What ever happened to biomass evaporators?

[Flat47]

While going through my box of old catalogs and stuff for other posts, I remembered someone advertising biomass-fired evaporators. I haven't yet found the catalog, but I'm thinking maybe it was Waterloo, circa 1990.

Anybody know of any in use? What really sparked my memory was a recent article I saw online about Bascoms switching from oil to biomass for their steam boilers.

As I recall, the ad showed a farm forage box full of biomass and an auger feeding the evaporator. I don't remember if there were actual pictures. I think it may have been black and white "artist conception" type illustration.

I'll keep digging, but does anybody remember this? Anybody out there know if it's being used?

[Haynes Forest Products]

New Maple Pro catalog has them in it

[hard maple]

Yes it was the old waterloo catalog
from the early ninties, I have it but it's in a plastic tote in the attic.
I wonder how many of those actually sold??

[Haynes Forest Products]

No the brand new cat 09

[WF MASON]

I remember asking Dave Bascom about switching over this fall after I'd seen the article and he said with the price of oil heading in the other direction they were scraping that idea.
His thinking like most of us, its great its cheaper now, but how long will it last ? I'm not a tree hugger, but I think if anyone can afford to use less oil , and make the investment in other fuels it should be done , but most of us don't have that extra money to switch. Bascoms could easely go to wood chips and put up four or five windmills there and afford to do it. I have alot of customers who are tree huggers , they say we have to look farther than today, I kinda agree.
Or instead of the goverment giving AIG twenty billion , everyone who wants one, gets a free windmill. No, that would make sense.

[maplecrest]

back in the early 90,s i went to see a wood chip rig run on the canadian border. sounded like a jet engine when running. but was a two man operation. one to boil and one to keep the hopper full of chips. it ran on gassification. as the chips filtered down a blower blew the gas under the pan where it ignited. was a great rig but made me decide oil was for me. he also said the chips had to be clean no leaves, needles ect

[dano2840]

theres a guy in the valley, Martin von trapp who has a wood chip evaporator, now that i have my licence i plan on going over to see his sugar house, he has alll his taps on a farm that we manage in the winter (the owner of the farm is a professer who teaches in ny so we take care of the farm as well as run our own farm) but he got a big pile of wood chips this spring and covered them in clear plastic, probably gets them for free as we have a bunch of tree service companies in the valley, one who we know brought us 3 loads once to use as mulch, for free, hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i should think this over my self.....

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I would think they wood cheaps need to be dry and seasoned like firewood, so I guess you would need a way to dry them before storing them for the upcoming season??

[nymapleguy607]

You could probly build some type of unit that wood burn chips. It would just have to go on the same premise as a pellet stove. You could dry the chips on some type of suspended mesh screen and if you wanted to get real technical add something like a pool water heater that would use solar energy to heat the water in some type of tubing, Then run the tubing under the mess similar to radient floor heating..When dry put them in some type of silo with an auger to feed the evaporator in the bottom. I think I sense a project coming here.

[Haynes Forest Products]

If you ever get free wood chips that have green leaves in it they will get hot and rot. If you want to use it in a boiler you want the screened chips that have sat for a few weeks. They will get nasty and moldy and alot of time they run them in a grinder and screen.

[dano2840]

i think thats what he used the clear plastic for, kindof like a green house, i dont know when i visit during the sugaring season i will ask him all about it and let you guys know

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

You could build a platorm out of a screen or grating type of material and let them dry on it. If you spread them out good, the leaves would dry up and blow away. A few days in the heat of the summer, you could dry a bunch pretty fast.

[maple flats]

Yes you could but consider this. One pound of wood regardless of species contains a specific number of BTU's. This is true on solid wood or chips. Since chips are surrounded with air a pound occupies much more space that a pound of solid wood, well split, you will need much more storage space where you can keep it dry. You would need to research it but I would guess it to need tripple volumn for chips unless you could then compact them after drying. This being said, I do think there is a place for chip burners. Storage space, chip movement and feeding must be addressed. If you master it there is a lot of available sources for free or very cheap fuel.

