Paul and all,
When washing dung most disappears in the wash water. So you are left
with a fraction of what you started with and a lot of anaerobic solution
that will need aeration to stable before a lot can be applied.
The minerals in dung (not washed) will convert to carbonate (CaCO3,
NaCO3 etc) form so there will be more liming of the soil if the salts
are not washed out (I think this is what happens). This not necessarily
a bad thing. If heated higher it may go to oxides. The oxides are more
of a problem because there is no buffering to keep the pH from going too
high when applied in high amounts.
The more minerals may cause more deposit in the stove as a crust. Has
this been seen in our small stoves? I have ashed a lot of organic
biomass material at 550 deg C and found a very small fraction of samples
form more than an ash that is easily removed from the container.
Regards
Frank
[email protected] wrote:
Dear Crispin, Kevin, Frank and all,
I have read the later responses, and I like the "washing", but only
if it is clearly shown that a type of dung (each type to be
considered separately) does emit "bad stuff" if not washed. Or wash
it if nutient value for plants is shown to make it worthwhile.
Otherwise, the extra work (and water that might not be plentiful)
could make dung fuel to be too much trouble to be well utilized widely.
Washed or not, I like dung fuel, have used it a little in India, and
would like to be part of the team.
In case you couldn't guess, my interest is in using dung fuel in
TLUDs (of various designs). Because TLUDs need "chunky dry
biomass", I will work on having appropriate sizes. Here are some
initial thoughts:
1. Llama dung is the right size, as is the size from sheep and some
other animals. "Correct size" dung should not be washed (unless
shown to be with undesirable emissions. And that refers to the
emissions from TLUDs that have great abilities for nearly eliminating
CO and PM. But does the other "bad stuff" get through the TLUD
fire? Not yet studied, as far as I know.
2. Llamas have the nice habit of pooping in just a few locations.
Easy to collect it. And it is already in use widely in the high
Andes mountains area. And llamas as "luxury animals" or pets or for
fine hair fibers are now found in the Affluent societies, so there
is moderate access to the dung for experimental purposes.
3. For TLUDs. in India we made dung tablets. Could work also with
washed dung, maybe even better if washed. And it can be mixed with
sawdust or rice husks or other small-particle biomass that could even
be wet/green because the tablets need to be dried. The dung (or
mixture) is spread out on a firm flat surface (board, cement,
asphalt, whatever) about 1 to 3 cm thick. While wet, it is "scored"
or imprinted with the edge of a piece of metal (like a license plate)
or wood form. The imprints are parallel and about 3 to 6 cm apart,
and then again imprinted perpendicular to the first lines. When the
dung is dry, the tablets hang together in pieces with 4 to 8 tablets
together. Can be turned with a spatula (a large one) for drying on
the bottom. When fully dried, they are placed into bags or boxes.
the user finishes breaking them into the individual tablets when
placing the fuel into the TLUD (or other stove.).
So, let's have an outline of a plan of actions. Do it on the Stoves
Listserv in case we can attract a few more participants.
Paul "Dr. TLUD"
Proud to be working with "Captain Dung" or what was Kevin's name?
Quoting Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <[email protected]>:
Dear Burners of Recycled Biomass
We took delivery today of three (barely) steaming bags of goat and
cattle
dung with a view to starting to look for ways to burn it cleanly in
space
heating stoves.
If there is interest from anyone in cooperating (by making stoves and
trying
them) we should start a thread here, preferably.
I have already heard from a couple of people and Prof Lodoysamba is
particularly interested. He says there are large amounts of goat dung
which
is normally not burned by nomads, though cattle dung is. Probably the
reason
is that no one has made a stove tuned to consume Capra Crap. Well,
let's put
that omission behind us!
We can call it the Crapra Stove Project - an international effort to
turn
steaming pellets into steaming pullets.
The focus will be on North Asia because that seems to be where the
current
interest is.
Regards
Crispin
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Frank Shields
Soil Control Lab
42 Hangar way
Watsonville, CA 95076
(831) 724-5422 tel
(831) 724-3188 fax
[email protected]
www.compostlab.com
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