[Stoves] Coal and biochar stoves

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Todd

You raise an interesting point and it should not be missed.

Wood and coal both contain mercury, sulphur, lead, uranium and other heavy metals, and the fire emissions contain fly ash‎, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, numerous chemical species, and particles of incomplete combustion including condensed volatiles.

It would not be fair to ignore the emissions from any fire. Also it is unfair to require testing on coal fires and not wood fires. The inherent emissions are different for different fuels. Categories of fuel include:

Wood
Other biomass
Peat lignite
Coal
Semi-coked fuels
Coke
Charcoal
Densified biomass
Torrefied wood

The toxic contents occur in different concentrations and combinations. It is reasonable to assess fuels individually. There are toxic woods and toxic coals. There are toxic emissions. Toxicity is strongly dependent on concentration.

When you consider what and how well something needs to be burned one rule should apply to all. No pet fuels.

Regards
Crispin

Stovers:

I'm confused.  Coal & Biomass stove disconnect?  No one is discussing the
dissimilarities.

Is this a logical?  The discussion of coal combustion must address Mercury,
fly ash and other heavy metal pollution, not just run of the mill biomass
combustion pollution.  Water and air pollution contamination are other
major health concerns.  Mining and transporting coal has wide documented
health impacts.

Don't we have to ask although coal maybe combusted cleanly with very well
designed stove compared to an inefficient coal stoves, advanced scrubber
technologies are not affordable or practical for household stoves.

Do any of the biomass stove testing entities have or can afford coal
emission testing technologies?  Currently I am not aware of any biomass
testing organization that has the sophistication or equipment for heavy
metal emission testing, or am I incorrect?

Regards,

Todd Albi, SilverFire,

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 7:41 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:

> Dear Stovers,
>
> Coal and biomass stoves:
>
> Similarities:
>
> 1) They both have the same goal of producing a clean secondary flame used
> to boil water.
> 2) They both have achieved this goal (Crispin and Dean - and others)
> 3) They both have the three types of energy: a) pyrolysis gases b) solid-C
> > CO and c) CO > CO2
> 4) During optimization the three energy types are adjusted via primary air
> to produce the best ratio.
>
> Because they are so much the same and manipulated the same to optimize
> conditions for the secondary I believe the coal stoves should be included
> in our discussions. They start with different ratios of the three energy
> types and it would be very interesting (to me) to know what the ratio is
> just before entering the secondary flame when burning clean. I wonder if
> they are the same or if we can learn ranges and limits to the ratios we
> need to achieve. As we get better testing techniques to study what goes on
> in combustion chambers it would aid us to include the info from coal stoves.
>
> Real problem is Stove Labs need more money!  That to purchase testing
> equipment for their research, added personal and they should be testing
> more stoves.
>
> as I see it…
>
> Regards
>
> Frank
>
> franke at cruzio.com
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