[Stoves] coffee grounds as TLUD fuel?

[Anh]

David,

You can try to put the ground into a tall metal box or tube (bottom must be
sealed) and put the whole thing inside, on the side of the stove. Can fill
the stove with 2/3 of the boxes, the rest is normal wood/pellets. Heat will
turn the content inside the boxes to biochar and the gases will burn inside
the stove. During the process, you will see gas burning on top of the
box/tube. For better effect, can try a cap on the box/tube with some holes
to let the gas out. That can handle any other lose biomass too. 

Anh

-----Original Message-----
From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of
David Young
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2014 10:43 AM
To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Stoves] coffee grounds as TLUD fuel?

Dr. Paul Anderson suggested that I join this list and ask about the use of
coffee grounds as stove fuel.

At my house, coffee grounds are an energy-dense household waste that usually
ends up in the garbage.  I'm interested in turning them to fuel for a
natural-draft TLUD.

In order to keep the grounds from sifting out the bottom of the fuel
canister, or clogging the primary air supply, they have to be bound together
or encapsulated.  Dr. Anderson and I spoke about this problem at a recent
biochar meeting at the University of Illinois.  Let me tell you some of the
ideas that have come up so far.

Dr. Anderson suggested that I try to make "cigars" of the dried grounds:
sprinkle a line of grounds on a couple of layers of newspaper, wet an edge
of the newspaper, wrap it around the grounds and seal.  Then, twist the ends
closed.  Later, stand the dried cigars up and pack them into the TLUD.  I
will have to try that out.  I love the simplicity of it, and I like the idea
of reusing another form of waste to encapsulate the grounds.

I have already experimented some with encapsulating grounds.  In my first
experiment, I packed a stainless-steel tea ball about 2-inches in diameter
with dried grounds, and embedded in that in fragments of twigs 1/4-inch in
diameter or narrower.  My first experiment yielded a smelly, smoldering
mess.  In the mean time, I have learned more about how a TLUD is supposed to
behave, and I have modified my stove, so I will have to try the tea ball
again with my improved stove.

In second and third experiments, I created narrow "cups" to hold dried
grounds by drilling 1/2-inch holes lengthwise into the center of windfall
tree branches 1-inch in diameter and about 3 inches in length.  I stopped
drilling just short of the end.  I packed grounds into the cavity that the
drill left.  The cups went into the TLUD, with commercial wood pellets
surrounding and on top of the cups.  The cups and the grounds burned to
charcoal in the stove.  While that showed that some grounds can be burned in
the stove, there was too much labor involved, and grounds contributed very
little to the total fuel load.

I have an idea of how to bind the coffee grounds.  Some people are growing
mushrooms on coffee grounds---a neat demonstration can be found on YouTube,
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnLt0Xkm-Hs>.  Perhaps I can grow mushrooms
on coffee grounds in order for the mycelium to bind the grounds into a solid
mass that could be dried and used for TLUD fuel?
This has the advantage that the fungus would do most of the work.

Another of the ideas that Dr. Anderson had was to pulp some newspaper and
use that as a binder.  I hadn't thought of that, and I will have to try it,
too.

BTW, I have been following the Jock/Crispin conversation about ND-TLUD
stoves.  Reading it, I realize that I need to tune-up my stove on all fuels
before I carry on experimenting with coffee grounds: my stove produces
red-orange flames that reach past the the top of its chimney, and it's my
understanding that this is a sign of poor air/fuel mixing or air and fuel in
the wrong proportion.  I should have some questions about how to tune up my
stove in the next day or two.

Dave

--
David Young
dyoung at pobox.com    Urbana, IL    (217) 721-9981

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