[Stoves] converting solid biomass into liquid or gaseous fuel

[alex english]

Crispin,
I had some success 'burning' rubber (a single 'chip' the size of half of a
little finger) embedded in wood pellets in a 'high pressure' TLUD. It was a
Dr Reed sized burner with an apple juice can fuel chamber. The over and
under air were separated, and valved. The air supply was a high pressure
pump used to inflate air mattresses. When the pyrolysis front reached the
rubber the flame height lengthened dramatically, as you would expect.
Increasing secondary air directed at the base of the flame shortened it and
kept it 'clean', just like the candle with the glass tube chimney. In the
end, I guess it didn't burn, it charred.
That TLUD is still sitting on a shelf here. I think this was 17 years ago
now. Pre dates the acronym. It was a good lesson.

Alex

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 2:31 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> 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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