[Stoves] Understanding "charcoal making" stoves. Was: energy lost in charcoal making and briquetting

[Jeff Davis]

Dear Andrew & Stove Philosophers,



On Sunday 05 November 2006 06:42 pm, AJH wrote:
> Non authoritatively my first bash at it in the context of this list
> would be: a device burning a fuel, preferably biomass derived, to
> provide heat primarily for cooking.

Or would that best define "cooking appliance"? But I like the broader term of 
stove.

Wikipedia says, "A stove is a heat-producing device. The word typically 
describes an appliance used either for generating warmth or for cooking. In 
British English, however, the term cooker is normally used for the cooking 
appliance, and stove for a wood- or coal-burning room-heating appliance."


Webster says, "1a: a portable or fixed apparatus that burns fuel or uses 
electricity to provide heat (as for cooking or heating) b: a device that 
generates heat for special purpose (as for heating tools or heating air for a 
hot blast) c: kiln

But aren't definitions like rules, they were meant to be broken? Otherwise, do 
we not stifle innovation? For example; Otto said that a steam engine is a 
steam engine and a carriage is a carriage, YOU CAN NOT COMBINE THE TWO. He 
said this to the innovator of the horseless carriage, whose name escapes me 
at the present.

Moreover the IC engine is more stove than prime mover. One just needs to look 
at efficiency. Lets say that our IC engine is 30% efficient at rotary motion, 
that means that it is 70% stove. People already have used them as a species 
of stove hence cogen. Of course it is best when the system contains producer 
gas.

 So let me barrow Kevin's crayon and draw a box and in this box is the so 
called gasifier (after all, all stoves gasifiy the biomass (natural 
gasification and synthetic gasification)). Next is a filter and this is 
connected to an IC engine.  Under the box we write STOVE. This stove will 
provide more heat than rotary motion. It has primary air for the 
gasification, in this case synthetic gasification, and it has secondary air 
for combustion (carburetor). Of course I would choose the Bisschop so we 
could also cook our food but RV'ers have used some kind of method, to cook 
their food while they drive, by using the exhaust heat from the engine.

This stove box has the same components that the T-LUD (synthetic gasifier 
stove) has. They both have a well defined synthetic gasifier zone/area, they 
both have somekind of filter (the T-LUD has charcoal) and they both have a 
burner/secondary air. In my boxed stove the burner/secondary air is the IC 
engine. The T-LUD heats a pot but my boxed stove heats a room (cogen).

Synthetic gasifier/gasification = A designed gasifier like up or down draft.

Natural gasifier/gasification = match, candle or chunk of wood.



As Kevin would say "interesting",



Jeff



-- 
Jeff Davis
Somewhere 20 miles south of Lake Erie, USA
http://www.velocity.net/~jeff0124