines and ashes gets tossed on the compost pile (six
>> dump truck loads of chips mixed with cow manure).  I save the larger
>> pieces of char in large barrels and sacks in my barn for future use in
>> some larger gasifiers (for ten hp engines) that I have been building
>> on for some time.
>> Some of these chunks of char are used in cooking tasks where I want to
>> simmer rather than boil the food.
>> However, since I have a good supply of hardwood (Mesquite) I probably
>> use less than 1% of my char for cooking.  Perhaps 25% ends up in the
>> compost pile(s), and the remainder is stored in the barrels and sacks.
>>  (estimated half a dozen 55 gallon (200 liter) barrels.)
>> Last year, I built my version of the Anila stove using a 20# propane
>> bottle.  I guess it might be called a retort!  It makes large amounts
>> of beautiful charcoal from larger hunks of hardwood, while burning the
>> pyrolytic gas under a very large pot or pressure cooker.  My goal with
>> this retort was to make high grade charcoal while making complete use
>> of the flame for cooking, and producing no visible smoke.  It uses a
>> ten dollar ceiling fan speed control to vary the amount of forced air.
>>  It works very well, but has too much ¨firepower¨ for normal cooking
>> for two old retired people.  (It will work well to reduce large
>> amounts of cooked tomatoes into tomato paste.)  I keep this high grade
>> charcoal separate from the finer char produced by the cook stoves.
>> My Woodgas Campstove XL gets used about 60% of the time because I have
>> a pot shroud that fits around the stove and the pot that makes it very
>> efficient, especially when there is wind.  I don´t get much char from
>> this stove because I use it for things like rice and beans that need
>> longer cooking times, with low heat toward the end.  I have hardwired
>> an old waterproof flashlight equipped with two D cells into the fan,
>> and I use the flashlight switch to run the fan.  (After several
>> hundred uses, the factory installed connector got so loose the fan did
>> not run all the time.)  I let the fan run until the stove completely
>> cools down, after dumping the char and ash into the bucket.
>> I am saving the char and charcoal because it is used in the starting
>> of engine grade gasifiers.  It can also be used in the gas filtering
>> stages.  Also, once I have converted the wood into char, the
>> sub-tropical bugs stop digesting it...
>> As you probably saw on the evening news, there are many large
>> wildfires destroying houses and vast amounts of rangeland here in
>> Texas.  All open fires are banned, with large fines and the
>> possibility of two years jail time for violators.  So, for the time
>> being, I have shut down my outdoor kitchen...waiting (with my cows)
>> for rain (and grass).
>>
>> Ray
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 1:11 AM,  <ajheggie at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  Hi Ray
>>>
>>> It does show that TLUD devices don't have the problems which people
>>> expect
>>> from a simple batch burn and I see you do add fuel from the top. The
>>> acronym actually stands for Top Lit Updraught Stove rather than the top
>>> loaded you comentry implies.
>>>
>>> You say you use the char saved at the end of each run for cooking and
>>> gardening, any idea what proportions for each use and an estimate of
>>> production from your ~900 burns?
>>>
>>> AJH
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ray  Menke
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Stoves mailing list
>>
>> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
>> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>>
>> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
>>
>> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org
>>
>> for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
>> http://www.bioenergylists.org/
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> This message was sent using Illinois State University RedbirdMail
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Stoves mailing list
>
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>
> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
>
> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org
>
> for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
> http://www.bioenergylists.org/
>
>

-- 
Dr. Thomas B. Reed
The Biomass Energy Foundation
The BioChar Engineering Corporation
www.WoodGas.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20110420/a23e6f59/attachment.html>