[Stoves] Making and Burning Charcoal in the TLUD

[CHRISTA ROTH]

Dear Kobus, maybe I should answer this: the fuel was douglas fir,  
natural logs stacked vertically in the combustion chamber (not the  
thin 1x4cm kiln dried pieces). 
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The beauty of the TChar (like Paul Anderson explained in his mail last  
week) is that you create your own char in the TLUD combustion chamber  
placed on top of a charcoal stove. When you lift up the gasifier-top  
the glowing embers fall by gravity into the charcoal stove, if you  
have bigger chunks, you tap them down with a stick, so no need to be  
'breaking' apart charred pieces. They normally break by themselves.

I am not quite sure what you mean by if it would be better to have 'a  
charcoal gasifier down there'? the bottom of the TChar that I had  
brought is a double walled charcoal stove with preheated secondary air  
going in above the glowing char (see photos below)

I should also put the record straight, where that stove came from: it  
was from the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), made by local  
artisans in the city of Butembo in Eastern Congo based on the  
initiative of the organisation IFDC (International Fertilizer  
Development Centre). They deal with the entire value chain of wood  
from planting, to processing into fuel and its use in improved  
cookstoves within the programme 'Sustainable Energy from Woodlots'  
implemented in Eastern Congo (south and north Kivu), Rwanda and Burundi.
IFDC started a fruitful cooperation with GIZ  on improved stoves in  
Burundi last year and I had the chance to work with them since earlier  
this year.

One of the colleagues from Butembo, Anselme Vwambale, took a prototype  
of a TChar from Malawi to DRC in March this year, and two months later  
I found tinsmiths in Butembo who were making TChar-stoves that  
function much better than what we had gotten to in Malawi. That is why  
the stove is called the 'Butembo Stove'. It has two versions, one all- 
metal version and another one where the charcoal bottom has a ceramic  
liner.

 From IFDC, Anselme and AIm? Kikuru (who is in charge of the value  
chain development in DRC) attended the recent stove camp at Aprovecho,  
as IFDC plans to scale up their stove interventions in the region. The  
colleague from GIZ Burundi was also there!

At Aprovecho Stove Camp we divided in groups and my group did a couple  
of iterations on that all-metal charcoal-bottom, playing around with  
the secondary air and the group got awarded the Cat Pee Award for  
that. It is really amazing what that tiny little metal unit was able  
to do. The photos show the tiny unit heating up the 5 l of water in a  
big pot, the photo to the right shows the inside of the combustion  
chambe at the stage when we had two rows of big secondary air holes.  
that did not work so well. we got the best performance from the 5  
tests we were able to do, once we reduced the hole-size to half. the  
stove camp was over...
But the applied research will continue in Butembo and elsewhere.

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Results and more pics will be included in the report by Aprovecho on  
the Stove Camp.
Regards Christa

Am 13.08.2012 um 20:37 schrieb Kobus Venter:

> Dean and list,
>
> What kind of wood fuel was used? Suppose the results and pics are  
> posted somewhere? The pyrolised particle size that ends up in the  
> charcoal burner is crucial in my opinion. Charring Legacy biomass  
> briquettes and then breaking it up into equal sized pieces may just  
> give the best flow rate and... preserve the forests and really get  
> my vote! Would it not be better if it was a charcoal gasifier down  
> there?
>
> Regards
>
> Kobus
>
> <Christa Roth brought a TLUD that burned the wood and then burned up  
> the made charcoal.
>
>
> www.vuthisa.com
> Twitter: @vuthisa
> Facebook: www.facebook.com/Vuthisa
> LinkedIn: http://za.linkedin.com/in/vuthisa
>