Re: GAS-L: Impure oxygen

[Peter Singfield <snkm@btl.net>]

At 07:27 AM 3/22/2001 EST, you wrote: 


Or get back to doing gasification by steam reformation. To bad 1 million
cars in WWII have set out minds so firmly on partial combustion processes
instead. So now we can't see the trees for the forest.

You get the same quality and better from steam reformation as using O2 in a
partial combustion process.

What is so confusing to me is that the original process of making synthetic
gasoline -- as invented by the Germans -- was based on steam reformation of
coal. Also a technology driven to the front during WWII.

How fast we forget -- incredible!

The partial combustion process was for "micro" applications only -- the
steam reformation was for "industrial" purposes. Now we try to take a
relatively "inefficient" micro process that does not grow well to replace a
successful industrial process.

Just read a large report on agricultural technology -- comparing the US to
Brazil. We are slipping fast folks -- just can't seem the get a good grip
on how to advance technology in the right direction anymore. And I believe
this is true of gasification as well.

We certainly can "GO" -- but I question the "forward" part.

Peter Singfield / Belize


>>>>
Dear Vern and all: 

If all you want is a higher energy gas, an oxygen gasifier produces 12 MJ/m3  
gas rather than air gasification's 6 MJ gas, and so any degree of oxygen  
enrichment will move that way.  (However, the Otto cycle was first developed  
for 6 MJ gas, and it  ran a million vehicles 1942-45, so why bother).   

One reason to "bother" is to make producer gas, a mixture of CO and H2 from  
which you can make  

methanol 
ammonia 
gasoline 
diesel 
etc.   

In this case 95% O2 isn't good enough and you will begin to make methyl
amine  
and your fuel will smell like fish.   

TOM REED 

In a message dated 3/20/01 11:40:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,  
VHarris001@aol.com writes: 


>   
>  Pure oxygen is expensive (although getting cheaper thanks to non- 
>  cryogenic processes) but low purity oxygen (less than 95% O2) or oxygen  
>  enriched air (greater than 28% O2) are much cheaper, thanks to pressure  
>  swing adsorption techniques and membrane technologies.  
>   
>  This is really all you need for gasification ... especially if you just  
>  need to improve your gas heating value just above that necessary for  
>  stable gas turbine combustion. 
>   







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