Micro-Gasification: Cooking with Gas from Dry Biomass

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Micro-Gasification: Cooking with Gas from Dry Biomass Micro-gasification: cooking with gas from dry biomass Published by: Micro-gasification: cooking with gas from dry biomass An introduction to concepts and applications of wood-gas burning technologies for cooking 2nd revised edition IV Photo 0.1 Typical fl ame pattern in a wood-gas burner, in this case a simple tin-can CONTENTS V Contents Figures & Tables........................................................................................................................................ VI Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................VIII Abbreviations .............................................................................................................................................. X Executive summary ...........................................................................................................................XIII 1.0 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 1.1 Moving away from solid biomass? .................................................................................................. 2 1.2 Developing cleaner cookstoves for solid biomass? ................................................................... 5 1.3 Solid biomass fuels can be used cleanly in gasifier cookstoves! ...................................... 6 1.4 Challenges go beyond just stoves and fuels ................................................................................ 8 2.0 Cooking on wood-gas from dry biomass – how it works ............................................11 2.1 Why switch from the good old camp-fire?.................................................................................12 2.2 Understanding fire: stages of solid biomass combustion ..................................................13 2.3 Re-inventing fire: how to control heat and air for clean cooking .................................17 2.4 Small is beautiful, but challenging: making gasifiers suitable for domestic cooking ....................................................................21 2.5 Nearly as good as gas: performance indicators for gasifier stoves ................................36 2.6 Operation and utilisation of micro-gasifiers in cooking ...................................................38 2.7 Biomass gasification in a nutshell .................................................................................................44 3.0 Solid biomass feedstock and fuels for micro-gasification ..........................................47 3.1 Factors influencing the fuel properties of solid biomass ..................................................48 3.1.1 Moisture content has negative effects on fuel economy and emissions .........49 3.1.2 Particle size impacts fuel performance and gas flow ...............................................51 3.1.3 Particle size distribution impacts gas flow ....................................................................52 3.1.4 Particle shape impacts the convenience of fuel handling ......................................52 3.1.5 Fuel density impacts fire-power and burn-time of a fuel-batch ........................54 3.2 How to get appropriate solid biomass fuels for micro-gasifiers ....................................56 3.2.1 Drying ...............................................................................................................................................61 3.2.2 Sizing .................................................................................................................................................61 3.2.3 Densification .................................................................................................................................68 4.0 Gasifier cookstove diversity .....................................................................................................93 4.1 From theory to practice – gaining own experience .............................................................95 4.2 Catalogue of natural draft stoves for chunky biomass.................................................... 105 4.3 Catalogue of TChar-combinations for chunky biomass ................................................. 126 4.4 Catalogue of fan-assisted stoves for chunky biomass ......................................................130 4.5 Catalogue of natural draft stoves for rice husks ................................................................. 133 4.6 Catalogue of fan-assisted stoves for rice husks ....................................................................138 4.7 Devices focused on biochar production in developed countries .................................145 4.8 Further reading .....................................................................................................................................146 5.0 Biochar ............................................................................................................................................ 159 5.1 What is biochar? ...................................................................................................................................151 5.2 Using biochar from gasifier stoves in the field .....................................................................153 References ................................................................................................................................................. 156 VI TABLE & FIGURES Tables & Figures Table 2.1 Functional parts of a micro-gasifier and its influence on specific cooking.....35 Table 2.2 SWOT-analysis of micro-gasifier burner units for cookstoves ........................44 Table 3.1 Unified Bioenergy Terminology ......................................................................................57 Table 3.2 Advantages and disadvantages of using agricultural residues as fuels ........57 Table 3.3 Processing needs of different materials .......................................................................59 Table 3.4 Summary of benefits of densified fuel for use in micro-gasifiers...................91 Table 4.1 Four do-it-yourself burner concepts described in this manual .......................97 Table 4.2 Ready-made devices described in this manual .........................................................97 Figure 1.1 Solid and non-solid fuel use for cooking ........................................................................2 Figure 1.2 Regional distribution of population cooking with solid fuels ............................3 Figure 1.3 Diversified fuel use instead of an energy ladder ........................................................ 4 Figure 1.4 Tiers for emissions of cookstoves operated at high power ....................................6 Figure 1.5 Cooking is a multi-dimensional system .........................................................................9 Figure 2.1 Drying and pyrolysis – gas generation is controlled by heat input ................14 Figure 2.2 Oxygen-controlled combustion of wood-gas and char gasification ..............15 Figure 2.3 Controlled gas generation separately from gas combustion = gasifier .........18 Figure 2.4 TLUD operation compared to the lighting of a match..........................................22 Figure 2.5 Basic design features of a char-making TLUD micro-gasifier ..........................23 Figure 2.6 Demystifying TLUD and BBUD operation modes step by step ........................24 Figure 2.7 A stove is a combination of a heat-generator and a heat-transfer structure ....34 Figure 2.8 Emissions of different stoves with low-moisture fuels at high power .........36 Figure 2.9 Emissions of different stoves with low-moisture fuels at low power ............37 Figure 3.1 Moisture reduces the net usable energy for cooking .............................................50 Figure 3.2 Small fuel added on top of vertically stacked wood ...............................................53 Figure 3.3 Energy per volume of renewable resources compared to fossil oil .................55 Figure 3.4 Equal power output from different sources ...............................................................56 Figure 3.5 Mechanical energy needed by machinery type to process 1 tonne of material ....................................................................................................................................64 Figure 3.6 The Easy-BioGrind by Leland Hite .................................................................................65 Figure 3.7 Single-shaft shredder .............................................................................................................67 Figure 3.8 Guidance tool for identifying appropriate biomass densification options 71 Figure 3.9 Various options for lever presses ......................................................................................73 Figure 3.10 Cylinder for multi-sausage pellet production with a manual lever press ...76 Figure 3.11 Piston for a manual pellet mould ....................................................................................76 Figure 3.12 The principle of a screw-type extruder press ............................................................77 Figure 3.13 The principle of a piston press ...........................................................................................78 Figure 3.14 Construction principle of a flat-die pellet press with rotating rollers ..........81
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