Dear Michael >Here in the Marshall Islands one of my longest desires is a better copra drier fueled by biomass and producing biochar as a by-product.
How about taking a new look at how this might be done. If you need a fairly large amount of heat for a long time, it is going to be a big advantage to have a continuously fed process, or one that is batches small enough not to be much different - let's say 20 kg at a time. If it was to have a cross draft configuration it would take advantage of the hot char bed that works so well in the TLUD but it would be possible to make a char removal section 'after' a vertical fire chamber. If can be side fed, cross draft, and be a continuous process gasifier. The gases will be generated in a pyrolysing zone and pass through the char bed horizontally, the turn up to be burned in a flame chamber. If the last portion of the fuel path before the fire chamber is thermally connected to the pyrolysing fuel, it would look a bit more like a water pipe with a 'trap' on it. The fuel could be pushed in through a door from time to time but the door is closed when running (air control). If that was an acceptable layout and operating method, what would the size be? To answer that we need to know the moisture content and the heat value of the fuel. Do you have that available? Next we need to know the heat requirement for making copra. That will give us a burn rate for the gas, assuming xx% of char produced as a byproduct. If the char makes a difference to the fertility of the soil (especially a bigger difference than using the fuel as mulch or fertiliser or compost) then more power to you. If not, you can always burn the fuel whole. Regards Crispin _______________________________________________ Stoves 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/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/
