[Stoves] SPAM: Re: Charcoal from waste - home cooking or other markets? (Re: Crispin, Anand Karve)

Ken Boak ken.boak at gmail.com
Thu Oct 6 04:55:29 CDT 2016


Hi Teddy, Tom, List

Thanks for that very useful link to the Thailand charcoal gasifier site.

My interest lie in a simple low tech charcoal gasifier, and a conversion
aimed at the single cylinder Lister, Petter and Changfa type diesel engines
that are very common in India, Asia and Africa.

I'd like to make a "magazine" that holds several briquettes,  like bullets
in the chambers of a revolver, and so even slightly damp, fresh biomass
briquettes could go through a drying stage, a pyrolysation stage - and once
completely converted to charcoal, a gasification stage.

The dryer and pyrolyser are driven from the hot engine exhaust and
supplemented by burning the tars and volatiles - the pyrolysis gas.

Separating drying and pyrolysation in separate chambers from the
gasification, means that the volatiles and tars produced in the pyrolysing
process can be kept completely separate from the gasification - and result
in a very low tar gas - which is more acceptable and forgiving to the
engine valve gear.

Initial tests were conducted (spring 2012 at APL) in pyrolysing 3 litres of
woodchips (0.8kg) directly  with a Lister exhaust.

These tests showed that complete conversion of  to charcoal could be
achieved within 45 minutes - just by direct action of the hot  Lister
exhaust through the container holding the chips.

After 20 minutes of such direct heating action, the emerging gas was
sufficiently rich in hydrocarbons to sustain a flame.

After 45 minutes there was no further smoke, and on examination I was left
with a fine charcoal similar to biochar - about 20% by volume of the
original woodchip sample. Whilst this might not appear a good charcoal
conversion efficiency - half of the charcoal fines were blown out of the
container by the pulsating Lister exhaust!





Ken
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