[Stoves] converting solid biomass into liquid or gaseous fuel

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Dale

 

How good to hear from you.

 

I write with respect to your interesting comment on the production oil by heating plastic.

 

First, I met a guy who claimed that in future all garbage sorting at the point or origin would only divide things into two piles: organic and inorganic, the latter being metals, sand and so on. He said everything else can be turned into methanol, and that methanol can be turned into anything we want like plastic, oil, fertiliser and chemicals. He was very enthusiastic about this because it offered a way to deal with a lot of the garbage we presently ‘throw away’.

 

Second, whenever there is a fire in a large pile of car tires (which are usually stored in piles not mixed with other waste streams) large amounts of oil are seen running out of the pile. I know of one case where a man pumped up 3000 gallons of oil that accumulated in a low point. He sold it to an oil recycling depot. So why can’t we heat tires in a simpler manner and turn it into oil? The temperature involved cannot be all that high because it happens under open fires.

 

There is/was a power station in the UK specifically designed to burn tires. It had to cope with very high temperatures as the tires contain a lot of oxygen, apparently (that is my guess) resulting in a low combustion air requirement. That in turn means the excess air level is low and the combustion temperature consequently elevated.

 

So far I have not successfully burned rubber cleanly in any device. I think it needs a very long residence time. It would be far better to turn it into oil, unless there is a large source of supply and a purpose-built power station.

 

Best regards

Crispin

 

 

At the recent Stove Summit, there was a presentation by a student from the University of Kentucky, where they’ve found that most types of plastic, if heated, melted, boiled, and raised to the right temperature range, form a pretty good quality liquid fuel oil.  The hardware is simple and applicable to biomass heat, but it takes a fair amount of energy to melt and boil the plastic.  I’ll attach a photo of the amount of fuel oil he got in a simple demonstration with 4 empty 1-gallon plastic milk cartons.  He said for each gram of plastic you can get something like 0.9 grams of fuel.  The technology is simple and can be made on a small scale, but then how much waste plastic is available?.  Would it work with common biomass, probably not?  

 

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