[Gasification] making pellets

[Jeff Davis]

Thanks Mark, Kevin and Len,

This is more of a temporary set up.

With a simple solar dryer I bet that they would dry in one week. But the 
chilly winds are starting to blow!

I would remove the paddles from the clothes dryer so that it is just a 
rotating drum, just like the cement mixer that the fireballs where made in. 
But it take time to find a low cost propane dryer. I would hate to use 
electric heat and I do not have natural gas where the dryer will be.

The propane B-B-Q is interesting but I do not have one.

I think the tunnel dryer would be just the ticket when I get serious about 
somekind of production.

This is a little hard to explane in words but I'm thinking about using my 
Woodgas Camp Stove + cement mixer + one black 8"flue Tee + fan + one section 
of 8" black stove pipe. All in my stock. The stove pipe sticks into the 
cement mixer, other end of pipe goes into the Tee. At the back of the Tee is 
the fan and the Woodgas Camp Stove is heating into the bottom inlet of the 
pipe.


Balls to the wall, 

Jeff

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Mark wrote,
Can't you sun-dry for at least a few months at your latitude?

Are you talking about just the mechanical guts of a clothes dryer or would
you fire it with your gasifier?

I think a funky tunnel dryer operated in counter-flow setup may work best.
The saturated air from the drier balls releases its energy to the wetter
balls which heats them rapidly and prevents case-hardening which impedes
mass transfer.

On the other hand, there's an endless supply of clothes dryers at any
landfill. You could experiment with recycling a portion of the exhaust to
keep it near saturation and then pass it through a condensing heat exchanger
which could act as an air pre-heater.

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Len wrote,
Do you have a gas fired B-B-Q ?  I you have one with a "some-what " 
air-tight  cover, you can do a good drying job by keeping the temperature 
under control.  I use mine to carbonize, (like in charcoal),  biomass for 
some phytoextraction research I am doing.  Of course I get mine up to 550 
deg. F,   but at 200 deg. F  you should have just what you are looking for 
in a dry fireball.  Let me know how it works.

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Kevin wrote,
The dryer per se may not work, in that the tumbling action may break up the 
pellets. However, it could be a great source of hot air for a "static" 
dryer."

What you could do is disconnect the clothes dryer discharge hose, and then 
direct the hot air to "the dryer." Run the clothes dryer with nothing in it.

You could make up a very simple dryer with a piece of window screen set on a 
piece of scrap coarse screen (for support, so it doesn't sag.)

Provide enough area so that you don't get fluidization of the bed.

Consider using 2, or even three, such driers in series, to maximize the heat 
utilization efficiency.
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-- 
Jeff Davis
Somewhere 20 miles south of Lake Erie, USA
http://www.velocity.net/~jeff0124