[Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel? -- and possible project

Paul Anderson psanders at ilstu.edu
Sun Jan 20 15:25:04 CST 2013


Jonathan,

You wrote:
> we too have had the experience of getting smoke and incomplete 
> gasification from very dry seed that was stored too long in arid 
> conditions.
I suspect you meant to say "incomplete combustion of the gases". I 
suspect that your very dry fuel did get pyrolyzed all the way to 
charcoal.   (and I suspect that you are not referring to the 
gasification of the char, which should  not be allowed to occur inside 
of TLUD stoves because the high heat of char-gasification is detrimental 
to the metal of the stoves.).

There seem to be enough Jatropha seeds for both pressing them for oil 
AND for using some directly as seed-fuels.  Advantages of seed fuels 
include:
1.  Already packaged with a natural protective coating (seed coat, not 
referring to the outer husk/shell)
             a.   to prevent entry of water (until conditions exist for 
sprouting).  Moisture content (MC) is reasonably consistent in intact 
seeds if you give them a little protection from the rain.
             b.   clean to the touch when handling the fuel.   They 
scoop well, and make no dust.
             c.   giving curved sides that allow passage of the needed 
Up-Draft primary air in TLUDs
             d.  (minor negative) prevent quick ignition, so we solve 
that by breaking up a few seeds to be at the top for ignition.   But no 
need to crack them all.

2.  Packed with energy in the form of carbohydrates (and other "stuff" 
like oils that burn).
            a.   That is why we do not burn most seeds, because they 
have value as food.
            b.   But Jatropha seeds are inedible, so we can burn them.
            c.   The oils can be vaporized by the heat, meaning the 
pyrolysis does not occur for the oils.
            d.   Therefore, per unit of energy ultimately in the 
combustion flame, there is LESS charcoal produced per unit of weight 
than is the case of wood and maize cobs, etc.

3.  And specifically Jatropha seeds are about the right size for 
collection, storage, handling, air passage.   And do not forget that the 
outer husk/hull can also be collected and used as fuel.

4.  About the press-cake after oil extraction.   What I have seen 
(Mozambique and Uganda) does not appeal much to me as a fuel.   It needs 
further handling, is oily, and oil that does not dry remains slippery 
and therefore is not naturally great for making pellets or briquettes 
stick together.   IF the press cake is being produced, then certainly 
consider using it as a fuel.   But do not expect it to be easy or clean 
or even cheap.   Certainly not as inexpensive as the intact seeds.

Again, I will sing the praises of Jet City Stoveworks (Otto brothers Jon 
and David and Prof. David Covert) and of Nathan Puffer (Vermont, not NH) 
for their work with whole Jatropha seeds in TLUD-ND (Jiko Safi) and 
TLUD-FA stoves, respectively.  And also Hugh McLaughlin who has done 
experimental work with oil seeds as fuels in TLUDS (used sunflower seeds 
as a substitute).

We hope to see the Jiko Safi at ETHOS next week.  Maybe there will be 
sufficient interest and attendance that we can build with and upon the 
Safi work.

Paul

Paul S. Anderson, PhD  aka "Dr TLUD"
Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu   Skype: paultlud  Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website:  www.drtlud.com

