[Stoves] [biochar] Re: [SeBIG] research report on the biochar from Burt's Greenhouses in Ontario, Canada
Alex English
english at kingston.net
Wed Dec 25 11:40:35 CST 2013
Hi Ron,
Dec 25th, three days after an Ontario ice storm, -30C, pity those who
lack electricity, a chimney powered stove, fuel or fortunate friends .
The song goes, "All you need is love, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha". Natures chorus?
The 'good king' would not be 'printing the sod' around here. There are
old timer tales of driving horse and sleigh on top of hard snow crossing
right over the fences. I used to doubt them.
"Deep and crisp and even"
I guesstimate that Burt's Greenhouses were holding aloft 100000 kg of
ice. Or 400kg per structural member. One is flattened because we ignored
its known limited capacities.
A human tendency.
Now to your questions; Thought I should read it first then answer....t
On 23/12/2013 12:41 PM, Ronal W. Larson wrote:
> Alex (with an expanded list of ccs; I include “stoves”, since that
> is the community who first heard of your great work; Thanks to John
> for the alert):
>
> It was good to see the name Burt’s in the following. Somewhere
> there should have also been the name “English”. I took the three
> papers being discussed here (two in an Appendix) as being very good
> news for biochar. Three parts of the three reports (for me) need an
> explanation that probably only you can supply:
Ad-junked Professor English.
>
> a. The char labeled “old” was clearly not as acceptable. The size
> distribution and the carbon content were different. Do you have an
> explanation? How could the carbon content be so low?
When we got started on this a few years back our standard fuel included
demolition wood and its high levels of minerals and metals. M and Ms are
dense and greatly dilute the char on a mass basis even when they aren't
very noticeable in a cursory glance. Left over ash in the auger
containment could contaminate the char. The auger also worked against
the back pressure of a plug seal at the end where the auger ground the
char into fines. All of that was changed, new 'cleaner' and 'very clean'
fuel feed stock and auger set up, which was cleaned before subsequent
testing.
>
> b. I had not realized you could produce char all the way from 500
> C to >700 C. Is the former done at lower power levels (less primary
> air) or what? Can you “dial in” a desired char temperature? Over
> what range?
Those numbers are lacking large +/- factors. The probe had a few
thermocouples in one linear zone. The lower temperature was achieved by
speeding up the grate. It was a one-off batch and as such I would not
draw any conclusions from it. No temperature dial as such but there is,
for a consistent fuel, an equilibrium state that is not that difficult
to set up. However it has yet to be tested continuously over tens of
hours or days, months.
>
> c. Is yours still the only known retrofit of a boiler going from
> combustion to pyrolysis?
In light of what Tom Miles has said, can we restate the question?"going
from combustion" to 'inefficient' high char yield gasification with
close coupled staged combustion of the gasses?
Its a big old world and I don't know what is being done out there. John
Bonitz is the only person beyond this study that I have spoken to about
this in the last couple of years. A few technical-tourist have spoken
to the owner of Burt's Greenhouses.
Peace to you and the mailing list multitudes,
Alex
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Dec 23, 2013, at 12:53 AM, Erich Knight <erichjknight at gmail.com
> <mailto:erichjknight at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> Thanks John,
>>
>> This work with Burt's Greenhouse will go into my report to Richard
>> Landis at DuPont & folks at ORNL Bio- Sciences. This email/report,
>> for two years now, is a collection of studies covering the alphabet
>> soup of toxins. 24Ds, PCBs, DDT, Cd, heck all the heavy metals,
>> Salts, Atrazine, cents on the dollar, Biochars are a "Shotgun"
>> approach, in the best sense of the word.
>>
>> Along with ;
>> *Use of phytoremediation and biochar to remediate heavy metal
>> polluted soils: a review*
>> http://www.solid-earth-discuss.net/5/2155/2013/sed-5-2155-2013.pdf
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Erich
>>
>> Erich J. Knight
>> Shenandoah Gardens
>> 1047 Dave Berry Rd. McGaheysville, VA. 22840
>> 540-289-9750
>>
>> *Policy & Community Chairman*
>> 2013 North American Biochar Symposium
>> Harvesting Hope: The Science & Synergies of Biochar
>> October 13-16, 2013 at UMASS Amherst
>> http://pvbiochar.org/2013-symposium/*
>> *
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 9:48 PM, John Bonitz <john.bonitz at gmail.com
>> <mailto:john.bonitz at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Friends,
>>
>> Here is a new research report on the biochar from Burt's
>> Greenhouses in Ontario, Canada.
>>
>> http://burtsgh.com/wpr/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Report_on_the_Production_and_Characterization_Biochar_Produced_at_BurtsGreenhouses_Final_O1.pdf
>>
>> I've not read it yet. But the relevance to our work here in the
>> Southeast is that there are a number of existing biomass boilers
>> that could be modified and operated to co-produce biochar, just
>> like Alex English did at Burt's Greenhouses.
>>
>>
>> John Bonitz
>> Pittsboro, NC
>> 919-360-2492
>> <https://mail.google.com/_/mail-static/_/js/main/m_i,t/rt=h/ver=2W1KovsDq0Q.en./sv=1/am=%218ALXqPjZmtNxB-3a1PgLQv1aVNeFUa1rSB9Dvp2g4jUlTRxyta9sJcCq_DzS_5yMrjqoHA/d=1?random=1352663945712>|LinkedIn
>> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbonitz>
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
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