Biomass to Biochar through Pyrolysis in a Double Barrel / 2 keg retort
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ส.ค. 2010
- Dr. Hugh McLaughlin demonstrates making biochar in a retort and also how to make a double barrel / 2 keg retort. The retort is ideally suited for the backyard gardener and small plot farmer for making biochar to enrich the soil fertility they grow in. Part of a series about "Organic Produce Locally Grown" by Berkshire Harmony
*I like your system since its AIR FREE! Most people make it wrong and it hard on plants due to High pH. The more Oxygen used to make Bio-Char the more POT-ASH is made. Potash is HIGHLY alkaline as Pot-Ash and Animal Fat is how the pioneers made Soap 150 years ago!! The Bio-Char machine I built uses 5800 Watts of electric power at 240VAC for 2 hours and it's totally air tight so the pH of my Bio-Char is right at Ph 7.2 (More like activated Carbon) - When I made Bio-Char the old way buy burning wood in an open flame and then smothering the glowing amber's the pH was 10.9 when mixed with water which burns the roots of most plants. I'd try mixing your bio-Char with sulfur or sulfuric acid or just make the Bio-char in a 99% anaerobic atmosphere (no air!!!) to keep the pH of the Char as neutral as possible.*
John O'Neill in Lismore makes bio-char - and yes it is different to charcoal.. He uses the heat coming off to boil water - makes a lot of sense in Ireland. ANYthing that heats water for free is welcome.
He grows Amazing vegetables - most are many times the natural state. using biochar/terra petra. Amazing results.
Great video. Thank you, sir.
Great info..
Seems like an incredibly small yield for the combustion. Why isn't the 30 gallon the dominant retort? Some stuff loaded into a secondary drum inside a larger drum? Whats the point? You should have a micro retort in side a 30 gallon retort, stacked on a 55gallon drum burn with a vertical stack with that same theme repeated... I could easily be missing things here, but boy does this seem like slim yield for the burn.
EdibleAcres agreed, one of the 3 layers of containers is unnecessary. Not sure if it improves things like heat retention, etc, but not necessary. And I do agree the smallest container is too little yield for the work involved so I'd throw that out and just use the 33 gal as the inner chamber.
could you use a Fresnel lens to heat a metal container and capture the off gases for later use?
You just made the simpelist biogas heater I have seen for the by product. When I tell people that we have the technology to be oil independent I point to bio-gas from chared bio-matter. The biggest plus is you use the char (which your diliberatley making) as fertilizer for the next burnable resource. I would call that renewable energy!!
u,,, good man
thanks
Fantastic! Questions: Will the chimney also be "better days" after 30 burns, or can it be reused and if so, how often? The pipe is expensive. I'm wondering if you've calculated how many pounds of biochar you'll get in 30 burns and if there's any way to estimate its long-term value vs. cost of materials. I understand biochar in the Amazon is still enriching the soil after hundreds of years. Where is the best, up-to-date info about its effect in the soil? I'd like to spread this info. Thanks!
I think if you used a stainless double walled (or triple walled) stove pipe section as is sold for safety reasons (pipe section which goes through roof e.g. on stove) it would probably last a long time. I have a 3 foot or so section of a firebrick-type ceramic chimney inner layer which I found a local re-use shop - much cheaper than stainless triple wall! -- and this will also probably last a long time. Then the two barrels can be more expendable but hopefully do up to 40 or 50 burns.
What is the cut size for the 50gl ?
I suppose if you're just using the 55 gallon drum for insulation you could put mineral wool in the 2" gap to increase insulation. Not sure if it would matter but I imagine it would make it burn hotter.
So to understand, the only place you inserted fuel to initiate the process was inside the 30 gal drum? How much do you need in there? Thanks, and great video!
A primary fire is needed to raise the temperature of the contents of the small barrel into pyrolysis territory
Can you make more videos please
Hi, tha is very interesting. I thought you were making charcoal, but you say it's not charcoal, it's for the soil, but can you still use it as charcoal? Can I ground it and make briquettes, for instance? Thank you very much for taking your time to show us all how to do it.
yep, same stuff. put a lid on the 30 gallon drum and use it in place of the "flasks" and your charcoal production will be better.
@@watchthe1369 Just to clarify:
. Will the 30 gallon drum lid have slits cut into it as well? (ie top & bottom have slits)
. Will the wood in the 30 gallon drum be directly set on fire as well?
Yes. I've seen others just cap the 30 gallon drum and use it to make the char and not use any flasks. The bottom will still have slits or can use several 3/8 inch holes in the bottom instead if you don't have a circular saw. This allows the gases to escape. The outer 50 gallon shell retains the heat and supplies the air but the char production is inside the 30 gallon drum. @@MaikiStarwood
If you used a lid with a 2-3" diameter hole on your inner 30 gallon drum in lieu of having the top completely opened would it make a higher quality of biochar ? (I dont want to put the smaller containers in the 30 gal drum but I want as high a quality as possible)
That's what I thought was about to happen.
I don’t understand what the advantage is of the two inner chambers rather than just filling the 33 gallon retort.
Question, what the hack do you need the outer drum for if the fire is in the inner drum? is it just an air supply?
strakill it's a retort. the outer drum acts as a heatshield radiating heat back inwards for better heat retention and burn. you could take it a step further and add insulation in between the two barrels like perlite but the barrels will burn out and you're only making charcoal it's really not needed. long story short... it's an efficiency thing.
Cleanest fire I've ever seen.
I don't have access to cheap wood stock but I have plenty of grass clippings. Can I make biochar out of grass clippings? If so, can it be done the same way and are there extra steps or tips?
