[Gasification] BIOCOAL - THE WOOD FUEL OF THE ???????

Thomas Koch tk at tke.dk
Thu Jul 19 07:28:44 CDT 2012


In this discussion about biocoal - or torrefied wood it is very important to know why you are doing it.

I can only agree that you can heat wood to 200 oC using 10-12 % of hi as heat - some mec hanical energy and have a challenge with the "tars" that has evaporated. 

But - what have you obtained?  apart from 20 % of the energy is lost and you have a tarry waste water mess to handle? 

The only reason that could justify torrefication - MAYBE - is if you want to feed the wood into an entrained flow reactor and needs particles of 100-200 my. To get a char/wood quality where that is possible  
You need to heat to 280-300 oC - and then you lose 30-40 % of the energy content plus some mechanical energy~ that sums up to that you have only 50 % of the original energy left to sell. 

With the focus of protection renewable carbon it will never be acceptable!

Thomas Koch 
-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Thomas Reed
Sendt: 19. juli 2012 13:39
Til: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Cc: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Emne: Re: [Gasification] BIOCOAL - THE WOOD FUEL OF THE FUTURE

Tom Koch and all

I believe BIOCOAL can be made from dry wood with less than 20% energy loss.  It only requires the energy to raise the dry wood from 100-300C.  Taking wood heat capacity as 

1.26 kJ/kg-deg

the energy to heat from 20-300C would be (280x1.26) 350 kJ/kg.  (There could be other exotheric or endothermic energy terms, but his should be the right magnitude.)

(1 kJ ~ 1 Btu.)

so the energy cost of BIOCOAL is small compared to the 8000 Btu of heat released on burning.



Thomas B Reed 


On Jul 17, 2012, at 1:11 AM, Thomas Koch <tk at tke.dk> wrote:

> But it will cost 50 % of the heating value of the wood
> 
> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org 
> [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af 
> linvent at aol.com
> Sendt: 16. juli 2012 20:15
> Til: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org; mark at ludlow.com; 
> mantal at hawaii.edu; artsolar at aol.com; rwalt at gocpc.com
> Emne: Re: [Gasification] BIOCOAL - THE WOOD FUEL OF THE FUTURE
> 
> There is a company formed to make torrified wood. I am terrified of the prospects as it would be a lot easier to gasify wood at the site of coal use.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
> Thermogenics Inc. 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tombreed <tombreed2010 at gmail.com>
> To: mark <mark at ludlow.com>; Michael Antal <mantal at hawaii.edu>; Art 
> Lilley <artsolar at aol.com>; Robb Walt <rwalt at gocpc.com>
> Cc: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification 
> <gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Sent: Mon, Jul 16, 2012 7:25 am
> Subject: [Gasification] BIOCOAL - THE WOOD FUEL OF THE FUTURE
> 
> Dear Mark, Greg and all
> 
> 
> Thanks for your good wishes, and I am now mobile with a walker.  Lots of time to pursue thermoplastics, pyrolysis and BIOCOAL.
> 
> 
> <><><>
> 
> 
> BIOCOAL (290-310C) is a very specific product of WOOD TORREFACTION
> (200-310C) which may become the ideal end product for wood fuel in the 
> future.
> 
> 
> Heating wood to 300C drives off all water and some excess H2O and CO2, 
> giving an increase of energy content from ~ 8000 to 10,000 Btu/lb, a 
> friable product easily reduced to face powder particle size for 
> coal-like combustion, pelletization use, and conferring  a waterproof 
> nature.  The emitted gases are combustible, and more than adequate to 
> provide the process heat for roasting, crushing and briquetting. It is 
> superior to coal In lacking suffer and high ash.
> 
> 
> I wish I was younger and richer.  I believe I would jump into Biocoal 
> with both feet.  Conventional COAL is such an ideal fuel in many ways, 
> and Biocoal fixes the problem areas of sulfur and ash.
> 
> 
> <><><>
> 
> 
> Before my fall I was planning to convert a 55 gal drum of wood scrap 
> into BIOCOAL.  I hope someone will try this.
> 
> 
> At idle the exhaust of a car or truck is about 700C at several ATM 
> pressure.  Two taps, before and  after the muffler should make it 
> possible to withdraw a 300C stream of gas through the barrel of wood 
> and heat the wood to BIOCOAL without allowing overheating.
> 
> 
> By heating with a 300C gas, one prevents the exothermic continuing of 
> the wood to charcoal at 400 C.
> 
> 
> Looking forward to a BIOCOAL future,
> 
> 
> Tom Reed
> 
> Thomas B Reed
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 15, 2012, at 2:59 PM, Greg Manning <a31ford at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Greetings Tom, (and list)
> 
> Tom, It's great to hear that the fall was not really bad, even though 
> still an inconvenence though.
> 
> 
> I have one question/answer I would like to pose, and that is....
> 
> 
> Every pelletized product I've gasified, all have done the same thing, 
> they expand in heat/moisture of the hearth.
> 
> 
>  One solution I've come up with (even though it lowers the total 
> output of the gasifier) is using parasitic power to run a torification 
> process, instead of a partial combustion process.
> 
> 
> All in all, when one looks to both methods of gas evolution, the later 
> is a cleaner method (torification). With the losses of available mass 
> for gas, when partial combustion is applied, the parasitic power 
> difference, in torification is much less, (because of more mass being 
> torified, instead of combusted).
> 
> 
> Torification is a much easier method of controlling the hearth's 
> internal temperature, IMO, and handles pelleted products much better, 
> as it gets the moisture level to a level that does not expand the 
> pellets as much (air moisture ??).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Greg Manning
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Tombreed 
> <tombreed2010 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Mark and all
> 
> 
> Thanks so much for your warming words, twice as warming, here in the 
> Fairview Recovery unit of the Worcester Memorial Hospital system.   I 
> fell down 13 stairs, bound to be unlucky, BUT no permanent damage!  
> I'm recuperating in my daugher's guest suite, dreaming about a Fall cruise!
> <><><>
> Here's a puzzle for all to chew on.  "Gasification" of wood implies 
> the complete conversion of both the cellulose (80%) and lignin (20%) 
> components.  The tars from the lignin are basically aromatic due to 
> the aromatic structure of lignin, and may be the principle component 
> of the smoke and tar.
> 
> 
> The primary fuel is then the cellulose smoke, various volatiles that 
> burn cleanly, leaving no solids.
> My expert Friend, Mike Antal, Coral Prof. At the University of Hawaii, 
> could give chapter and verse on the nature of the volatiles from 
> burning celluloses.
> 
> 
> Paper and high cellulose paper products could be a much cleaner 
> biomass fuel and are easily pelletized.  Wood pellets have become a 
> major fuel source in the past decade.  Is it possible that paper 
> pellets could be even more important and cleaner and cheaper?
> 
> 
> Best wishes to all of you from Tom Reed, back from a bad fall.
> 
> 
> Tom Reed
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thomas B Reed 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 12, 2012, at 3:42 AM, "Mark Ludlow" <a> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Dear Dr. Reed, You are a mainstay and inspiration to us all. How 
> frustrating it must have been to feel yourself fall! There’s really no 
> reason why the Universe chose you. It certainly was not Karma. I know 
> you must feel miserable. But I hope that you know that many people love 
> and admire you and are probably wishing, as I wish, that they could 
> have taken that fall for you. Best wishes,Mark 
> 
> 
> 
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