[Stoves] Riser Height and a 'Counter-Current' Woodgas Burner - YouTube Vid

Ray Menke ray.menke at gmail.com
Fri Jan 29 14:50:47 CST 2016


On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 10:15 AM, Julien Winter <winter.julien at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you are able to run your stove with your primary air regulator closed,
> then you must be leaking primary air in somewhere else.

Julien,
Thank you for your comments and your burner investigations.  Perhaps
you followed the work of Alex Belonio and Dr. Paul Olivier with the
Rice Husk stoves/burners?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22013094/250%20Gasifier%20Jpegs/IMG_0523.JPG
I attempted to duplicate their burner designs for use with my hardwood
(invasive species) slivers, but to no avail.  There is a source of
rice hulls about an hours drive South of here, but I decided to stick
with my easily available fuel.  I can get a nice blue flame from a
small wood charcoal gasifier:  http://imgur.com/sJlyvjI  Koen Van
Looken also shows a nice blue flame from a bamboo charcoal gasifier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y380Tne-iY&feature=autoshare
If the charcoal contains any raw material the flame turns purple and
even yellow-orange.  I think the blue flame comes from the Carbon
Monoxide.
Regarding the possibility of an air leak, the bottom stainless steel
pot is tightly sealed, but the butterfly valve does have a small
(1/16") air gap when fully closed.  My current thought is that the
fuel is getting additional air from secondary air down drafting.  If I
load this stove with fuel, and leave out the sacrificial liners it can
produce over 7 kW of power, so I have reduced that by using fewer
holes in the grate, and using a blower if necessary to increase
airflow at the beginning and end of the cooking session.  Rather than
worrying about turn-down ratio, I simply alternate the time a pot
stays on the fire.  Assume I want to boil a gallon of water for
thermos bottles, bring 3 gallons of water to 150 F for dish washing,
make a pot of rice, and fry a chicken.  Start by bringing the rice to
a boil, and set it aside.  Start the chicken in a heavy cast iron pan,
set it aside, covered.  Boil the water for the thermos bottles, put
the chicken back on the stove.  Take the chicken off, heat the rice
again, set aside. Finally, finish off the chicken, and put the big pot
of water on, etc.  It is also possible to use an additional smaller
stove to provide a low level of heat for extended simmering tasks.
The stove makes absolutely no smoke from start to finish, although
some experiments have had me blowing air into the top of the fuel
chamber to eliminate the "smoke bomb" effect.
As you say, the size of the holes in the grate affect the resistance
to air flow, but so does the size, condition, and type of fuel, so I
guess using pellets as fuel is probably a good way to eliminate
variables.  (Here, in the sub-tropics, pellets are only sold for
animal bedding.)




-- 
Ray  Menke




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