[Stoves] Making and selling char in India

Fri May 10 15:28:33 CDT 2019

Kirk:

Thank you so much. 

To reformulate the problem, it’s all about the chemistry and economics of incomplete combustion. 

Solid or liquid fuels have gaseous PICs, whose combustion to CO2 and water where possible - neglecting NOx and SOx - subject to locational variance is the scientific challenge then. 

I guess coals and biomass have such a wide variety, I don’t see any point in distinguishing between the two. To an economist or a chemist, an absolute difference between “exhaustible” and “renewable”, or between “clean” and “dirty” makes no sense as far as combustion is concerned. Primary extraction and intermediate processing might, because of very different input and waste streams. 

“Long residence times” fits with space and water heaters with storage. An electric backup, I suspect, would help. 

Nikhil 

Nikhil Desai
+1 202 568 5831
Skype: nikhildesai888

> On May 10, 2019, at 2:40 PM, Kirk H. <gkharris316 at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> Nikhil,
>  
> The statement “There is a need for a process, a design, for dealing with fuels that require a long residence time at high temperature” is not off-topic, but is very relevant for the combustion of biomass.  Such can crack long chain hydrocarbons and carbon particles and so contribute to the clean combustion of a dirty gas like wood gas.  This if some additional air is added to burn the newly cracked hydrocarbon flammable gasses.  What is off-topic on a biomass cooking stoves list is a discussion of coal, a fossil fuel, unless there is some technology that is transferable from coal combustion to improve biomass combustion.
>  
> Kirk H.
>  
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>  
> From: Nikhil Desai
> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2019 8:11 AM
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves; Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
> Cc: Anil Rajvanshi
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Making and selling char in India
>  
> Crispin:
> 
> Delighted!! This is a radical proposition - " There is a need for a process, a design, for dealing with fuels that require a long residence time at high temperature."
>  
> This is off-topic, and should end here. I hope some chemist type has an interest in comparable biomass if such exists or can be manufactured. 
> 
> I did some peripheral research on coal chemistry and biomass cofiring in early to mid-1990s. I then discovered many more types of coal than in the power generation and metallurgy markets and learned the complex interactions of physical and economic efficiencies in furnace design and operations, of the tradeoffs between operational flexibility and fuel spot markets, and of emissions compliance and local environmental impacts (not just air quality).
> 
> The stove/fuel advocacy has never addressed these interactions. Leave aside all the "non-scientific" issues like foods, nutrition, cooking cycles, seasonality; the core problem of ideological hysteria - as ever and everywhere - is gross simplification. Fixing the biomass type in WBT is one such inanity. Defining all solid fuels as dirty and all coals as carcinogenic is another.
> 
> I remembered fuel coke for household cooking in India. Low-vol bituminous coal for steam generation in US. Adaptation of fuels and combustors according to economics and preferences - and vice versa - is something received "stove science" seems to studiously ignore.
> 
> What gives? Why are we so studiously blinded? Because we are paid to?
> 
> I am cc'ing Darpan and Anil to see if they know this Jhama coal in India.  http://www.coaljunction.in/misc/show/Coaljunction-Product-Details_1#sthash.7HGOtvNC.dpbs  
> 
> N
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nikhil Desai
> (US +1) 202 568 5831
> Skype: nikhildesai888
> 
>  
>  
> On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 9:50 AM Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
> Dear Nikhil
> 
> >And how could you forget char as soil enhancer for the voluntary carbon market?
> 
> Unfortunately, I suspect there is more soil enhancement available from all the BS that accompanies the char-in-ground than from the char-in-ground.
> 
> I am a big fan of volunteerism. If people want to fund things for goals they admire, who am I to object?  Just don’t make it compulsory.
> 
> The problem with ideological possession is that the ideologically possessed keep trying to implant their ideology the minds of others.
> 
> I have a new challenge for stove builders.  Today I got a message from Wojciech Treter in Poland about the “highest quality” coal used in home heating. He says it is a caking coal. That makes excellent coke (nearly pure carbon plus all the ash) but it is difficult to combust the intermediate species on a small scale.  The same would apply to certain very hard woods that produce toxic emissions (see the FAO for a list).  There is a need for a process, a design, for dealing with fuels that require a long residence time at high temperature.
> 
> I am thinking that the Rocket Mass Heater (not to be confused with a Rocket Stove) with a very small diameter riser might be just the thing, lined with a suitable refractory material such as a phosphate bonded alumina. Maybe in the form of a split cylinder.
> 
> If you wanted to extract the useful hydrocarbons from the fuel and then leave a high carbon remnant this needs a new type of combustor.
> 
> Regards
> Crispin
> 
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