Hot Water and Methane, plus Compost, from Wood Chips? | Green-Trust.Org

This is just incredible.

I like that. I gotta lotta brush.

Thanks for posting that.

Matt

What I love about it is the simplicity of the system. Once you have done your work you get a year and a half of energy from the pile. I am thinking of experimenting with garden hose thru a compost pile testing for water temperatures. The methane production also interests me thinking of getting myself a tractor inter tube and see if I could fill it up.

I am thinking.... could one use screeded paper instead ..... This one looks to be a winner!

I did not understand the methane aspect, if it continued to produce methane
for a 1 1/2 years also or not.
It was sealed up, the methane container, so how was it to continue to
obtain feed stock to keep producing methane?

Hi all... it"s not incredible... but good solid logic... Ever drive by a landfill and see fire coming from the pipes sticking out of big piles of trash and garbage.. They burn 24-7 all year long even on the coldest winter days..
If you can take the smell and are far enough from your neighbors, this would be an excellent way to go.. Makes me wish I had acreage .. I would think that you could use just about anything that is bio-degradeable as a source for decomposition. And there again...capturing the methane and using it to generate electricity, might not make it smell like you're raising pigs. I wonder could it be done in a semi closed container..??? Like a small farm silo..??

Thanks for the link... very nice find..
Paul

I was trying to find more on it but the methane is a pretty easy thing to trap. Its so heavy it is not trying to get out of the pile.
So they container is not sealed, it just provides a void top and bottom.

When the compressor is hooked to it, it draws the gas out of the pile.

As far as methane stinking. That just depends on the material you use to produce it. Of course human or animal waste will give an oder, but I would suspect pine branch's or something along that line to be more pleasant.
"If all fails add rose pedals"... LOL. Even dairy methane production does not stink real bad. Most of the time the gas is pumped through activated charcoal filters. There is a big farm in Pennsylvania that produces close to a megawatt of power from his dairy operation.


Paper is semi digested material. It may not produce an organism naturally in nature to rot and produce gas. Where as tree branch may already be harboring is own bacteria for rotting, and if not defiantly the humus in forest is full of it. But then again they may be one and the same.

I also heard of a device that was basically a large plastic pipe in the ground and you could fill it with all your food scraps. After some time you could start pulling methane from it. There was trick for filling it though with out opening it to the environment.

This is good stuff.
Matt

Very interesting. Any images?

if you goto the first link I posted, and goto the bottom of that page there are several awesome links. The readers digest one and the wiki links were what impressed me, this is a tried and working system.

The methane production tank is filled once and sealed. Methane collection
is from the sealed tank and not from the large compost pile,
as I understand the article below.
This tank making methane does so without access to oxygen, it is sealed.
Normal composting requires oxygen ...
Jean Pain: France's King of Green Gold

Oh well if thats the case I don't need the Hot water. LOL
It might need the heat on the outside of the tank though.

I guess in the film he was compressing from the inter-tubes into solid tanks.

We'll see. I got brush piled from about 2 acres of clearing and I got more clearing to do. reading this paper.

Methane Digesters for Fuel Gas and Fertilizer - ToC

Matt

Thanks for that link, it has very excellent info on how to build one. It starts to make sense now, he puts the tank in the center of the pile to use the heat gained from the compost working.


From reading this paper one could then feed algae with this system and grow oil from the algae.. I think I want to experiment with both the compost and the algae. I wonder where I can get 8" wide clear tubes to grow algea... might consider just trying a kids swimming pool..

All kinds of clear tubes in different sizes up to 14 inch in diameter.
Acrylic Tube, 1/8" Wall

Plumbing supply places can also get clear PVC in various grade but they tend to be higher than the link above.

Matt

Very Interesting link! Thanks!

If you are interested in this, then you might want to look at this.





Another Kind of Energy


Just one of the many links I have on home heating...this is one of the ways I am looking into heating my home. It would be quite simple as I live in farmland and to get a load of green clippings from the local farmer would be very easy to get. Problem is where to do it...

Karl

On top of a sealed rubber flat roof.....

Matt

Digester Construction

Thanks Man!!! After seeing this video... with his algae problem I am thinking a catfish tank would do double duty for growing algae and providing stock for the digestor...


YouTube - barrelponics

I am thinking my solar panel would supply the needed power to run the pump for this setup...

YouTube - First Aquaponics System at Vancouver Island University

Alright, Alright.... We gotta stop throwing new stuff in the equation. I will not sleep tonight thinking of a master plan to incorporate all this in to one self running machine.

LOL

Cheers Brothers
Matt

Ok Ok, I saved this one for today

Bate's Methane Car

Thanks, I did finally get some sleep.

The advantage we have over him is you can readily buy LP kits for cars now days.
Most factory cars are designed with this in mind and the kits themselves are farmed out to third party manufactures. All government cars are require to have LP kits installed.

One thing the article shed light on was this statement.
.
I was wondering how much pressure methane could take. Some gases like acetylene require special storage containers to go over a certain pressure.

Looks like you can use an Oxygen Compressor (up to 1200 psi) to pump the gas in the tank.

Then all you need to get that extra edge is a HHO cell. A re-tune of the cars computer to accommodate LP, and your on the road.

