[Stoves] Controlling wood moisture content for stove testing in a lab

[Jetter.Jim at epamail.epa.gov]

James and All,

For our stove testing, we purchased one large, freshly cut "green" log.
We cut the log into the desired size for fuel wood.  We allowed the wood
to air dry until it reached the desired moisture content.  Then we
packed half of the wood into air-tight drums and stored the drums in a
freezer to prevent mold from growing on the wood.  We allowed the other
half to air dry until it reached equilibrium with ambient humidity.  The
low-moisture wood was 10% average moisture content (wet basis), and the
high-moisture wood (in the freezer) was 26% average moisture content
(wet basis).  We measured moisture content using the oven-drying method.
We removed high-moisture wood from the freezer, as needed, and thawed it
out to ambient temperature (inside a sealed plastic bag) before using it
for testing stoves.  We measured moisture content of the wood on each
day of testing.  This method worked well for us, and hope it might be
helpful.

Jim

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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:07:24 +0200
From: James Robinson <jamesrobinson77 at gmail.com>
To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Stoves] Controlling wood moisture content for stove testing
		 in a		 lab
Message-ID:

<AANLkTimC=xftPTKFiWPi5kA48T839SDZwffd2Kz88g4W at mail.gmail.com>
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Dear all,

Is anyone using a system to control the moisture content of wood (or
other
fuels) for stove testing in a laboratory?

I was thinking along the lines of a
humidity/temperature controlled cabinet with multiple sections to allow
for
the grading of MC in a variety of samples.

A quick web search turned up a number of systems but none that obviously
fit
the requirement. A home made system is also a possibility.

Cheers,

James Robinson

SeTAR Centre
University of Johannesburg