[Stoves] Clean coal burning stoves Re: History of clean Chinese stove development.

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Frank

 

>…I think pre-heating biomass (and perhaps coal?) could remove a lot of these volatile organic toxins along with other volatiles that may cause smoke. 

 

Isn’t it the point to burn these longer molecules to completion? What would we do with them if they were removed first? Burn them? Just do that in the stove.

 

My point was more that the compounds are formed in the fire, not that they are present in the fuel to begin with. That is the unfortunate part of confusing inherent emissions with bad combustion.

 

If there is mercury present (in certain forms) in wood and coal, what matters is whether it is evaporated and what the concentration is. The EPA has targeted the concentration issue very well. To begin with, they did that only, later bringing in rules for the total mass as well as the concentration.

 

Later, they did the same for wood fire smoke but unfortunately the distributed nature of home fires is nothing at all like the concentrated emission point of a power station. The Chinese have handled this rather well by providing a description of point sources and distributed sources. Domestic stoves are distributed by their very nature. Concentration, per se, is not a big issue, it is the total mass emitted per unit of work done. Diluting the smoke using ambient air doesn’t have any effect on the total mass emitted. From a power station, SO2 in a concentrated form is very damaging. It is the same with food processing plants that release water with a high BOD. It has to be low, or pre-digested in-plant. That is reasonable.

 

Removing volatiles from wood or coal is not ‘removing emissions’ it is removing part of the combustible fuel. Instead of removing it, it could be burned properly. People do not have to live with lousy combustors.

 

There is a chance that by removing the volatiles from coal could remove an inherent constituent. That might be an attractive proposition. SASOL removes all the sulphur from the coal and sells it. Then the sell sulphur-free kerosene. Pretty good idea, if you can do it.

 

Regards

Crispin

 

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