[Stoves] Top lit updraft combustors

Tue Jan 23 12:03:04 CST 2018

Hi Paul,

Is your Chip Energy system certified to any USEPA performance standard? We make use of US standards for wood heating devices in our building code.

Also, we have a new regulation that says any clean wood heating device is exempt from the air quality regulation if the heat output is a maximum of 50 kW thermal, otherwise you will have to get some kind of air quality permit, depending on a number of factors.

So, if your device can be “rated” to a maximum of 50 kW thermal output (or less) and be certified to the US standards as last referenced in Ontario’s building code, you might have a case for selling your technology to customers in Ontario.

I hope this is helpful, let us know if you wish to discuss further.

Best regards, Steven

From: Paul Anderson [mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu]
Sent: January 18, 2018 2:26 PM
To: Sauve, Terrence (OMAFRA); Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Cc: mhatech at yahoogroups.com; Andrew Heggie; Law, Steven (MOECC); Ronal W. Larson
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Top lit updraft combustors

Dear Terrence and Steven,

I am glad to assist with the masonary heating system.   Also nice to discover your initial and on-going interests:
Steven and I are focusing on biomass hot water heating systems for multi-urban, institutional and commercial project size
About THAT topic, I have additional inputs to share with you.   In a separate effort from my cookstoves work, a few years back my partner Paul Wever and I created Chip Energy (Illinois company) and developed the Chip Energy Biomass Furnace.   Beautiful for making the hot water heating systems!!!   I can certainly be scaled up.  Hard to make smaller unless the price does not go down much.

You can read about it at    www.chipenergy.com<http://www.chipenergy.com>    Four were made.   One that is complete in a 20 ft shipping container is currently available (about US$45,000), and certainly can be seen in operation, including at Chip Energy in Goodfield, Illinois.   Produces about 50 - 60 KW thermal (>200,000 BTU/hr).   Are you interested in the smaller end of the range of such water heating systems?     Yes, it does produce charcoal, with even the ability to adjust char characteristics related to the temperature of char creation.

With that introduction to express my interest in your work, please send me information about your interests in biomass hot water heating systems.   SIZE is a major distinguishing factor.

Paul

Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD

Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu<mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>

Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072

Website:  www.drtlud.com<http://www.drtlud.com>
On 1/18/2018 11:08 AM, Sauve, Terrence (OMAFRA) wrote:
Hi Paul, this is interesting and very new to us.

I was lucky to participate in Crispin’s stove testing camp in Eastern Ontario a couple of years ago. This was my first introduction to third-world country design and measurements for stoves, as well as more typical NA stoves.

Steven and I are focusing on biomass hot water heating systems for multi-urban, institutional and commercial project size so we will have to spend more time understanding how masonry heaters and smaller residential stoves all work out.

We will be participating on the update of CSA B415.1-10 standard, which should be revived at a certain point. I imagine and strongly recommend that any North American resident should be interested in its development, now that it’s an official reference in the US EPA NSPS regulation for residential forced-air wood furnaces (cordwood and pellet). Also, the stack loss method is used to report stove efficiency, since we don’t assume a blanket 75% HHV for all EPA Phase II certified stoves…

Thanks and looking forward to hear your interests and developments. I am a past listserv reader (gasification, biogas, stoves) back in the day when I was at university…

Terrence

_________________________________________________________________________
Terrence Sauvé, M.Sc., P.Eng.
OMAFRA
www.linkedin.com/in/terrence-sauve-4703
Tél. (613) 679-4703

From: Paul Anderson [mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu]
Sent: December-19-17 4:04 PM
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves; Ronal W. Larson
Cc: mhatech at yahoogroups.com<mailto:mhatech at yahoogroups.com>; Sauve, Terrence (OMAFRA); Andrew Heggie; Law, Steven (MOECC)
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Top lit updraft combustors

Nolbert and all,

I just want to thank you and the others for looking into the use of TLUD technology for masonary heaters.   Nice website for the MH Association   http://www.mha-net.org/

I would be delighted to work with you and the MHA in any ways that incorporate either TLUD stove technology or other methods (such as modified flame cap that is not yet being studied) that emphasize pyrolysis and therefore also have strong interest in the resultant charcoal.   Maybe there is or will be a small group of such enthusiasts.  If so, count me in.

I live in Illinois, but that puts me into the North America focus of your group!!

