More Chip Burners from the World BioEnergy Conference

[Eric Johnson]

As I said in another post, this was one my favorite chip burners. It just looks solid, well-built and all business.

Leaddog: I couldn't find any Refos at the show, unless it's under a different brand name.

Here's what I saw, at least in the way of chip-burning boilers. Other interesting equipment on display at the show is in a couple of other threads.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Here's three more. The Reka is a general biomass burner, but it will burn chips. This boiler also burns horse manure (not cow manure--it's too wet), and various woody biomass. Those jars in front of the unit contain things like residuals from rapeseed (canola) oil pressing. And, here's another chip-burner-in-a-shipping container, complete with onboard fuel storage and metering.

 

[Eric Johnson]

This one was pretty interesting. The guys with cast iron grates made a big deal about that. This one has welded rebar, from what I can see. One of the few, as you can see, that was actually running.

 

[JustWood]

I'm very interested in following chip burning technology and how it pans out in the future. If these things can burn a dirty chip it's going to open up alot of avenues for small to mid size sawmills,pallet shops and demolition recyclers.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Another nice looking unit. I asked most of the exhibitors when their boilers would be available in North America. Most of them said "soon," which I took to mean, "who knows?" The Reka guy said he'd sell a boiler to anyone with the cash, no matter where they are located. I'm hoping that Econoburn, or some other domestic manufacturer, will recognize the huge potential held by chip burners and start developing one, if they haven't already.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Here's a couple more. Pook, I don't know much about how these work other than what we can see and guess from the photos. I do have some brochures in my suitcase, which I think finally arrived today, so I'll scan anything that looks relevant and post it. Schematics and such. The right-hand photo in the opening post shows the heat exchange tubes in my favorite boiler. I believe it's a multi-pass arrangement, but that's just the way one guy described it.

 

[webbie]

I'm very interested in following chip burning technology and how it pans out in the future. If these things can burn a dirty chip it's going to open up alot of avenues for small to mid size sawmills,pallet shops and demolition recyclers.

I agree - lots of chip being made by machines available everywhere.

Question - what type of moisture content is needed for the chips? Assuming someone has a pile of chips, how the heck do they dry them?

Maybe the feed hoppers take some of the heat from the boiler and dry the chips?

 

[Eric Johnson]

The guy at this booth told me that his boiler needs chips at around 30 percent mc. He said it wouldn't work at all at 60% mc or higher.

My thought (detailed in another post) would be to run some heating coils into the hopper side of this shipping container and vent the resulting moisture out the top somehow. I don't know if that would make sense, but it would be nice to be able to load green chips into the hopper and have them be dry enough to burn by the time they got down to the auger.

 

[webbie]

It would be neat to find out what Euro residential users do. Maybe something like a wire mesh "corn crib" with screen sides and you dump the chips into the top (somehow) and remove the air dried from the bottom after a summer?

Without an easy way to handle and dry, residential applications could be nil.....could see a lot of use for all those companies with chippers and tree services - heating their buildings. Maybe municipalities also.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

A guy on a gardening website was asking about drying chips from his project (owned a mountain out in the PNW and was trying to log and replant tamarack). We came up with a system involving 2 pieces of corrugated roofing with a spacer. The whole thing was placed at an angle and the top sheet is painted black so that air/moisture leave by convection. There was a little engineering in loading/unloading where the whole unit was tipped up, but it seemed workable if not a bit time consuming to use. Also- he lived in high desert so that anything would dry quickly. Never got the final word on how well it worked for him.

Obviously, if spread out, or turned occasionally- the surface area means it will dry very quickly anyway. too deep a pile when freshly chipped- and it will start composting!

 

[JustWood]

It would be neat to find out what Euro residential users do. Maybe something like a wire mesh "corn crib" with screen sides and you dump the chips into the top (somehow) and remove the air dried from the bottom after a summer?

Without an easy way to handle and dry, residential applications could be nil.....could see a lot of use for all those companies with chippers and tree services - heating their buildings. Maybe municipalities also.

I bet some type of tunnel system (similar to what is used for drying hay in a mow) through the bin with hot air injected from the boiler would work.

Wood chips from a pallet shop or recycled demo would definetly have a low enough moisture content.

 

[leaddog]

[quote .[/quote]



Question - what type of moisture content is needed for the chips? Assuming someone has a pile of chips, how the heck do they dry them?

?[/quote]

If you wait and chip the limbs etc after they have been in the sun for a while they aredry enough to burn well. I did a large amount that way last year and they burnt good in my eko. Just pile them up so they sun dry.
You can also tumble them on a large screen in the sun but that would be a slow process. Or spread thin on small wire screen and rake them off when dry. Labor intence
Or get one of those grain dryers run with lots of NG and dry them like the farmers do ofcource it might be better to use the NG to just heat your boiler and save you lots of work. But what the heck they make ethonal from corn and get 0 return
leaddog

 

[Eric Johnson]

I think that would be one good approach, leaddog: Cut small diameter wood to long lengths and then let it dry like firewood. After it's dried out, run it through the chipper and you've got your fuel. About the only downside, other than having to stockpile the unchipped stems for a year (more or less) is that dry wood dulls chipper knives faster than green wood.

 

[JustWood]

Europeans have some pretty interesting equipment they work with. Different than what we work with here in the US. A few years ago I was surfing the net and came across a web site that was promoting these chip burners. They had some videos of large 3 point hitch chippers equiped with log loaders. These tractors were backed up to a bin and another tractor with a Farmi winch was skidding old tops to the chipper. A guy on the ground was unhitching and bucking tops into straight enough pieces for the chipper. I'm guessing the bin was 60+ cubic yards and partially full when the video started. I'm here to tell ya they filled that bin in no time and whith what seemed like little effort. Saw some other videos of a similar tractor/chipper set up pulling a forage wagon type trailer through the woods chipping tops into it and returning to a bin to unload. Gotta love their ingenuity.

 

[mbcijim]

Does anyone get involved in this in the industrial scale? I own a bunch of large warehouses 50,000 - 250,000 sft and would be interested in chip technology. I can get tractor trailer loads of chips (I'm told 22-25 tons and undried) for $650/load. I'd be curious to talk to anyone, even a salesman.