[Stoves] Torrefied biomass

Anand Karve adkarve at gmail.com
Mon Dec 5 23:51:07 CST 2011


Dear Stovers,
I spent the last Sunday in company of Dr. Paul Polak, who had come to India
on some project of his own. He was a next door neighbour of Tom Reed's when
the latter still lived in Denver. I told him about the work that we have
been doing for the last 15 years on generating cleaner fuels from
agricultural waste. I mentioned to him our work on charcoal and
biogas. He advocated torrefaction of biomass. It was his opinion that
torrefied biomass weighs almost 70% of the original biomass, is
non-biodegradable (so it can be stored in the form of a heap in open
air), and that it does not smoke when burned in a stove. The energy
required for torrefacion can be taken from the volatiles that are expelled
from the biomass during the process of torrefaction itself. He was saying
that one can use it in converting iron ore into metallic iron just like
coke. We feel that it is relatively easy to torrefy agricultural waste and
turn it into briquettes by using a modified kiln and the same extruder that
we use for our sugarcane leaf charcoal. Has anybody any experience of using
torrefied biomass in a stove?
Yours
A.D.Karve
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