On 1/20/2013 12:16 PM, Jonathan Otto wrote:
> Alex,
>
> You and Ron Larson have the memory of an elephant.  Yes, I did make 
> early postings to this list seeking help as we tried to develop 
> a stove to burn liquid Jatropha oil many years ago. As our German 
> colleagues at Siemens demonstrated over sevearl years of interesting 
> failures, a cheap, easy-to-maintain stove fueled by plant oils is very 
> difficult or maybe impossible. Then, for our efforts in Tanzania, Paul 
> Anderson came along, preaching the gospel of TLUD, and we realized 
> that extracting J oil as a liquid fuel was both unnecessary and 
> inappropriate, when we can gasify these oils from within the seed.
>
> Moisture level.  We've not done any systematic testing of seed 
> moisture levels, but it's rarely an issue since people only harvest J 
> seeds when they're completely dry on the vine.  Some sun drying helps 
> if they get wet.  Going back to a comment Dean made recently about 
> fuel being too dry to gasify well, we too have had the experience of 
> getting smoke and incomplete gasification from very dry seed that was 
> stored too long in arid conditions.  We need more field experience to 
> say anything more useful about this.
>
> Carl Beilenberg and J oil for electrical generation.  I have fallen 
> out of touch with Carl in recent years, so I don't know what my fellow 
> Vermonter is up to these days, but you can bet it's highly inventive.  
> I do know that he used to  run his diesel VW on J oil -- quite a trick 
> for such a viscous fuel in our northern climate.  Since J seed is 
> still not a traded commodity in most places, the economics of using it 
> as fuel -- solid or liquid -- can't be definitively determined, or I 
> should say, will be highly site-specific. The  on-farm price range for 
> J seed, excepting ridiculous spikes that occurred during the Jatropha 
> silly period of the biofuel bubble after 2005, runs from around 
> US$0.12 to $0.25 per-kilo in my experience. Depending on efficiency of 
> extraction methods, quality of seed, etc., one can get 1 liter from 
> 3.5 kg - 5 kg of seed. Of course, feedstock is only one part of the 
> cost equation.
>
> Thanks for yoiur interest,
>
> Jonathan
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 10:14:42 -0500
> From: english at kingston.net
> To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel?
>
> Hi Jonathan,
> Its good to hear about the progress you have made. I can remember your 
> early missives to this list, was it a decade ago?
> A few questions... about the stove;
>
> At what moisture level (in the whole seed) do you see a drop off in 
> emissions performance when burned in the Jiko Safi?
> Is it easy for the users to tell when the seeds are dry enough?
>
> ...about biofuel;
>  Part of the idea was to provide electricity or shaft power to 
> communities or business with a Lister engine on Jatropha oil.
> I remember visiting Carl Bielenberg's workshop where he was doing the 
> testing.
> Any success stories there or is diesel always cheaper without a carbon 
> consideration?
>
> Alex
>
>
> On 20/01/2013 9:23 AM, Jonathan Otto wrote:
>
>     Hey Richard,
>
>     Not sure why you feel my briquetting education has been neglected,
>     since that kind of fuel is not mentioned in any of my postings;
>     but I certainly subscribe to Dean's comment: we all have a lot to
>     learn about such alternative fuels. I would add: and the stoves
>     that burn them in a truly clean way.  Which brings up the
>     question: if a briquette or pellet is burned in an open charcoal
>     brazier, do we have a clean energy source? To put in another way,
>     there are no 'clean' or 'dirty' fuels; it's combination of fuel
>     and stove that must be evaluated together for emissions and other
>     performance parameters.
>
>     My densified fuels question to Otto the Senior or anyone else who
>     can enlighten me concerning the logic of pelletizing Jatropha
>     presscake.  If farmers grow their own energy-dense, uniform-sized
>     fuel, i.e., whole Jatropha seed, why complicate matters by
>     processing that ready-to-use fuel into another fuel? No matter
>     how efficient the pelletizing process, it must require time and
>     energy. Why not burn these seeds directly in a micro gasifier
>     stove, such as our jiko safi?
>
>     Let me try to head off some likely comments. I know that there are
>     companies in many African and Asian countries engaged in
>     commercial scale production of Jatropha (and other biofuel
>     crops) for export of biodeisel. Land grabbing and other nefarious
>     activities of some of these players are obscene, as once again the
>     global north exploits tropical countries for cheap/free land and
>     cheap labor to meet its own needs.
>
>     Yes, those Jatropha oil export ventures produce presscake as a
>     by-product which they pelletize and market for fuel. And yes, some
>     smaller operations in a few countries like Uganda, are trying to
>     make a go of producing Jatropha-based biofuels for local and
>     regional energy markets.  But for all the publicity, most of it
>     appropriately negative, in the 'food vs. fuel' analysis, there's a
>     lot more to Jatropha than current attempts to put the oil in
>     European cars and jet engines.
>
>     Far apart from all these recent commercial Jatropha ventures, many
>     of which are unprofitable for reasons we can discuss another time
>     if anyone's interested, are many millions of farmers in over 110
>     countries who use Jatropha as a living hedge and for medicianl
>     uses. Seems it's grown in every frost-free area of the world. I've
>     found it from Cuba -- it's native to the neo-tropics -- to Mali,
>     which has thousands of kilometers of hedges, to Bhutan where
>     villagers were obliged to pay a Jatropha tax to monks for lighting
>     in floating wick lamps.
>
>     My guess is that over 99% of all Jatropha seed fall to the ground
>     and rot, unused. (One study in a district of Tanzania where