Sure
Hi mi name es Fernando; I from of Colombia and i'm very happy for you video, is of very much help, but first let me excuse me for my english very bad. Congratulations, we has been doing biomass how you doing. we has seen the video and no understand you why the traduction es very bad in spanish, but yours actions say all. ok and now we want to know if you have design for productions of just a little big more, with materials more resistants. i think what is very easy with block of clay for example, but how have a sistems of the door of in and out very easy?
So whats the benefit putting woodnin the kegs instead the 30gal one?
The 55gal is an insulation barrier, the 30gal holds the fire to heat the charcoal containers. If you put the charcoal in the 30gal, you would have to put the fire in the 55gal and thus lose the insulation effect. It will be less efficient and burn more wood.
CAN SOMEONE TELL ME how tall the chimney pipe is?
I venture a guess at 3'. Pretty standard pipe size.
Do you have any suggestions on how to do this with dog poop? Would I need to do something different? I own a poop scoop business and would like to turn it into biochar and have have lots of dog poop
I would be interested in finding out if you found a way to do this!
Basically you want to dry it as much as you can, then charcoal it like you would wood. So in his video you would fill the two metal cylinders with the dried dog poop.
Everything was good until those two containers appeared 🙁 but I am sure it is good for good quality charcoal. How can we find containers like that?!
They are used in restaurants and corner stores to dispense soft drinks.
whay sze kegs are they?
they arent kegs they are plain steel 55 gallons drums. kegs are 15.5 gallon stainless steel. This guy understands as much about charcoal as he does about barrels apparently. {not shit}
Diesel_Ramcharger You apparently missed the kegs big guy. Did you seriously miss the small kegs he is using? 15.5g is a standard keg by the way, and there are smaller sizes and variants based on the use and demand, get out of the 9th grade and you might know a thing are two.
FUCKING great video man, so much info!
all that heat rising out of the stack could be generating power to a bank of batteries , for later use .
Why not ?
I think the small barrel (30 galons) is unnecessary.
Vinh Tuong Ngo I think that inner canister is unnecessary
I wish the camera wasn’t so far away from everything.
Sorry... it is charcoal.
djmaur what’s the difference? Thx !
@@MrSeney1 It's all charcoal when it's charred like that. Technically it's usually referred to as lump charcoal I think. There are various grades depending on the temperature and wood used. To turn it into biochar break in down into small pieces and add some combination of compost (tea), manure (tea), urine, rock flour, etc.
@@thejuanderful i know That’s but Thx
We have tried all sorts of charcoal making methods. Check "Wally Yater charcoal making" on youtube. You'll see the method that gives the most coal for the least investment of time, work and equipment, 65 bushels in this case. It is the density of the pile that restricts the oxygen and eliminates nearly all of the ash formation. A local commercial vegetable farmer uses our left over fines by the bushel. You need coal that goes over a half inch screen to weld steel. Four or six meshes to the inch does the rest of it, cutting, bending, drawing out, punching etc. Hope you or someone mounts the drum on their truck and runs the engine on the wood gas given off like the Germans did at the end of WWII. They don't do this now because the engine has to be rebuilt after about 5,000 miles, but enough further research should solve this problem. Half rotton twigs, tree leaves, any garbage and especially chicken or goose shit well composted will put as much "dynamite" under your tomato plants as any biochar. They're not all that fussy. Led the microbes do the work.
For those taking biochar for charcoal, u dont get it right. Biochar is done through pyrolytic process and relatively lower operating conditions compared with charcoal production.
Guess why biochar is called biochar.
OMG! WAY TOO COMPLEX. Creating charcoal is mindlessly easy using an open top 55 gallon drum with no other holes for air. Create a hot fire in the bottom, add combustible material and let it begin burning, adding successive layers of more combustible material essentially smothers and cools lower layers preventing complete combustion. To complete the process simply place lid on drum thereby starving the fire of oxygen. Next day it’s cooled and I have a nearly full drum of charcoal. The only drawback of my process is the feedstock material must be of smaller dimensions- no large chunks.
Notwithstanding what others have said about too many layers (I want to try just using the 30 gallon inner drum as the charring chamber, much more volume and output as others have indicated) -- burning the pyrolysis gas products efficiently and with as little particulates as possible, with turbulent burning, secondary air etc. is very important and laudable. Otherwise it's extremely polluting in the particulates area even if we are sequestering carbon in the soil etc.
Nope
Or you could just put wood in a pit, set it on fire and bury it. bio char is an awfully fancy word for charcoal. Yes this IS charcoal. Thats EXACTLY what it is. Bio mass Bio char are all fancy new age hippy terms for something that people have been doing for thousands of years. ITS FUCKING CHARCOAL! The charcoal you buy in the grocery store is briquette which is something totally different.
Sorry, but no. Biochar is not the same as charcoal. Charcoal has the pores clogged with tars and oils which makes it not biochar. Biochar has the oils and tars driven out of the pores, leaving the product with an extreme amount of surface area. That surface area is colonized with microbes that feed the soil and the pores also provide spaces to hold water and nutrients/fertilizers and retain soil moisture and also nutrients that would leach through the soil resulting in higher fertilizer requirements. The difference between charcoal and biochar is the process by which it's made and the surface area of that product. Charcoal won't do much for soil improvement, unlike biochar.
Kwo dell, can you explain how hardwood charcoal is different than biochar that isn't activated?
@@kwodell8694 Umm, you're just talking about different grades of charcoal. Certain grades of charcoal are better for biochar than others. Biochar is charcoal that has been inoculated with nutrients. At least that's the language in common use.