Garn WHS3200 & Wood Gun E500 [Part 2]

[Como]

I can only speak for the ones I have seen, the logs are brought to a site and instead of being cut and split are chipped. Makes no difference to where they are felled.

I would have thought there was some benefit to letting the logs season, woodchip boilers are much less MC sensitive.

 

[Willman]

Here in Maine the logs are skidded to the landing and fed into the chipper into the trailers. Then off to the mill or wherever. Not a chance for the small operator.

Will

 

[jebatty]

A little off-thread, to which I now am contributing.

Como: woodchip boilers are much less MC sensitive.

Kind of like saying an OWB is much less sensitive to MC because users burn green logs than is a gasification boiler which needs seasoned wood. Per pound 50% MC green wood delivers a little over 1/3 the btu energy than does 20% MC seasoned wood; or to put it another way, per pound seasoned wood delivers almost 3 times the btu energy than does green wood.

Wood chip boilers burning green wood chips waste a huge amount of energy in boiling off the water of green wood. Does it produce heat? Sure. Does it make any energy efficiency sense? No. It only makes sense because there is no other market for the wood they are burning and they get the wood nearly for free, except for the cost of transportation and handling. Does chipping benefit the forest? Maybe yes, maybe no, depending on the circumstances. They are other threads on this forum for that discussion.

 

[jebatty]

Incredible! If you *oogle "garn boiler", this thread is the 2nd hit, right below the one for garn.com.

 

[bigburner]

big wood chip boiler near me. They only buy chips that meet a certain moisture content. They also have there own tub grinder and the utility third party tree trimmers dump their dun age there to be ground for fuel and may be mixed with the drier stuff. They burn a semi load a day.

A few weird things happen burning wood chips on a tapered grate. They need to pretty dry, but with a huge volume required and almost always out door storage, optimum MC is not always practical. The beauty here is the surface area. The steam will flash out of the chip only costing the smallest possible amount of Latent heat. This is where it gets weirder [this is what I am told] That if it set correctly that % of the steam can be split threw a thermal/chemical process, into the base units and burned as Oxygen & hydrogen so the net loos to moisture is limited.

If there is an expert here on this phenomenon, would like to hear more!

 

[jebatty]

This is where it gets weirder [this is what I am told] That if it set correctly that % of the steam can be split threw a thermal/chemical process, into the base units and burned as Oxygen & hydrogen so the net loos to moisture is limited.

Too weird for me, maybe snake oil. Think about it. Converting steam (water or H2O) into H2 and O and then burning the H2, and the only by-product of burning H2 is H2O or water. Wow! they turn water into water! Truly amazing.

 

[DaveBP]

The beauty here is the surface area. The steam will flash out of the chip only costing the smallest possible amount of Latent heat. This is where it gets weirder [this is what I am told] That if it set correctly that % of the steam can be split threw a thermal/chemical process, into the base units and burned as Oxygen & hydrogen so the net loos to moisture is limited.

If there is an expert here on this phenomenon, would like to hear more!

It's called magic.

 

[bigburner]

This may not be the exact process I was told about - But it can Work. by the way 2 molecules of hydrogen and 1 of oxygen = rocket fuel -------------- not water

Steam reforming

Fossil fuel currently is the main source of hydrogen production.[3] Hydrogen can be generated from natural gas with approximately 80% efficiency, or from other hydrocarbons to a varying degree of efficiency. Specifically, bulk hydrogen is usually produced by the steam reforming of methane or natural gas[4] At high temperatures (700–1100 °C), steam (H2O) reacts with methane (CH4) to yield syngas.

CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2 + 191.7 kJ/mol[5]

Gasification

In a second stage, further hydrogen is generated through the lower-temperature water gas shift reaction, performed at about 130 °C:

CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 - 40.4 kJ/mol

Essentially, the oxygen (O) atom is stripped from the additional water (steam) to oxidize CO to CO2. This oxidation also provides energy to maintain the reaction. Additional heat required to drive the process is generally supplied by burning some portion of the methane.

Steam reforming generates carbon dioxide (CO2). Since the production is concentrated in one facility, it is possible to separate the CO2 and dispose of it properly, for example by injecting it in an oil or gas reservoir (see carbon capture), although this is not currently done in most cases. A carbon dioxide injection project has been started by a Norwegian company StatoilHydro in the North Sea, at the Sleipner field. However, even if the carbon dioxide is not sequestered, overall producing hydrogen from natural gas and using it for a hydrogen vehicle only emits half the carbon dioxide that a gasoline car would.[citation needed] This is disputed in The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate, a book by Joseph J. Romm, published in 2004 by Island Press and updated in 2005. Romm says that directly burning fossil fuels generates less CO2 than hydrogen production.[citation needed]

Integrated steam reforming / co-generation - It is possible to combine steam reforming and co-generation of steam and power into a single plant. This can deliver benefits for an oil refinery because it is more efficient than separate hydrogen, steam and power plants. Air Products recently built an integrated steam reforming / co-generation plant in Port Arthur, Texas.[6]
[edit] Partial oxidation

The partial oxidation reaction occurs when a substoichiometric fuel-air mixture is partially combusted in a reformer, creating a hydrogen-rich syngas. A distinction is made between thermal partial oxidation (TPOX) and catalytic partial oxidation (CPOX).

* General reaction equation: mathrm{C_nH_m + rac{n}{2} O_2
ightarrow n CO + rac{m}{2} H_2}
* Possible reaction equation (heating oil): mathrm{C_{12}H_{24} + 6 O_2
ightarrow 12 CO + 12 H_2}
* Possible reaction equation (coal): mathrm{C_{24}H_{12} + 12 O_2
ightarrow 24 CO + 6 H_2}

[edit] Plasma reforming

The Kværner-process or Kvaerner carbon black & hydrogen process (CB&H)[3] is a plasma reforming method, developed in the 1980s by a Norwegian company of the same name, for the production of hydrogen and carbon black from liquid hydrocarbons (CnHm). Of the available energy of the feed, approximately 48% is contained in the hydrogen, 40% is contained in activated carbon and 10% in superheated steam.[7] CO2 is not produced in the process.

A variation of this process is presented in 2009 using plasma arc waste disposal technology for the creation of hydrogen, heat and carbon from methane and natural gas in a plasma converter[8]