[Stoves] Fuels of the future

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Paul

The simple answer is everywhere that produces palm oil has the shells lying about. Candle nut shells are much more restricted in the sense that fewer places grow them in quantity. Flores Island is a place where they are abundant.

Where oil palm is massively mono-cropped like Indonesia and Malaysia have enormous amounts to the point it is worth getting them in ships like....fuel. We can bring them to Lombok by the shipload.

Because they are nut shells, not wood, they tend to have a low ash melting temperature. Hirendra from the ISO Fuels Task Group says there is a tendency for such fuels to 'channel' as Julien has often described, and heat to high temperatures creating glass as Alex E has mentioned in his grass burning tests. The result is inevitably formation of clunkers and glass if the air is blown. This applies not only to palm kernel shells.

The obvious solution is to use rather a large volume of fuel burning at once at a low rate instead of a small volume burning at a high rate. It may largely eliminate the problem.

If you want to make charcoal ‎from either shell it works, and the result is pretty hard. The carbon content of the shell is not different from wood on a dry ash free basis but is it dense. The upside of this is that a stove holds 'more fuel' if it is filled with shells. The gas heat value is much less than the fuel so you can cook longer. 'Tami' Utami reports that people in Flores have operated one of Dr Nurhuda's early stoves successfully using candle nut shells, another not.  It had to be adapted.

If your general plan is to have people ship from one island to another, distribute it to the market, buy it to transport home, burn only the gas portion and be left with half the energy in the form of charcoal, you had better have a good explanation for what to do with the charcoal. There is a small charcoal market for blacksmiths.

The issue with fuels is not the price of acquiring it‎ but the cost of moving it. Unless the charcoal has a property that makes it worth the trouble to save and move, it will be burned. The market doesn't exist to validate the design of the pyrolysers. The pyrolysers exist to service the market.

There is, in the presence of LPG, a strong desire to have a 'clean kitchen' which is separate from the 'dirty kitchen'. It really refers to pot cleanliness. If charcoal cooking caught on there would develop a local market for the whole fuel. Gasifying charcoal is very easy though a bit hot for most materials. YDD makes them. It is easy to run an engine on charcoal gas.

Regards
Crispin
‎
Crispin and all,

Do you know of any location that has these shells and has access to TLUD
gasifiers?   The combination of these shells and TLUDs has great
potential, but only if someone somewhere puts the two together in a
serious project or venture.  I would be interested in having contact
with people in such situations.

Paul

Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
Skype: paultlud      Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website:  www.drtlud.com

On 9/2/2015 6:01 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
> Dear Friends
>
> Her are two fuels that are abundant (in places) and really interesting
> to work with. Both can be charcoaled and both are really strong.
>
> Oil Palm Kernel Shells
>
> And
>
> Candle nut shells.
>
> The price is something like $70 per ton. Moisture is low and energy
> ins in the 18-19 MJ/kg range.  The can be burned in a TLUD to make
> charcoal, and the charcoal is strong enough to sell in sacks.
>
> The interesting about these fuels is they are not just available in
> many thousands of tons, they pack quite well so a packed bed gasifier
> is a pretty good burner.
>
> For crossdraft and downdraft enthusiasts, they can also be used in
> hoppers burning something and intermediate coal.
>
> Regards
>
> Crispin
>
>
>
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