Paul

Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD

Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu<mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu>

Skype:   paultlud    Phone: +1-309-452-7072

Website:  www.drtlud.com<http://www.drtlud.com>
On 12/17/2017 7:38 AM, Norbert Senf wrote:
On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 10:12 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net<mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
Norbert  cc Biochar list, Andrew, MHA (Masonry Heating Association) list, and Terrence and Steven

1. Hello to MHA and Terrence and Steven - who I see are in Ontario Government departments.  Feel free to jump in.

2,  I am particularly thinking of folks in Ontario modifying MHA systems so they produce char (mostly to go in the soil).  I believe MH users could find that fuel costs could become negative.  (This idea thanks to Andrew)   The fuel piles will have to be larger or re-fired more often - but these char-makers seem to be cleaner.
I think it pretty unlikely to get through US departments as rapidly as OMAFRA and OMOECC, where Government official seem to believe there is global warming.

See few comments below - and thanks for yours.

(snip)

[RWLC:   I think we are a long way from having acceptance of a “ software simulator”.
I would have guess that most of your MH units are “one-off”.  They can’t be tested in the field at low enough cost?

In the masonry heater industry we have a precedent from Austria. They have a proprietary calculator, that is accepted for certifying one-off heaters. The main nuts and bolts behind the math is the European EN-13384 chimney calculation standard. You basically calculate the friction (pressure) losses for "worst case scenario" which is with a half load, in the summer, and verify that the appliance will draft properly. Damien Lehmann in France has developed an open source version and we are trying to extend it to include additional heater types than only the Austrian style. Austrian heaters are "channeled", where the pressure loss calculation is based on the channel cross sections and length. In North America we have started building for example, a Russian system that is based on buoyancy and has significantly less friction and that the Austrian calculator can't handle.

 How much change in “fuel analysis” during a batch burn?  Hadn’t heard of this.  but found several papers related toMHA, such as
http://mha-net.org/docs/temp/2017-10-16%20Pemberton-Pigott%20-%20Decombustion%20Theory.pdf.
Mt tentative conclusion is that this is un-needed for TLUDs, but i am surprised at the assumptions needed.  I look forward to understanding this and why measurements aren’t enough.

After seeing Crispin's presentation on this at the Stove Design Challenge event in 2014 at Brookhaven Lab in NY, a team from the University of Buffalo did some work with it on a cordwood boiler. They found that with a batch burn of standardized briquettes and a constant fuel composition assumption "...H2O is underpredicted at early times and overpredicted during the charcoal oxidation stage, resulting in a mean error of approximately 64%". The good news is that the two sort of cancel each other out. I think the error in calculating overall efficiency was somewhere in the 3% range.
For our calculator effort, we need an accurate flue mass flow rate and therefore need to measure H2O. Therefore, Crispin's approach should tie in well with this.

[RWLE:  I googled for Testo 330-2 and “inexpensive NDIR benches” (on behalf of Andrew’s emphasis on this) and tentatively concluded we can’t yet get equipment CO and particulates in the range of $100.  (NDIR = Non-dispersive infra-red)
Yes, that would be a stretch. A Testo is in the $2500 range. There is an interesting NDIR bench on ebay for $26.00:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NDIR-Infrared-Carbon-Dioxide-CO2-Sensor-Module-MH-Z14A-Serial-Port-0-5000ppm/282697897512?epid=14007377319&hash=item41d21b9628:g:cZ4AAOSwjodZ5eRL
but it only goes to 5000 ppm, likely for HVAC room occupancy measurements. In principle, you would only need to shorten the chamber in order to get a higher range. At least that is what I have seen on some older Horiba benches.

CO is interesting to watch, but we don't care that much about it. It is not regulated in North America, and is not a health issue except in dense urban areas. When we tested the Austrian eco-labelled air system, PM dropped about 50% and CO dropped about 80%. We were a lot more excited about the PM drop, because this is the number that matters here to regulators. Europeans have told us that the United States is about 10 years ahead of Europe in air quality regulation. Largely due to California, in particular Los Angeles. The Europeans are only just now recognizing the PM problem in urban areas from diesel and wood burning, and addressing this in their regulations.
[RWLF:   Good.  Maybe that helps the garage testing of TLUDs a bit.  If you ever hear of something in the $100 range,  I believe a lot of people on this list would be willing to add PM to what they are already able to do  quite cheaply to get weight,  temperatures, and times for energy efficiency computations.
Before my Testo arrived, I was able to do some useful stuff by measuring opacity. $1.00 CdS sensor, light source, ohm-meter:
www.mha-net.org/graphics2/17121701.JPG<http://www.mha-net.org/graphics2/17121701.JPG>
It shows you where in your cycle the PM is, but is hard to correlate with the "EPA number"

--
Norbert Senf
Masonry Stove Builders
25 Brouse Road, RR 5
Shawville Québec J0X 2Y0
819.647.5092
www.heatkit.com<http://www.heatkit.com>

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