>     Jatropha seed is a traded commodity found that only 6% of  seed is
>     harvested.) As we all search for renewable, sustainably harvested
>     biomass to fuel our favorite stoves, can we afford to overlook
>     seeds of this ubiquitous, multi-use species?
>
>     The point of importuning my stove list colleagues on a fine Sunday
>     morning is to interest other stove makers to look at Jatropha and
>     other energy-rich seeds as a category of fuel worth consideration
>     for new stove designs.  We are modestly pleased with the
>     performance of the jiko safi, but we also know that some of you
>     with far deeper understanding of gasification and far more
>     experience in stove design could produce a much better model. 
>     Anyone want to take up this challenge?
>
>     Over to you,
>
>     Jonathan
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     From: rstanley at legacyfound.org <mailto:rstanley at legacyfound.org>
>     Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:46:53 -0600
>     To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>     <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>     Subject: Re: [Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel?
>
>     Dear Ottos,
>     Seems you both need training in briquettemaking . Jon you know
>     where to go in nchi yeti but Otto, where are you based? Seriously,
>     the blends you are finding smelly smokey etc suggests that you get
>     in touch with any of hundreds of others who can train you.
>     Richard Stanley
>     Monte Rico,
>     Guatemala
>
>     Sent from my iPhone
>
>     On Jan 19, 2013, at 18:10, Otto Formo <terra-matricula at hotmail.com
>     <mailto:terra-matricula at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         Josh and Jonathan (Otto),
>
>         Yes, we are talking about the presscake of Jatropha and it was
>         processed into pellets localy in Zambia, quite easily and with
>         "simple" tools - (no waste of energy)
>
>         We had the same experience as your colleagues using briquettes
>         made out of ricehusks and sawdust.
>         They even started to glow like charcoal early in the
>         gasification process and produced smoky and smouldery combustion.
>
>         Thast why we prefer to use pellets of best possible quality.
>
>         I hope you are correct about the gasification of jatropha
>         pellets will destroy the phorbol esters and other problematic
>         compounds instead of emitting them.
>         Iam a bit worried about the forced draft units, while they
>         seems to blow some parts of the ash and gases into the open
>         air or room.
>
>         May be the char from Jatropha could have a pestecide effect as
>         well?
>
>         Otto
>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 18:23:35 -0500
>         From: yeah.yeah.right.on at gmail.com
>         <mailto:yeah.yeah.right.on at gmail.com>
>         To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>         <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>         Subject: Re: [Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel?
>
>         Otto - FYI jatropha presscake (the mealy material left over
>         once oil has been pressed out of the seeds) can be directly
>         pelletized without further processing. It's pretty easy to
>         pelletize, even with a small, cheaper (e.g. benchtop) pellet
>         press. The mealy presscake still contains some of the oil
>         (think coffee grounds) and it pelletizes well without worry
>         over moisture content or having to use a binder.
>
>         The pellets burn in a TLUD similar to wood or other pellets,
>         at least by visual observation and temperature recording. I
>         have colleagues that have tried to make cooking briquettes
>         with jatropha seedcake and had a very smoky, smouldery
>         combustion. I believe there are concerns of some potentially
>         toxic emissions (phorbol esters, other compounds?). I have not
>         tested the emissions from TLUD charring jatropha pellets, but
>         there was no visible smoke and the gasifier seemed to operate
>         fine as it does with other types of pellets. It would be
>         interesting to know if firing jatropha pellets in a TLUD
>         destroys the phorbol esters and other problematic compounds
>         instead of emitting them.
>
>         I first tried to char un-pelletized jatropha seedcake in the
>         TLUD - because it is mealy like coffee grounds no draft could
>         get through and it was a total fail - lots of smoke poured
>         out! This brought the fire department to our Colorado backyard
>         during a fire ban. Whoops.
>
>         Also FYI char made from TLUD jatropha pellets performed
>         similar for herbicide uptake from simulated natural water as
>         chars made in the same way from pine pellets, bagasse pellets,
>         and bamboo pieces.
>
>         Josh
>
>
>
>         On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 12:29 PM, Jonathan Otto
>         <ottojonathan at hotmail.com <mailto:ottojonathan at hotmail.com>>
>         wrote:
>
>             Otto,
>
>             Whole Jatropha seeds can be picked from hedges on-farm and
>             used directly in our jiko safi gasification stove without
>             any further effort (except maybe for some sun drying if
>             harvested during a damp season) ... the most
>             decentralized, efficient sustainable fuel system I can
>             imagine.
>
>             Sure, urban jiko safi users will need to buy their fuel
>             seeds, so a commercial system for transport and retail
>             sale of seed will be needed eventually, likely mimicking
>             some aspects of the charcoal trade. But it's just whole,
>             unprocessed seed.
>
>             Concerning pelletized Jatropha fuel, I would like to
>             understand the advantages you find in going through the
