[Stoves] Classifying biomass fuels - topic change

Frank Shields franke at cruzio.com
Sat May 30 01:58:16 CDT 2015


Dear Cecil, Stovers,

I think the classes we need are:

1) size and shape
2) bulk and particle density

Then on non-wood materials. On vegetative grasses, leaves like  or nuts and like products we need:

3) Lipids (add dry biomass to a beaker and petroleum ether / heat / filter and evaporate the liquid and weigh the residue.
4) Sugars etc: Take above sample / add water / boil / filter and dry liquid fraction and weigh the residue.

On woody materials omit the lipids and water soluble steps. Likely too low a concentration to bother with.
5) Ash percent
6) moisture percent

Now we have left the cellulose, hemi-cellulose and the lignin that are not easy tests and I think we can find a method that will work without testing for each.
Perhaps the following:

TGA to measure E450c volatile fraction (or using a pipe) will be enough calculated lipid free and sugar free and DAF basis. Call it LS-DAF. 



Cecil - Your suggestion of collecting biomass fuels at a specific site for testing. I suggest the above tests and determine the range of each parameter we find from the fuels on site. Then the fuels are tested in stoves to come up with working range of each parameter for each of the stoves. Something like that. 

Regards

Frank

Frank Shields
franke at cruzio.com


> On May 29, 2015, at 4:41 PM, Cecil Cook <cec1863 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> Surely there are ways to minimize this particular source of variation.For example, we get a random mixed sample of all the different kind of biomass used in a particular target community- some of everything they burn or even a quantitatively structured sample -  of types of biomass and moisture contents and we use that as our test fuel.  Also, we need to check how well the Improved Stoves perform in the rainy season when everything gets damp and the moisture content goes much higher.
> 
> The veratility of a stove - namely its capacity to burn a large number of different types of biomass fuel typesmay be one of the mot valuable characteristics in a biomass scarce environment or with low income urban dwellers. 
> 
> That's my two cents worth,
> 
> Cecil sweating in San Marcos Tx and treading water as well 
> 
> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 6:16 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com <mailto:franke at cruzio.com>> wrote:
> Dear Paul, Crispin, and Stovers, 
> 
> “finding good publications on stoves” Many good publications for others but none for us because we don’t yet have biomass fuels classified into relevant classes suitable for us to predict how well a specific stove will respond with a specific fuel. Therefore, until this is done, publications comparing stoves means -nothing- to us. Perhaps there will be information in the articles useful for others. 
> 
> Crispin writes; "compare the fuel-stove combinations. And that has only recently been done”. 
> 
> It has never been done. We don’t yet know how to do it. Only the three interns started working on finding what the characteristcs biomass have that might be useful to study.  Then we need to determine the Working Range we need for the results and the appropriate test procedure needs to be developed to get within that range. We need to develop some ‘spider graph’ or something to illustrate where the fuel falls into and another telling where the ranges the stoves fall into. These are both physical and chemical properties.  It is possible and should be keeping us busy for a while. 
> 
> regards
> 
> Frank
> Intern 1
> Intern 2
> Intern 3
> 
> Frank Shields
> franke at cruzio.com <mailto:franke at cruzio.com>
> 
> 
>> On May 29, 2015, at 2:01 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com <mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Heh heh, Frank
>>  
>> OK, let me extend it:
>>  
>> "There can be no (useful) comparison between stoves until we compare the fuel-stove combinations. And that has only recently been done in a systematic manner. This being that a culturally relevant task is being used and the stove is claimed to be designed for that task and that fuel and moisture level. 
>>  
>> “Useful” = Our PURPOSE of developing better stoves is to improve Real World situations hence the critical requirement to include the context of use in all comparative testing. Fuels to study need to have the same characteristics as site-specific Real World fuels. Using any other in a comparison is a waste of time. 
>>  
>> >Only four people in the World realize this; 
>>  
>> Well…that might be slightly unfair. Every cook who buys and uses a stove knows this. It would be more reasonable, if we are going to generalise, to say that people who do not use these stoves and who mostly work in offices in the Western World, do not realise this. 
>>  
>> But generalisations are usually wrong, right?
>>  
>> Regards
>> Crispin
>>  

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