[Stoves] converting solid biomass into liquid or gaseous fuel

[Anand Karve]

Dear Andreatta,
I am a biologist and therefore I worked on converting biomass into biogas.
The consortium of microbes that produces biogas resides in the intestines
of animals and the food that animals eat is also their food. In the course
of my work I discovered that the percentage of biomass that gets converted
into biogas corresponds to the digestibility of that particular biomass.
Lignin, most of the plastics, artificial rubber and hydrocarbons cannot be
digested by an animal and therefore they cannot be fed into a biogas plant.
Agricultural waste generally consists of matter that can be digested
neither by humans nor by animals. Lignin can be digested by some wood
degrading fungi, and one can then convert the fungal mass into biogas, but
it is a slow process.  The technology of making charcoal from agricultural
waste is already available.  I am now in search of somebody who would help
me in developing a small scale technology for converting the charcoal into
water gas. Water gas can not only be used as a cooking fuel, but it can
also be used as fuel in an internal combustion engine. But the difficulty
with gaseous fuels is their large volume. If one can make a liquid fuel
from biomass, it would be easier to store it and also to transport it.
Yours
A.D.Karve

***
Dr. A.D. Karve

Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)

Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 7:56 PM, Andreatta, Dale A. <
dandreatta at sealimited.com> wrote:

> (Dr. Seay, see the last paragraph regarding the work of your student, John
> Higgins.)
>
>
>
> Hmmmm, this is a tough challenge.  Gaseous and liquid fuels can be
> wonderful for many reasons.
>
>
>
> Regarding gaseous fuels some years ago, you, Dr. Karve, came to ETHOS
> talking about fast biomass digesters.  As I recall, they could turn starchy
> substances (such as flour) oily substances (such as pressed seedcakes) or
> cellulosic substances (such as fine bits of wood) into biogas in about 12
> hours.  I’ve not heard much more about this, but as I recall, you said the
> problem was getting the fuel into fine enough bits that the microbes could
> do their work.  “Microbes don’t have teeth” is what you said, I think.
>
>
>
> Methyl alcohol is called wood alcohol, I presume because it is made from
> wood.  Fermentation of ethanol has been done on a small scale for thousands
> of years, but I’m sure it’s not as easy as it sounds.  Would the alcohol
> necessarily need to be distilled?  My father, when he was sick, would
> sometimes make a curative wine drink by boiling wine and setting the fumes
> on fire.  It wasn’t a very intense fire, and I’m not sure how much is cured
> his illness, but it did burn.  You could set up a small burner to boil your
> weak methyl alcohol, then use the vapors as the main flame for cooking.
> Turning the little flame up or down would turn the cooking fire up or
> down.  Methyl alcohol would work better than ethyl alcohol because of its
> lower boiling point.
>
>
>
> I learned in my Ph.D. work years ago that pretty much anything that can be
> burned can be gasified by burning it with limited oxygen.  But then what do
> you do with the gases, store them or turn them into liquid fuel?  Both are
> difficult in small scale.
>
>
>
> 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?
>
>
>
> Dale Andreatta
>
>
>
> *From:* Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Anand Karve
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 30, 2016 12:44 AM
> *To:* Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
> *Subject:* [Stoves] converting solid biomass into liquid or gaseous fuel
>
>
>
> Stovers,
>
> using gaseous or liquid fuel in a stove gives higher efficiency and also
> less harmful emissions. Most of the gaseous and liquid fuels, that are
> currently available, are under some government control or other. Solid
> biomass, especially in the form of agricultural waste, belongs to farmers
> and at least in India there are no government restrictions on its use.
> Simple processes are available for converting the biomass into liquid or
> gaseous fuels. What we need are cottage-scale, decentralized units
> producing such fuels from agricultural  waste.
>
> Yours
>
> Dr. A.D. Karve
>
> Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)
>
> Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
>
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