[tuckermtn]

perhaps this has been discussed earlier somewhere else- but what about a pellets for fuel. they can deliver the pellets with a large truck with an auger and an arm for unloading- like animal feed trucks- then storred in a small silo like a corn bin- then augered into your firebox and whoosh...not sure what a ton of pellets is costing bulk, but might be worth looking into.

could also use to make steam and run steam heat in your pan...

just thinking out loud...

[Flat47]

Found it!

1991 Waterloo catalog showing the "ChipTec" system utilizing gasification of wood chips, like someone posted earlier. The unit looks huge in the picture. Can't tell the size of the rig, but the ChipTec unit looks to be 10' or so tall and 4' or 5' wide with a huge feed hopper on top of the gasifier. The gases are burned in the arch. Gasification has proven troublesome in the wood stove industry, so I wonder just how well this worked.

The wood pellet evaporator in the 2009 MaplePro catalog looks much more feasible. It's a smaller unit added to the front of the rig that uses chips or pellets. Less equipment involved and power requirements I bet are less too. Given that a ton of pellets is about the same as 125 gallons of oil (says the hardware store), this system is very do-able.

I'll hand it to Waterloo, though. I think they were ahead of their time on this one.

[Dennis H.]

something like this would work good for storing dry chip or pellets.

I wonder if a grain drier would work for drying wood chips?

[lpakiz]

There is a guy here in the next town over who has been using chips for several years now. I am pretty sure he does NOT dry them. He has a small, heavy auger (like the old time coal stoker) which augers them into the airstream blowing into the firebox. Works slick. I'll have to stop and see him again and get a little more info...

[Haynes Forest Products]

That is the problem using Propane to dry wood chips to burn instead of oil. Augers dont like stringy wood chips. I think your going to be limited to chips that have been dried, screened and sized . I do like the bins would make a great cone filter.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Dave,

Not to start an argument, but some discussion. I disagree with you on the wood chips as they don't have as much air space between them in my opinion and stacked wood has quite a bit of air space. I know it is more tightly compacted, but I don't think it would be anywhere close to a 3 to 1 ratio. I would think you could burn wood chips in a regular evaporator without a feeder if they were dry. Especially on an inferno or intens-o-fire arch. You would need to figure out the amount you need to throw in when you fire and build like a shovel with sides that would hold the correct amount and throw them in aprox every 5 minutes. I have thought of this in the past several times, but never got interested enough to try it.

[jrthe3]

here is my plan for 2010 season i plan to built some type of bin with 4 or 6 pvc pipes with holes to hold the chips load they in the top of the bin with a hay elavator blow air threw the pipes to dry the chips the have a shute like a gravity bow into my sugar house then feed them in to the rig that is the part i not sure of how to burn them in the rig

[Oaknut]

My last year at Paul Smith's College (1993) they were in the process of switching over to chips to feed the evaporator. As of last year (2008) They were firing with oil. I don't know what happened in the 15 years in between but i have to believe the chips didn't work very well. If they had they would still be useing them as they we're chipping the slabs from the college's sawmill so the fuel was esentially free.

[Haynes Forest Products]

WVM: I think a loader tube that is mounted on the doors with slide gates. You load each tube and close the top cover and when your ready to fire you open the bottom gate and they fall in. As they sit in the tube the heat from the arch will help dry them. you can rotate by having one on each door. when you open the bottom gate and the top at the same time they will be sucked in. Heck blast them in with a leaf blower or comp air. How about a leaf blower blasting down the tube into the fire box and a hopper you drop chips in and they get blasted into the fire. I think you would get a sucking action keeping smoke and flames from coming back at you just like a draft door. We can call it the Binford evaporator chip sucker model no. 2009

[tapper]

I have equipment to feed sawdust that could be modified for wood chips if anyone is interested. I used this equipment in my 2x 6 years ago.