>             costs and effort (including energy losses) of processing
>             seeds to expel the oil, then probably milling the press
>             cake and shells (?) to uniform size/texture, then
>             extruding or otherwise forming the mixture into pellets,
>             and finally distribute the fuel, some of which will go
>             back to the same farmers that grew the Jatropha seed in
>             the first place?
>
>             I know there are technical advantages to gasification of
>             uniform-sized pellets, but it seems to me that round or
>             ovoid shaped seeds like Jatropha, castor (I know, more
>             poisons!), shea or croton megalocarpus provide this same
>             advantage, without going through the pelletization
>             process.What am I missing?
>
>             Otto, the minor
>
>             P.S. It's too late for me to retire 'on time'
>
>             ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>             From: terra-matricula at hotmail.com
>             <mailto:terra-matricula at hotmail.com>
>             To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>             <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>             Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 17:23:37 +0100
>
>             Subject: Re: [Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel?
>
>             Jonathan,
>
>             We have got some samples of pelletized jatropha shells and
>             seeds from Zambia, after the oil has been extracted and we
>             feel that is the way forward.
>
>             We will update you on the progress, so you will be albe to
>             retire "on time".................:)
>             We are not so worried about PM in natural draft gasifiers,
>             but thanks for the concern.
>
>             Otto........................
>             ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>             From: ottojonathan at hotmail.com
>             <mailto:ottojonathan at hotmail.com>
>             To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>             <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>             Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 09:03:35 -0500
>             Subject: Re: [Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel?
>
>             Otto-
>
>             You 'would guess' wrong.
>
>             'We should be very careful advising people' about such
>             unsupported conclusions.
>
>             The challenges of gasifying oils found in seeds, notably
>             the oils of Jatropha seed, in a cookstove are far
>             different from working with most pellets formulations.
>
>             I keenly look forward to news of your all-fuel stoves that
>             will handle J seeds, and the results of your tests. I
>             sincerely hope you develop this soon, so I can finally
>             retire in peace.
>
>             Oh, and when you do tests, please include particulates in
>             your emissions testing, so we can finally end all this
>             hand wringing about 'these types of fuel'.
>
>             >From the cheeky other Otto,
>
>             Jonathan
>             ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>             From: terra-matricula at hotmail.com
>             <mailto:terra-matricula at hotmail.com>
>             To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>             <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>             Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 23:23:48 +0100
>             Subject: Re: [Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel?
>
>             Dear stovers,
>
>             I would guess that "any" gasifier will burn jatropha seeds
>             or pellets cleanly and efficient, as long as the moisture
>             content are less than 10%.
>
>             We have in the pipeline to test a new design of natural
>             draft gasifiers, using jatropha seeds and pellets, for
>             emmissions and toxcic fumes.
>
>             We should be very carefull adviceing people using these
>             types of fuel, before it has been carefully tested by
>             independent institutions.
>
>             Have a nice weekend.
>
>             Otto (not the famous one..........:)
>
>             ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>             From: crispinpigott at gmail.com <mailto:crispinpigott at gmail.com>
>             To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>             <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>             Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:19:11 -0500
>             Subject: Re: [Stoves] Jatropha fruit as fuel?
>
>             Dear Jonathan
>
>             I am interested in the general layout and dimensions of a
>             stove that will burn the seeds well. Are you sharing at
>             this time anything regarding the design?
>
>             Thanks
>             Crispin
>             ++++++++
>
>             Dear Joyce and stovers all,
>
>             My regrets for not responding to this request 6 months
>             ago. I admit that it got lost in my messy inbox which I
>             have now reduced from 6000 messages to a mere 2400, and in
>             the process uncovered Joyce's email.
>
>             Burning Jatropha seeds whole or in briquettes in open
>             cooking arrangements is a bad idea.  It produces a smoky,
>             smelly fire and probably exposes cooks to toxic
>             emissions.  I even question burning Jatropha oil in lamps
>             in enclosed areas for the same reason. Maybe others know
>             of emissions studies.
>             [snip]
>
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>         PhD Candidate, Environmental Engineering
>         University of Colorado-Boulder
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