[Gasification] Algae

Thu Apr 12 01:40:54 CDT 2007

>
> Powdered fuel, or granular fuel has not been part of my own interest since
> 1988, but that's a story for another time,
> We still need stimulation however, and I hope others can bring there
> efforts
> out of the closet. Nobody is likely to steal their inventions(:-)
>
> Doug Williams
> Fluidyne Gasification.

this seems a very important issue to me if we are to make gasification a
more tractable effort for the small and medium sized user.

as often noted, gasification efforts usually become fuel standardization
efforts in the end.  and the fuel prep is usually realized as an equal or
larger project than the actual gasifier.

two basic routes of solution seem possible:

1.  design gasifiers so they are more flexible or completely agnostic as to
fuel type.

or

2.  agree on easy routes to standardize fuel and use gasifier designs which
successfully deal with x fuel shape, density and moisture.

though gasifiers which will run "anything" are theoretically possible, and
in practice have been realized to some degree, it is well established that
more fuel flexible gasifiers are progressively more complex.   the needed
complexity is often past that which is reasonable for small or medium sized
units.

deciding on routes of standardization seems more tenable to me for diy types
of efforts.  and the route that seems most tenable to me is towards
granulation (the opposite of which is needed for imbert or stratified
downdraft type gasifiers)

given the nature of the universe, size reduction is usually a more easy and
less energy intensive process than agglomeration.  we can shred things
easier than we can pellet or cube things.

a garden chipper/shredder is available at most hardware stores and costs no
more than 800 US dollars.  usually much less.  a pelleter is a rare bird,
and the cheapest new one i can find it 4000 dollars.  cubers are only made
by one company i can find, warren braeg (sp?), which bought the patent from
john deere.

large wood chippers result in the long thin sliced chips that we all know
like to bridge and cause problems.  the smaller lawn garden
chipper/shredders i find more interesting as they are a flat plate chipper
combined with a hammer mill (the shredder).  everything has to go through
the hammermill before going out the bottom.  one can vary the output screen
on the shredder part to adjust the output size.

as such, these common and relatively cheap machines will allow reduction to
a granular fuel with starting with something large, much more easily than
making something large when starting with something already small.
similarly, paper/carboard shredders will similarly get us to this granular
end.  and much of interest already starts in this granular form: sawdust,
coffee grounds, rice hulls, ag waste, nut shells, etc etc.  or stalk form
which is similarly easier to get to granular form than chunk form.

of course there are many exceptions to the above portrait, but it seems to
me the super majority case for waste biomass is that it starts small
already, or is easier to consistently make small, with cheap machines, than
try to make consistently big.

if you agree with this hand waving logic, then you might agree that our
usual focus on gasifier designs which run on chunk fuel is somewhat
misplaced.  that a more reasonable development and research scenario would
be to focus on gasifier designs which are at home with granular fuel, as
this is the solid biomass we are more likely to have at our disposal.

or even if you only think it a significant case, but in no way the most
important, then it at least seems reasonable that some focus should exist on
gasifiers that will run such fuels.  but none of the accessible materials on
gasification cover designs which will run granular fuels.  and we almost
never discuss such designs here on the list.

does this summary of the state of the fuel/gasifier union seem reasonable to
others?

j

----- Original Message -----
> From: <LINVENT at aol.com>
> To: <Doug.Williams at orcon.net.nz>; <LINVENT at aol.com>; <Rex at Process.co.za>;
> <gasification at listserv.repp.org>; <praufast at free.fr>
> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 12:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [Gasification] Algae
>
>
> > Dear Doug,
> >     Gasifying a powder is not a problem. I have been doing it for years.
> > Normal downdraft styles are not able to do this. I gasified sander dust
> in
> > the
> > 80's and Dr. Reed saw it being done at my mining operation, an "inverted
> > downdraft" design as he called it. The system we are operating at a
> brick
> > plant in
> > west Texas has run the kiln on tires, cotton burrs, and in a day or so
> > will
> > begin operating on dairy manure. All of these are converted into an
> engine
> > ready
> > gas with no pressure drop or moving parts, or maintenace on the gas
> > cleaning
> > train. When we run manures, the ammonia comes out in the water and the
> > final gas
> > has very little ammonia odor to it.
> >     I sent Tom Miles a posting a week or two ago which has a photo of
> the
> > installation at the brick plant.
> >     My comments about using algae as a fuel were somewhat faecetious as
> > there isn't enough mass to do much with and it is probably a better feed
> > economically. One group out of Los Alamos in the 70's had built a very
> > large algae
> > growing building, probably 80 ft. across cast cement dome,   which was
> all
> > USP
> > grade construction, piping, centrifuges and the like to raise algae for
> > the
> > Japanese who consumed vast quantities of it as a dietary supplement.
> > Unfortunately
> > as I remember, they couldn't get FDA approval for the process and were
> not
> > able to bring it to market. \
> >     As to the oil production claims of the algae, third party review and
> > commentary is necessary to gain credibility. Haven't looked into this
> far
> > enough
> > to see the actual numbers, but the cost figures are probably
> unreasonably
> > low
> > as algae does take nutrient to maintain and in other microbiological
> > processes, this can be expensive.
> >
> >
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Leland T. Taylor
> > Leland T."Tom" Taylor
> > President
> > Thermogenics Inc.
> > 7100-F 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107
> > Phone:505-463-8422 Fax:505-268-9206 (call first)
> > Web:thermogenics.com
> >
> >
> >
> > **************************************
> > See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
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