Dave Carter
In late July, Marc Marshall, Mark Severy, and I traveled to Pueblo, Colorado to conduct testing on a biochar production machine manufactured by Biochar Solutions Incorporated (BSI). The purpose of our three-week trip was to collect experimental data for use in evaluating stand-alone operation (i.e. without an external source of energy to power the process) of the biochar unit as part of the BRDI project.
Biomass conversion technologies (BCTs), such as the BSI biochar machine, can create higher market-value products in near-woods environments, justifying the transport of these products to market. This in turn could allow fuels reduction and forestry residual management projects to be implemented in greater numbers thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the risk of catastrophic wildfires. One of the goals of the BRDI project is to explore whether stand-alone operation of BCTs improves the economic and environmental benefits of removing slash and other woody residues from the forest.
We spent the first week in Pueblo installing instrumentation on the machine and setting up the data acquisition system. During the second and third weeks, we conducted experiments producing biochar with various biomass feedstocks.The variations in feedstock included tree species, particle size, anatomical distribution, percent contamination, and moisture content. Additional experiments led to design changes in the feedstock drying system and the air injection system for the flare.
The machine generates significant heat while operating (see photo at right). Some of this thermal energy is used for drying feedstock and some is used to preheat fresh air that is injected into the flare for complete combustion. Beyond the heat used for those purposes, there is a significant amount of high quality thermal energy that could potentially be used to generate electricity to power the machine at a forest landing site. Over the coming months, we will analyze the data and evaluate technologies that could be paired with the biochar machine to generate process electricity for stand-alone operations in near-woods environments.
