[Stoves] Burning coal in cookstoves

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Paul

I certainly don't have a general case answer as to what good coal will be
like, but low sulphur would be a good start.  The Mongolian coals are low in
sulphur - all of them apparently - and the ones near town are high in
volatiles and water.

The advantage of this mix is that the temperature can be kept down allowing
for a lower tech product to be locally fabricated.

Driving off the volatiles and having a more coked product means that driving
air into it will run up the combustion temperature.  That is death to metal.

So basically the best you can get is dry, high volatiles coal with low
arsenic, low sulphur, high hydrogen, low (-ish) fixed carbon.  The H2 will
ignite the CO and it can be run pretty clean.  Burning the CO is half the
battle.  The question is how clean is it in terms of particulates if the CO
is almost entirely taken care of?

I noticed that the term' low quality coal' is used to describe the lower
energy coals, the real meaning is that the volatile portion is above 20%
which was news to me. At 40% the Nailigh coals are definitely in the 'low
quality' range but it can be burned really cleanly in a small fire because
of all the extra H2 in it.

Interesting eh?

Regards
Crispin still blizzarded in somewhere in UB

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