[Stoves] pellet gasifier

[Paul Olivier]

Some of you might be relieved to know that I do not focus only on policy
issues.

This is what this little pellet gasifier looks like:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22013094/150%20Gasifier/Short/Photos/IMG_1571.JPG

Today I ran this unit on pellets of diameter of 8 mm. Here I employed a fan
of only half the air resistance as in the previous run. I filled the bottom
half of the reactor with pellets, and the top half with loose rice hulls.
The loose hulls make the pellets much easier to light, and they do a good
job of filtering and cracking the gas. Without the rice hull biochar on
top, I simply cannot get a predominantly blue flame from 8 mm pellets. I
would have much preferred to have rice hull pellets of a 6 mm diameter. And
once again the power of the fan could have been easily reduced by another
50% to only 0.2 InAq.

In any case, this is what the unit looked like in operation:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22013094/150%20Gasifier/Short/Photos/MVI_1574.MOV

Note that the flame is not entirely blue. What amazes me is the amount of
heat this unit puts out. The biochar pellets that this unit produces are
firm, hard and quite beautiful:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22013094/150%20Gasifier/Short/Photos/IMG_1563.JPG
When the unit is emptied of biochar, and the biochar pellets are dropped
into water, a huge crackling sound is made. Loose rice hull biochar does
not react in such a forceful manner when it is quenched.

It will take a while before this unit could be brought to market. A lot
more work is needed. I think that a pellet gasifier would be ideal in urban
areas. Transporting and storing large bags of loose rice hulls in an urban
setting is messy and impractical. Hopefully such a small gasifier (the
reactor weighs but 1.2 kgs) would appeal to the more affluent in Vietnam.

I hope you all are not fed up with such technical detail.

Thanks.
Paul

-- Paul A. Olivier PhD
26/5 Phu Dong Thien Vuong
Dalat
Vietnam

Louisiana telephone: 1-337-447-4124 (rings Vietnam)
Mobile: 090-694-1573 (in Vietnam)
Skype address: Xpolivier
http://www.esrla.com/
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