[Stoves] Char retort question

[Carefreeland at aol.com]

DD - A number of years ago I described a retort system  similar to this 
based on small experiments I did with a 20 lb propane cylinder.  Like Yury,  in 
my plans, I had three 100 lb propane cylinder retorts,  feeding a central 
gas burner tube. The whole thing sat inside an insulated 275  gallon heating 
oil tank. The whole thing pivoted to unload and rotate the chips  and sticks 
used as feedstock. A small fire lit under the first cylinder got the  thing 
started.  As the process finished, the kiln was rotated and each  cylinder 
and dumped into a quenching can, then refilled in the upright  position. 
Each kin had a pressure tight lid and the process would operate  under slight 
pressure adding to the carbon output. Operated by one man, it  would 
continuously produce char. 
    
    I wanted to demonstrate it for Southern Ohio  farmers. They could turn 
fence row and overgrown pasture burn off wood into  an industrial fuel. Ten 
years ago nobody was excited about it because they had  downdraft 
carbonizers. What did they need with retort char? 
    
    Dan Dimiduk 
    
    Owner: Carefree Landscape
    Founder: Shangri- La Research. 
 
 
In a message dated 5/31/2013 4:39:56 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
ajheggie at gmail.com writes:

[Default] On Fri, 31 May 2013 00:30:27 -0400,"David G.  LeVine"
<dlevine at speakeasy.net> wrote:

>Let me start with  "This is something I think I remember seeing."
>
>Given a mass of  biological matter (no, I don't care if it is twigs, 
>grass or tree  stumps), put it in a horizontal 55 gallon drum with a band 
>clamped  head and a pipe from the top of the head down and under the drum 
>with  holes in the pipe which is parallel to the drum.  Once filled  
>(maybe not full either), a fire is started with scraps until the  gasses 
>coming out of the pipe burn.  This means the heating  becomes self 
>sustaining and the carbon is unlikely to be vaporized,  but the gasses 
>driven off are used, not wasted.  Suddenly the  pollution is reduced and 
>the efficiency goes up.
>
>1.  Does this ring a bell in anyone else's mind?
>
>2. Does this sound  like a viable approach?

Yes it's the system originally developed by  Lurgi for coal pre WW2 and
has been revived many times, in England Robbie  Webster promoted it
about 10 years ago and I suspect the Adam Retort uses a  similar
feedback path. The limitation is the poor surface area through  which
the heat can pass, not a big problem with dry wood.

It is  viable but think of the timeline of how pyrolysis develops, the
offgas does  not evolve evenly and its calorific value changes during
the process, this  tends to mean most of the heat from the offgas is
happening after the main  charge is carbonised. Yury Yudkevitch
addressed this problem by having a  series of cylinder retorts feeding
a central offgas manifold which then  heated the "oven" space in which
the cylinders sat, removing cyclinc=ders  and replacing with fresh in a
batch  sequence.

AJH

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