[Stoves] Corn cob burner for making salt

Rebecca A. Vermeer ravermeer at telus.net
Fri Aug 28 03:10:05 CDT 2015


Dear Crispin & Andrew, 
Crispin's photo brought back memories of my visit to Ilocos Norte, Philippines 8 years ago.  Since I could not locate my photos of that tour, I Googled   

"sea salt manufacturing Philippines "  and found these: 

  

https://www.google.ca/search?q=sea+salt+manufacturing+philippines&biw=1680&bih=904&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCMQsARqFQoTCLb7yoacy8cCFZI7iAod6FICmA#imgrc=utoR91O1wkM72M%3A 

  

https://www.google.ca/search?q=sea+salt+manufacturing+philippines&biw=1680&bih=904&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCMQsARqFQoTCLb7yoacy8cCFZI7iAod6FICmA#tbm=isch&tbs=rimg%3ACbraEfdTtcJDIjgMkl8V2UvwMR0-KCqNbF-JuW2ODiTColA8wX_10GjHWb6ywpwprGwoFeLLUKIMyD70BsX1zAHhAyyoSCQySXxXZS_1AxEf94sU1or0kJKhIJHT4oKo1sX4kRGK6kCXGRCTYqEgm5bY4OJMKiUBEwTnCcH9MiFyoSCTzBf_1QaMdZvEXqk_1ieifalxKhIJrLCnCmsbCgURCsxARi_1jeYoqEgl4stQogzIPvRFd9br5kIdN2SoSCQGxfXMAeEDLEcjrgXE_1LPM4&q=sea%20salt%20manufacturing%20philippines 

  

Do you think the traditional stoves in Ilocos Norte  are more efficient than those in Lombok Island? 

  

I also recall visiting factories making pottery that were deliberately broken into small pieces and sold by the sack full to the salt makers.  The broken pieces of pottery are used to cover the bottom of the shorelines from where the sea water is drawn.  This  keeps the sediments down and the sea water for salt making clear.  

 Regards, 


  

Rebecca 
----- Original Message -----

From: "Crispin Pemberton-Pigott" <crispinpigott at outlook.com> 
To: "Stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org> 
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 3:54:51 PM 
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Corn cob burner for making salt 

Dear Andrew 

You are on the right track but this is done in a really different manner from general intuition.  

There are two ways to make salt. Dig the mud from the inter-tidal zone and filter the salt out using sea water, and purifying evaporation pan salt, the dirty part.  

The first approach is done in Sumba Island ‎and the water from the strainer is 24% salt. The method in Lombok is to process dirty salt by dissolving it in water which does into the stove at about 20% concentration. It precipitates as the concentration reaches 332 g/litre.   

The efficiency using rice hull is about 30% which is not too shabby considering the technology level. There is obviously a problem with the corn cob burner. It is a big 'particle' and let's a lot of air through so there is always an air problem. If you throw a lot of cobs onto the fire then it generates a lot of gas very quickly so manual feeding has to be well managed.  

The secondary air hole is also the feed hole so that is something that needs to be addressed too. Corn cobs are pretty good fuel - good energy content and not too much ash. It has the same bulk density as ‎rice hull but 50% more energy.  

So file that picture in the Department of Spectacular Flames. I will send a picture of the 2.7 MW wood fire when I see it in action. It doesn't run very often.  

Regards  
Crispin 

>Dear Friends of Salt 
> 
> 
> 
>This is a photo of a corn cob-fired salt boiler in Lombok Island, Eastern 
>Indonesia. The hole from which the flame is emerging is the secondary air 
>inlet. You may wonder why there is a large flame coming out of it. Well, 
>that is a good question. The reason is that so much air is getting through 
>the grate that it is able to support the gasification of the fuel and send 
>flames to the chimney at one end and out the air intake at the other. It 
>could use a little tweaking. 


It looks like it's wasting a fair bit of heat, does the water have to 
boil or just gently evaporate leaving crystals as more seawater is 
added. Why are there loose cobs around this "secondary air inlet"? 

Presumably only using the flat bottom of the pan as a heat exchanger 
is limiting thermal efficiency as well as losses to this flare. 

With seawater yielding about 40kg/tonne it must be evaporating ~2 
tonne of water whose sensible and latent heat would be around 1350kWh 
which at 100% efficiency would need the stove to run for 16 hours! 

Or does my maths need checking again? 

AJH 

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