Hallo Doug and others, congratulation! It seems that you and your co-workers have done more than your homework.
The failures you report seem to be located and solvable at a reasonable cost, I guess. What I would like to kbow is your estimation on replacement periods and cost of the main wear parts, the "hot spots", I presume. Today I have a guest here who has develloped a novel system to convert granite sawing sludge into good and hard tiles and other objects. For this, she needs baking the pressed "cake" at 1200 °C .Sometimes oxidating, sometimes reducing, she says. Do you have any experience/reference on how to do this with e.g. pine chips or almond shells? It could be an interesting use of biomass and reduce cost of eliminating what is considered a hazardous waste. Looking foreward to hear from you. Sincerely Rolf Uhle Energies Naturals C.B. On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 10:32:16 -0800 "Doug Williams" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Fluidyne California > > Shasta 2 Gasifier. > > Since the Shasta 2 Gasifier at CalForest Nurseries in California was put > work in February 2014 for the Winter heating, it's operation completed over > 1,000 hours of daily operation without failure of any component. The next > 1000 hours had failures of fuel lock seals allowing leaks into their > actuating motors so will be now replaced with separated actuators. The > system was able to demonstrate a push button start from cold (after checks > to all the fuel feeding conveyors) and walk away operating reliability for > the day/night operation. > > The boiler pipelines have now been extended into a second greenhouse for the > 2015 Winter heating, and indications are that there is still plenty of > additional heat in reserve. The first start of this year did bring surprise > however, in that the wood chip being gasified had a moisture content of 40%. > The Shasta 2 still made a combustible gas, but initial ignition of the > burner nozzle was difficult on the standard air setting, so less air and it > ignited immediately. Wet wood isn't an option but the log pile was left open > without its covers, and a lesson was had by all concerned. > > Biochar Making Project. > > It's been almost two years since my last visit to CalForest, and my visit in > the last week of January 2015 was of special significance to commission a > new concept of continuous charcoal manufacture. The conceptual process was > first proposed in 2007, but put on the back burner as the focus was on > gasifier development for heating and engine power generation. While biochars > have a role to play within the Nurseries of CalForest, as a commercial > product, it's production costs are an inhibiting factor for those consumers > who need large quantities. With forest fires a problem in many countries, > fuel reduction programmes within forests sees large amounts of green forest > chip becoming available, with a potential for char making. > > As stated, the target fuel is green forest chip, which at best does not make > good quality char for barbecue or cooking applications. The cost in time for > retort type charring to capture the pyrolysis gas cannot be justified if the > end result is only a char that then needs briquetting before it can be used. > As a tonnage production, it's application as biochar is of course dependent > on price to the end user, and our project is designed to explore the > potential to reduce costs of the production cycle. > > Starting in November 2014, the original char maker design concept was > reviewed and a few changes made as to how the char extraction was > accomplished, but to first prove these changes, a wooden model was built. > Char collected from the Shasta 2 waste clean outs were used to obtain the > fluid flows expected from forest chip fine char providing a visual > demonstration that the extraction process was very stable across the length > of the bed. As a base line specification, we were looking for 5-7 m3/hr, or > roughly 1 ton/hr from about 5 ton green chip. Availability was set at a > reasonable 1,900 hrs/year depending on location which would see a reduction > of forest fuel of roughly about 9,500 tons/unit. With fuel flows of that > order, we had to use the main fuel feeder conveyor of the Shasta 2 gasifier, > combined with a lot of observation (and shouting) to run it all manually. > The proto-type was completed in the last week of January 2015. > > Based on previous knowledge regarding the chars ability to retain uncracked > pyrolysis oils and tars (creating a strong acetic or acrid smell), the need > for a char of consistent quality and evenness of carbonisation, identified a > design need to even out all these variables. Linked with a dwell time > between the refuelling cycles, we soon discovered that anything less than > complete carbonised char created operational problems to the extraction > system, but once we learnt to start the system correctly, these issues were > resolved. > > Built as a test of concept, the charmaker was proven to function within our > pre-set design parameters, which now justifies the next phase of > development. > This includes a internal fuel pile leveller/refuel sensor, heat resistant > air nozzles, and change to the extraction auger design. Flare stack closures > will facilitate the shut down procedure, as will fuel feeder locks on the > fuel input end to exclude all free air entry. The start-up from ignition to > gas burning at the flare stack was faster than anticipated once we found the > ideal air flow settings, and 5-10 minutes gave us time to be closely > watching all the visible phenomena, especially the oxidation colour through > the air nozzles creating temperatures well over the 1,000C. The pyrolysis > gas was burnt to waste cleanly, demonstration that it could become a > reliable source of close coupled heating as required. > > Although we have designed a charmaker for chips, it's performance factors > should also apply to any nut shell or fruit stone/pip, which in time will be > tested with results shown on the Fluidyne Archive files. Also to be tested > is tar free gas extraction to run an auxiliary engine generator for stand > alone operation of the system. > > Photos of this project can be seen on the Fluidyne archive > www.fluidynenz.250x.com and will be available to see in about 7-10 days from > this posting. > > Hope this is of interest to those following our development programme. > > Doug Williams, > Fluidyne. > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gasification mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org > > for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: > http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ -- Energies Naturals C.B. <[email protected]> _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/
