[Gasification] Re: Producer Gas To liquids

[Richard Stanley]

I think that this is the real way forward: Thanks Jerry et al.

I'm based here in south africa with about 34 years of field sustainable 
project development experience in east and central africa and about 5 
other regions. Out here, where we are paying upwards of $5 a gallon for 
petrol as the continuing bottom feeders in the fuel supply chain, it 
will make an incredible impact.

Lets get a model up and running and documented and do the detailed 
talking after we have something on the ground.

Based on what you are saying already, I propose simple set of design 
parameters based on  a unit for the household cum small business, unit 
capable of say 1-10 barrels a day, which should be more than enough to 
use and sell on a sustainable income basis. 

As Jerry suggests we target  production of a few select and most 
marketable and manageable, lighter hydrocarbons at 1 ATM
Design thruput:
Amount, particle size % moisture content of biomass needed,

Hardware Input
Size, shape and design of burner
Size, shape and design of filter
Size Shape and design of catalyst holder and catalyst itself. We can go 
to the petrochemical companies looking for a solution and scour the F-T 
archives (Have yet to learn what F-T means and where I might find the FT 
archives, myself)

Output
Type and volume of hydrocarbons produced, targetting again, the most 
practical and marketable, lighter hydrocarbons,

Ownership patents management and other classical constructs to deal with;
If we "covent" it, we all own it. I might make an adaptation for my 
local market and Jerry, Johathin of Gus, theirs. We agree to share 
intellectual property and as well to not overrun each others local 
markets without that perrsons express permission. Will we all be overrun 
by a corporate lurker or the far east; Perhaps they will try but who 
cares: It will cost them lots of effort to penetrate our own local 
markets and undermine our own customer base --if we keep it very local 
and personal service based. This personalised customer service thing is 
not economically attractive stuff to the corporate business model. So 
sure anyone can duplicate the technology but few can duplicate your own 
goodwill/good relationship to your own customer base in your own neck of 
the woods.
 
Does any of this make sense to you guys ? 
If it does, then what are the simple answers to the above and lets get a 
model unit up and running and jpg'd to death so we can share the design 
efforts  out amonfgst ourselves and perfect it over the next few weeks. 
This is not rocket science and sure as heck, most all of you can weld 
drill and tap just as well as I can ...

Richard Stanley
www.legacyfound.org

 
 

jerry dycus wrote:

