Need emission figures for gassifiers

[Bad Wolf]

Some of the locals are bashing wood burners and throwing out all sorts of negative facts. Are there some good sources of facts to refute them? I've seen some figures for EPA certified wood stoves but I think that gassifiers would a be cut above them. They are focusing on a few OWB's that have visible smoke.
Actually some of them have been quite bad giving all wood burners a bad name. My TARM on the other hand has virtually no visible emissions when running good and hot.

Thanks
Greg H

 

[killick]

Hi Greg;
The Econoburn 150 is EPA listed as an outdoor wood-fired heater,certified Phase 1 orange tag for "heating season only" use. You can find some data here:http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/owhhlist.html
I'm not sure what this means in real life as this boiler is designed to be installed in a building. It may give you some data for comparison though.

Earl

 

[Gooserider]

Most of the Euroboilers will have test certificates and the like attesting to their compliance w/ EU standards - and I'm pretty sure that it isn't hard to get info on what the EU standards are in terms of numbers...

Gooserider

 

[flyingcow]

Contact Bioheat, they will have something. Also they are part of a group to do with burning wood products. Can't remember the organization, but contact Scott at Bioheat, he will have the info. Got to a little frustrating having a good clean burner and get lumped in with OWB smokers. These have their place, but in the suburbs is not the place.

 

[flyingcow]

Keep in mind, if you have tree huggers in your midst, nothing you bring to the table will satisfy them.

 

[Nofossil]

A European test of the EKO 80 showed the following emissions:

CO: 473ppm
Complex Hydrocarbons: 196ppm
Dust: 13.8 mg / cubic meter
Combustion efficiency: 91%
Average 'solid pollutants': 2.3 g/hr at 260,000 BTU/hr.

Fuel was birch chips at 15% MC.

This was performed by the Engineering Test Institute in Brno, Czech Republic, on November 10, 2005.

 

[Bad Wolf]

How does that stack against an oil burner or diesel truck?

 

[Nofossil]

A European test of the EKO 80 showed the following emissions:

CO: 473ppm
Complex Hydrocarbons: 196ppm
Dust: 13.8 mg / cubic meter
Combustion efficiency: 91%
Average 'solid pollutants': 2.3 g/hr at 260,000 BTU/hr.
Fuel was birch chips at 15% MC.

This was an independent test performed by the Engineering Test Institute in Brno, Czech Republic, on November 10, 2005.

The 2.3 g/hr compares favorably with an EPA test of a typical OWB that put out 161 g/hr at 250,000 BTU/hr. While comparisons are somewhat tricky, that suggests that switching from an OWB to a true gasifier would reduce particulate emissions by 98.6%, all other things being equal. Dunno about oil burners or trucks.

 

[Gooserider]

Not completely on the track, but one of our occasional posters and industry members in the Hearth Room, Tom Oyen of The Chimney Sweep, Hearth & Home products did a test / Public Relations event at one point where he put a secondary combustion wood stove up against a local city school bus. Despite the stove having less than ideal conditions, it still beat the bus...

I saw the writeup on it on his website a few years back, presumably it's still there somewhere...

Gooserider

 

[Bad Wolf]

Found it.

http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/hoarticl.htm

 

[Nofossil]

Great article, and a good approach to dealing with th education problem.

By the way, I mentioned earlier that a 250,000 BTU/hr gasifier puts out 2.3g/hr of particulates. To put that in perspective, a penny weighs 3 grams. As it's been around for a very long time, I hesitate to call wood gasification 'new technology', but it certainly works.