Re: flash carbonization of biomass

[Reedtb2@cs.com]

Dear Ron and Andrew:

Ron said..

> I think Tom Reed agrees with me the IDD pyrolysis
> front is powered by charcoal burning, plainly this detracts from
> charcoal yield. With the advanced clean charcoal making I, and Mike
> Antal, are playing with any heat necessary for maintaining pyrolysis
> comes from burning some of the offgas and recirculating this hot gas
> stream through the char. There are a number of ways of configuring
> this, none patentable IMO but nonetheless the actual designs will be
> proprietary and subject to confidentiality."

Not quite.  It is powered by the combustion of the volatiles of each particle burning in insufficient air and yielding a combustible gas.  However, in order to move DOWN to the next layer it needs to ignite it and if it is wet it needs additional heat to move down.  Therefore, the wetter the fuel the more charcoal is also burned.  With bone dry wood we get 25% charcoal yield;  with 30% moisture we get 5% charcoal yield.  But the gases for cooking burn remarkably similarly across this range.  

TOM REED                           BEF STOVEWORKS