Matt

Thanks Karl for those pictures and links. When I was in another town they gave away FREE wood mulch the city made it from all the excess branches. I hope to find a simliar deal here.

Where to do it... I am thinking back yard.. if one had an swimming pool they were not using anymore seems like a pefect setup.

Mart

Activated charcoal can be used inside a tank to absorb more methane
when the tank is pressurized, allowing less pressure to be used to
store the same amount of gas in the tank.

Below is a bit off-topic:
A woodgas stove can make really good charcoal ... crushes into power
in your fingers.
I've been thinking of how to combine a tank with holes in the bottom,
to hold biomass within a rocket stove.
The rocket stove starts the gasifying of the biomass and after the
gas starts burning it becomes self-fueling and the rocket stove is not
stoked with fuel.

I've seen this self-fueling idea work using a fountain soda canister placed
upside down and a gas burner used to start it up.
Once the gasifying starts up, the gas burner is turned off and it self-cooks/burns.

Thanks for the input Vortex, you are not off topic. Increasing methane production with charcoal is an very interesting idea. Can you tell us where you got the idea from?

Where I am at there is lots of brush just pulled to the roadside, but because the city refused to pick up in our section it just sits by the road. I was thinking of trying out what I heard from a video of digging a hole, drop all the brush in, start it on fire, then cover it up with dirt. If done properly the brush will turn to charcol, this is how they do it on certain islands. This in turn could be used either as biochar, ( enrich soil ) or... be used in the methane tank.

I have just bought a 3 hour video from

Green-Trust -- Product Order Page

Al Rutan shows his automated digester what works, what does not. This man has passed away, but his video, has a real wealth of what it takes to make a working setup.

I really enjoyed it, I learned much from it, I wish there was more small scale in the video, but he has made a setup that would work awesome on a dairy farm.

About your soda canister, can you tell us more? Is that being used to make biochar?

Again thanks for your input!

Hi all, found a good link for building your own digester...good information..

Paul
Notes From Folks Methane

The Biochar Workshop at Pony Farm

Biochar uses: water filtering, soil enhancement, methane/co2 storage, poisoning cure (research this one!!), etc (Other ideas follks?)

All this making biochar is so wasteful as far as not using all the heat.
Or using the wood/gas to "cook" the biochar..
Thus what this guy shows us is you can at least use the gas from
the biomass to cook the it into biochar .. using a bit least fuel.
Next step is to create your biochar in during a everyday procedure using
the heat for something other than only making biochar.

Very nice!

I watched all of the videos from that site.

Today the electric company was cutting brush and.... making mulch
They said they would drop a load off at my home. If they do, I can do some experimenting

A useful item might be a few dozen
Rapid Electronics - Electronic Components
10K NTC temperature sensors.
????
to monitor your compost pile if you get over 3 feet tall.
Not sure how you use them though

Just a quick question... I know natural gas and propane use different pressure regulators... but can you burn Methane in a Propane appilance???
or will you need to change the regulator??

Thanks,
Paul

Methane and Natural gas are compliant, so ya you might have to, but check with a gas outfitter, who might sell both.

Matt

I opened up wood chip pile and dug into the green chips about 2 feet in. I stuck a meat thermometer in and to my surprize it showed 128F!! this is wood chips that have not had water added to them. So... off I went to Lowes and picked up 100 feet of 1 inch black pipe. I then took a small part of the pile and moved it to my back yard waiting for the next rain. I have a 55 gallon barrel that I intend to fill with rain water then put that on the pile ( I don't want to use city water as it may have chlorine in it ) But 128F is awesome I intend to put the pipe in a spiral in the very center of the pile and lay about 3 foot of more chips on top after I water it down very well. In the center will go a 55 gallon drum I am now in search of either a pig farmer or a chicken coop that I can get the manure to mix with yard waist to start the methane process.

If this fails, then I will look at what other reactions I can do with this temperature perhaps the best would be alcohol production? What I am most afraid of is the temperate of the water in barrel getting over 108 degrees this is where the organisms in the mix die and you have to start with new organisms again.

The next step will be to fill the 55 gallon drum with water with the hose wrapped around the outside to collect heat. I believe I will put two drums in the center one for methane production, the other one for hot water storage. I have a large garden tub, and I was thinking if I could circulate the water inside this drum from the heat of the water I could then fill the garden tub from this extra 55 gallon drum, thus getting a free hot bath.

My thought is to take the 100 ' of 1 inch pipe and continually cycle it through the barrel which is in the center of the pile, and well insulated from being in the center of the pile. So then I could run my garden hose and fill up the 55 gallon barrel after each of my bath's....


If the water temp is anywhere close to 128 deg in the center 55 gallon barrel I will be happy as punch think I will use a sump pump on a timer for the circulation.


If this project fails I will then take the black pipe and put it on top of my roof and then circulate the heat into the well insulated 55 gal drum.

I am amazed at the heat so far with no water added to the pile. I think I will go sparingly with the water as I don't want too fast of a reaction, I only want to capture the heat...

For the methane tank, I am working on using a geared motor I have on a timer to stir the tank.

So far, I am only out about $40.00 for the pipe, and $14 for the barrels... I am so happy the electric company gave me the mulch, I am really excited at what I am seeing so far, 7/24 heat of water..... If I combine this with solar and or wood gas stoves it just gets better.