Hydrothermal Biomass-Fueled Engines

[Raymond C Drouillard]

On Thu, 11 Jun 1998 12:17:08 -0600 "Frederick J Sparber"
<fjsparb at sprintmail.com> writes:
>Hi All,
>
>I'm new on this list,so I hope it works.
>
>Retired from Sandia Labs, Several patents and
>many years of working with Thermochemical and
>Hydrothermal Biomass Conversion to support
>agriculture (especially fixed power units used for irrigation and power
>generation, and dairy-
>feedlot manure disposal.
>
>About any form of biomass material,leaves, grass clippings,straw, corn
>stover, dairy and
>feedlot manures,can be mixed with water and heated to 550-705 F (1500 to
>3200 psi) in a 5/16" diameter tube used as a heat exchanger in the
exhaust
>of an I.C. engine or gas turbine.
>
>The water breaks the organic material down to
>a combustible mix of H2,CH4,C2H4,CO,CO2 and oxgenated liquids and
>particulate solids.
>
>EFI looks like the best approach for getting
>this steam-fuel mix into the combustion chambers of the engines.
>
>Any thoughts on a EFI layout?
>
>Regards,     Frederick

As someone pointed out, filtering out the solid stuff is important.  How
much liquid is left after the stuff is processed?  Obviously, an engine
can swallow a certain amount of liquid.  We had a couple threads going
about water injection.

I think that the main challenge will be that the mixture will vary in the
amount of heat released, the amount of oxygen required (C2H4 requires
more O2 than H2 does - when measured by volume), and the octane value. 
Also, the CO2 and H2O will give you something very similar to EGR.

The variable amount of oxygen required for combustion can be dealt with
using an O2 sensor.  A fixed station engine will be run at a fairly
steady speed, so all the fancy programming for wildly varying loads will
be much reduced.  You won't need an accelerater pump or power valve
equivelent.  YOu can probablly get away with a straight analog feedback
loop.  If loads are going to be suddenly applied or released, you will,
of course, need that fancy stuff.

The variable octane can be dealt with by simply designing the engine for
the lowest value you expect to get.  If you want to optomize things
better, then a knock sensor of some sort will be needed.

One thought:  The octane value might corrolate somewhat with the amount
of O2 required.  Methane has a higher octane value than propane, and also
requires less oxygen (by volume).

Ray Drouillard

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