>         Hi Jonathan and All,
>--- Jonathan Pratt <jonpratt76 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>So does that mean that if you don't get the right
>>ratio and keep the
>>producer gas ratio to 20% H2 and 20% CO you won't
>>get ANY yield through the
>>    
>>
>
>    You get reactions, just different ones. Like the
>higher the temp, the lighter, methane, the HC output
>is and the less more liquid fuels are made.
>    I like this somewhat as methane, propane, butane 
>is what NG is made of and getting very good money for
>them now. There are places everywhere that will buy
>all you can make!!!
>    And the liquids you get are the higher octane HC
>like iso octane, ect that are in high demand to
>increase octane.
>    And this is at atm pressure!! So no danger of
>blowing a high pressure converter and making it easier
>to make, use at less cost.
>    The higher the pressure, the heavier HC are made.
>But I rather have the lighter, lower pollution HC's.
>
>
>  
>
>>catalyst?  And what if the gas is not ultra pure? 
>>    
>>
>
>   Except for soot, there isn't anything that would
>poison the catalyst in biomass. The biggest problems
>to cat life besides soot, was sulfur from coal which,
>unless you gasify garlic, isn't going to be a problem.
>The other problem was heat hurting the cats so you
>must keep them at about 180-220C.
>
>  
>
>>If you use rust as the
>>catalyst so what if the gas is not ultra pure when
>>passed through?
>>    
>>
>
>   You need a lot of it so you want to keep even rust
>alive as long as possible but you can clean it with
>H2, gasoline, benzene, ect in place.
>   But there are companies that just make cats so
>getting with them or someone in the oil refining
>business would be the way to go.
>   Though experimenting with iron wool, SS, copper,
>iron, alum screens, ect could work out well too.
>   But cat makers will garrantee what you will get
>saving much time, money while increasing output of
>exactly what fuels you want! 
>
>  
>
>>If your catalyst is dirt cheap you can afford to use
>>a quick, dirty and
>>cheap method.  You may have to replace the catalyst
>>more frequently but you
>>can also probably recycle the iron oxide.  As long
>>as you have a clean
>>producer gas with particulate content under 50 ppm
>>or so which can drive an
>>IC engine, maybe you can use a gas of that quality
>>producable by Fluidyne's
>>DIY gasifier and others.
>>    
>>
>
>   Probably but if you are going to make NG or other
>fuel gasses, you don't want N2 in it so other
>gasifying methods like Destructive Distillation should
>be used without air, O2. Makes life much easier, less
>costly later. Less soot, cleaning needed  too.
>   You can use the waste heat from the converter to do
>much of the DD gasifying.
>
>  
>
>>Can anyone provide plans on at least a module of a
>>small scale for
>>converting the producer gas and change the H2 and
>>CO?  If you just need to
>>    
>>
>
>    These and FT converters are shown in the papers of
>the F/T Archive. Study them and you will learn a lot.
>They also have how to make cats and everything else
>you need to start making F/T fuels.
>     They are also in the old Mark's Manual engineers
>reference.
>
>  
>
>>steam reform the CO at least to change the ratio
>>maybe someone can provide
>>plans for a basic steam reformer for adjusting the
>>output of a biomass
>>gasifier?  If we can do that much we might be 1/2
>>way to such a system even
>>if the yield is only 20% or so to liquid fuels.  The
>>    
>>
>
>  You can do much, much better than that, especially
>if making NG, higher liquid gasolines at low pressure.
>
>
>  
>
>>key obviously is to get
>>small test systems into operation and work out the
>>kinks.  If a basic
>>gasifier can be made out of junk, then maybe a not
>>so perfect but functional
>>small scale liquid fuels plant can also be made very
>>economically.  From
>>that point we work out the "Kaizen" or incremental
>>improvements to the
>>system.
>>    
>>
>
>    I think so.
>
>
>  
>
>>I have been floating the idea of starting an open
>>source development group
>>for doing this just as the open source method is
>>    
>>
>
>     I'm for that as those here who know are not
>helping much at all. I've been trying to find this
>stuff out for 3 yrs or more on this list and before 
>Steve Gust, thanks Steve, mentioned the F/T Archive, I
>could only find drips enough to tantalize but not
>enough to go on.
>      Maybe a good thing would be start a F/T list?
>I'd be there and maybe attract some chemical engineers
> that want to help get us off the oil fiasco and into
>changing biomass into good, easy to use, sellable
>fuels.
>      That way we could gather all the info,
>experiments in one place.
>
>
>  
>
>>revolutionizing the
>>software field.  Already we have a variety of free
>>open source software
>>which is only getting better and more abundant.
>>
>>I am interested in developing a business model in
>>which the technological
>>development is basically open source but profits are
>>still made on the sales
>>and service end of it.  This may work perfectly
>>    
>>
>
>    A 1 person plant making 10bbl/day and NG could
>make big bucks and doable at reasonably low costs it
>seems if the knowlege was available. 
>    It would greatly help the third world too. 
>
>
>
>  
>
>>toward proliferating a
>>cottage scale biomass gasification industry.  If
>>only the technology were
>>more widely adopted then an abundance of opportinuty
>>opens up in servicing
>>these systems alone.
>>
>>If anybody is interested please e-mail me at
>>info at ienergyinc.com
>>    
>>
>
>   Count me in!!
>   I'm rather busy putting my Freedom EV into
>production as I sent the molds to the fiberglass shop
>to make the tooling molds yesterday but this is
>important so be glad to help it along. The first body
>should be out in a month ;-))
>    Yahoo lists are not that hard. I know little about
>computers and with just a very little help, run my
>own, EVProduction.
>                  Thanks,
>                     Jerry Dycus
>
>
>
>i
>  
>
>>Jonathan Pratt
>>President
>>iENERGY Inc.
>>www.ienergyinc.com
>>info at ienergyinc.com
>>
>>----- Original Message ----- 
>>From: "Gust Steven" <Steven.Gust at nesteoil.com>
>>To: "Richard Stanley" <rstanley at legacyfound.org>;
>>"Jonathan Pratt"
>><jonpratt76 at hotmail.com>
>>Cc: <gasification at listserv.repp.org>
>>Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 8:39 AM
>>Subject: RE: [Gasification] Re: Producer Gas To
>>liquids
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Listers
>>>
>>>A few additional comments about the F-T processes:
>>>
>>>You need clean syngas at the right ratio, the
>>>      
>>>
>>ratio you need depends on
>>the final product and the catalyst you use. With a
>>cobalt catalyst to
>>produce diesel, the H2 : CO ratio of the syngas
>>should be  2:1. Biomass
>>contains a lot of oxygen, about 45% percent on a dry
>>basis. The F-T reaction
>>is
>>    
>>
>>>CO + 2H2 â+'  -CH2- + H2O  â^+H = -165kJ/mol
>>>
>>>To get the 2:1 ratio you use a water shift
>>>      
>>>
>>reaction.
>>    
>>
>>>CO + H2O ->  H2 + CO2 (Water-Gas Shift).
>>>
>>>In order to do the F-T and other reactions with
>>>      
>>>
>>catalysts you need a clean
>>gas. This has proven to be challenging. Some of the
>>poisons should be
>>reduced to under 1 ppm.  Once you have the clean gas
>>and the right ratio,
>>the F-T is simple. But if you use a fixed bed
>>reactor for F-T you can't get
>>full conversion on one pass through. Do you recycle
>>or combust the gases?
>>The final product is a mixture of different length
>>hydrocarbons which also
>>have to be separated into their own fractions. Oh
>>yes, the -165 kJ/mol of
>>the F-T reaction means a lot of heat is produced.
>>You also have to get rid
>>of this.
>>    
>>
>>>All this is basically simple, it just costs a lot
>>>      
>>>
>>right now at small
>>scale. Cheap coal is used in South Africa and
>>stranded gas in other places
>>(stranded gas = cheap gas) Biomass is more expensive
>>than these feedstocks.
>>When you need about 4 to 5 kg of biomass to 1 kg of
>>F-T fuel, the feedstock
>>component is large.
>>    
>>
>>>The goal to simplify this is very good indeed.
>>>      
>>>
>>Which part of this process
>>is considered to be unnecessary?
>>    
>>
>>>Steven Gust
>>>
>>>P.S. All this information is in the public domain.
>>>      
>>>
>>F-T is one of those
>>areas where it is quite easy to find lots of general
>>information and quite
>>easily.
>>    
>>
>
>
>
>		
>__________________________________ 
>Yahoo! Mail Mobile 
>Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. 
>http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail 
>
>
>
>  
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/gasification_listserv.repp.org/attachments/20050526/15888773/attachment.html