Biomethane

[tecker]

Temp of the anaerobic mix may or may not stall the growth of the algae I have a white barrel for the new reactor I 'm going to add eletrolisis to the reactor the classic reactor is airless and dark .The algae  produces a vegetable oil I think will separate out .So the reactor will be a 55gal white with a 30 gal on a riser frame.

[Curbie]

Willib,

It seems to me, you'll should think about a finding or growing a consistent feedstock, running I.C.E.'s will chew up a lot a methane, the general "rule of thumb" for I.C.E.'s is that 1/3 of the fuel is converted to shaft H.P., 1/3 is absorbed as engine heat, and 1/3 is expelled is heat with the exhaust. John Fry has some numbers on turning methane into H.P.

You should look in co-generation of shaft H.P. and heat; anytime you convert energy from one form to another form there is a lot of inefficiency with more losses involved with high compression of methane for portability.

If you can produce methane at a consistent rate equal to your usage, you can avoid the losses and higher production involved with compression. This may make more sense once you look into the cost of high compression and storage, and there is a lot that be accomplish without high compression though.

Good luck.

Curbie

[willib]

Hi Curbie,

i found another site that should work a lot better for mini digesters.

i found it very hard to seal the tops of the milk jugs .

so i found another source that uses 5 liter beer kegs.

I figure that i could forgo the fancy fittings and what not and just emulsify the goods before putting in the container , then use a pipe thread with a barbed end to connect to a hose.

  http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=61167

look good?

[Curbie]

Willib,

To my way of thinking, it all begins with finding a consistent feedstock, the type of feedstock will help dictate the type of digester, and the amount of feedstock will dictate the volume of methane you're capable of producing. I kind of work this backwards because just about any bio-mass will digest and produce methane given time and the proper circumstances, but some bio-mass is better suited to one digester type or the other.

I like testing with batches, so I can better track and log results, but to me it seems a production digester would be partly dependent on testing results so my primary focus has been on testing different feedstock knowing that there are "tried and true" digester designs out there.

That 5L (1.3Gallon) beer keg idea looks ok, the DIY fittings are more interesting, I would want to test in 1 or 5 gallon pales in that smaller range for their removable tops. I'm real interested in organic compost, so for me, methane has an interest as a by-product, who knows maybe there's more there, but for me it doesn't really matter.

Curbie

[dnix71]

Just don't make your pit too big. People die after passing out from methane.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001448.htm

Their conclusion was hot humid weather made more methane than usual.

[willib]

REVIEW OF BIOMETHANE FROM MARINE BIOMASS

http://www.agen.ufl.edu/~chyn/download/Publications_DC/Reports/marinefinal_FT.pdf

I found this recently.

[Curbie]

Willib,

Thanks for the link,

Curbie