[Stoves] Herreshof furnace

Thu Dec 22 13:17:20 CST 2011

Yesipov, Tom; Yury; Manuel; 2 lists 

1. Thanks to Tom for providing (below) most of the answers for Yesipov. 
It is indeed a surprise to see a "stoves" message from 1998. One first response might be that my e-mail address has changed - and is now rongretlarson at comcast.net - should that have been the intent of Yesipov's message. I would be pleased to answer questions off-list, but would prefer on-list. 

2. A charcoal expert in Russia who might be very helpful is Dr. Yury - whose address is given above. He will know a lot more about the charcoaling industry in Russia that might be helpful. But I hope we can hear more from Yesipov on exactly what he is looking for. 

3. The stoves list still sometimes gives some information on large-scale charcoal making - but Tom Miles has set up a much better list for this sort of inquiry in "biochar-production" (also a Tome Miles lst).. I hope Yesipov and others on "stoves" interested in larger scale char production (such as through the Herreshoff) will join that list. 

4. The quoted 1998 message mentions an "Elsen", who went on to both develop his own clever charcoal-making TLUD stove in Kenya (in about 1998?) - but (as related to this message) independently developed a different char-making approach that we don't hear much about, but I feel should be replicated more. It is (I think is still operating) a BLDD (bottom-lit down draft) - in which a central tall chimney is surrounded by a number (10??) of "pits", connected by tubes to the central chimney. Each "pit" had a grate onto which suitable biomass material (bagasse is a "free" favorite, I think) is piled. Then the system operates in the reverse of TLUDs. Being bottom lit, a small flame at the bottom of the tall central chimney creates an updraft there, which translates to a downdraft at the (ten??) outer-connected grates. As the pyrolysis front travels upward at thesegrates, an attendant who notes the appearance at the top of a "red spot" then loads more fuel (bagasse) at these "red spots". 
The reversal of the TLUD geometry is beneficial in being able to keep adding fuel - not possible with TLUDs. With a suitable "valve" in the connecting "pipes", any single "grate" can be "turned off" and the resulting char extinguished in some (?) manner. 

5. I have added Kelpie Wilson who asked a question about alternative char-making approaches to which this might be an appropriate answer - in the sense of being able to get more char per person-hour and per equipment dollar. Elsen chose this approach for those reasons. 

6. I have added "biochar-production" as the list most likely to have members having this interest now. (also managed by Tom Miles and his daughter Erin). Maybe someone on that list will have a good response. 

7. The best recent lengthy report I know of on this large scale (non-stove) char production topic is found at: 
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/1107017.pdf 
I have also added the main author, Professor Manuel Garcia-Perez, to acknowledge his good work. He has noted (pp78-81) a commercial group in Australia that is using this approach in a mobile unit - very good news. Others interested in the economics of char-making should also look at his report found at: 
http://faculty.ses.wsu.edu/WorkingPapers/Yoder/WP2009-25.pdf 

(and there is a separate shorter published peer-reviewed paper) 

8. Please say hello to Dr. Yury for us. 

Ron 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com> 
To: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org> 
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2011 10:03:38 AM 
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Herreshof furnace 

Thank you for your inquiry. 

The message was posted by Ron Larson who moderates discussions on biochar. 

The article on Herreschof furnaces was posted by Auke Koopmans who has lived in Thailand for many years and is now retired from the FAO. 

The FAO article can be found at: 

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5555e/x5555e00.htm 

FAO publication "Industrial charcoal making" FAO Forestry Paper no. 63 

Kind regards, 

Tom Miles 

T R Miles Technical Consultants, Inc. 

Portland, OR 

tmiles at trmiles.com 

www.trmiles.com 

From: stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of ????. ?????? ???? ?????????? 
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 10:59 PM 
To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org 
Subject: [Stoves] Herreshof furnace 

Good day! 

Wanted to know on Your site-forum there is always the author of this article: http://www.repp.org/discussion/stoves/199802/msg00025.html ? 

-- 

Yesipov Oleg 

Russia Perm 
_______________________________________________ 
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/ 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20111222/53eddc7c/attachment.html>