You lay out your stall, sit back, watch, wait.

[aqmxv]

If I put some really cool and really useful items out on show, and still get no real response, it is obvious that people aren't looking for really cool or useful items, or maybe they are but don't know one when they stub their toe on it.

One such titbit is the hydrogen content of fuel, complete carbonisation is the aim for efficiency, the greater the hydrogen content of the fuel the lower your maximum efficiency is going to be. The more moisture drawn into the engine with the fuel or air charge the lower your maximum efficiency is going to be. I even point out that rudolf diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, started out with dry powdered anthracite, extremely high in carbon, extremely low in hydrogen and moisture. This was not an accidental choice, it is an almost ideal fuel from an efficiency point of view only.

So how many people pick up and examine this item on my stall? nobody.

And you would be incorrect in that assumpion.  I read it, thought about it, agreed with it, and filed it away...  That's a factor you're not considering - some of us have no idea what you're talking about, some have an inkling, an some (or at least one) of us have worked in that field and don't regard it as an issue of contention at all.  Sure fuels of different H/C ratios are different.  No doubt at all.  It's like saying that day is brighter than night.

But then I've had a few semesters of organic chemistry, and worked as a vehicle emissions chemist for four years...

[buickanddeere]

 In the interest of lower "emissions". Isn't there some advantage to tie some hydrogen and even oxygen onto the "fuel" molecular chain?

[aqmxv]

In the interest of lower "emissions". Isn't there some advantage to tie some hydrogen and even oxygen onto the "fuel" molecular chain?

Well, probably the biggest advantage of a hydrocarbon fuel over a carbon fuel is that pure carbon is a solid, which means it has to be ground up very fine and blown around to get really efficient combustion (as in fluidized bed systems).  Hydrocarbons are just about all a pumpable liquid at some temperature or other, which is very convenient from the point of view of transport, storage, and mixing with oxidizer (air).

That said, the amount of energy released in burning the carbon dwarfs that from the hydrogen in every liquid hydrocarbon fuel.  This is not to say that hydrogen isn't combustible and that it doesn't provide a net gain in energy, but neither the combustion product (steam) nor the energy density are as appealing for use in an IC engine.  Hydrogen, however, makes a great rocket fuel if you can afford to store it cryogenically - the steam is a nice reaction mass just as in a turbogenerator, and so LH2 is used for essentially all second-stage engines on orbital and extra-orbital rockets.

As for molecular entrainment of oxydizer and lower emissions, you've just described an alcohol, which is a hydrocarbon molecule with oxygen stuck in it somewhere.  I've already posted pros and cons of alcohols as IC engine fuels elesewhere, so won't repeat myself.  Suffice it to say that alcohols are OK as fuels, but are not the panacea that corn farmers would have you believe, and, as currently produced, have shaky economics as fuels.

So is the hydrogen bad in a hydrocarbon fuel?  Well, theoretically, yes.  However, we have over 100 years of experience in figuring out what to do with the stuff.  Mostly, it just drives up materials costs inside the engine, which is pretty cheap given that you can pump the fuel through a pipe, pour it into a tank, and atomize it with air just with a high-velocity air jet (carburetor) or pump and sprayer (FI), all of which are essentially impossible on a small scale with anthracite.

[CD in BC]

http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=1403.0

Probably works - after all, it's being largely ignored.

[aqmxv]

http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=1403.0

Probably works - after all, it's being largely ignored.

Yeah, there are several of these depolymerization processes out there - all being championed by a few lone wolf inventors with no capital and a distinctly marginal demand.  Usually all these processes make industrial sense at a tipping point somewhere around $80/bbl of light sweet crude.  The trick is that oil has to STAY at that price.  Nobody is going to invest serious capital in one of these processes with oil bouncing up and down like a basketball.

There's another problem, too.  Right now, the feedstocks are all wastes available in what sounds like large amounts - 1000 lb/day here, 5000 lb/day there.  This sounds like a lot, but 5000 lb of turkey guts would probably make--at most--4000 lbs of oil (about 650 gallons).  Sounds like a lot, until you figure out that a big gas station probably sells several times that much fuel in a day, and there are filling stations like that all over the country...

Simply put, it's a great deal if you can match up the feedstock production with local demand like a cogen plant.  The large multinational four-lettered corporation I work for has a plant in a town in Alabama that gets its live steam (and heat in winter) from waste from a chicken processing plant.  The system works well, but the plant doesn't need to generate huge amounts of heat/power, and supply and demand are both close to constant.

These sorts of systems are great if you need lubricating oil or a little bit of fuel for some special process.  They will never substitute for the sheer volume of oil required to make the wheels go around in North America.  Even if we decide to quit shipping grapes from Chile to Alaska in February, there's still the minor fact that it's a big continent and things are really spread out...

[SHIPCHIEF]

Yes;
I liked the "Turkey Guts to Diesel" atricles ... came out a few years ago and re-appear every now and then.
I like the idea that advanced engineering could make money and keep the environment clean at the same time.
I think the advantage here is the offset of paying to legally dump the turkey guts, or giving it to the processor for free. Time and circumstance change all things, and turkey guts just went from a liability to a neutral, some day they may actually gain some value.
I also would like to see Coal used cleanly, and surfing the 'Clean Coal' websites, it looks like a good source for locally generated electric grid power.
But I've always been a sucker for coal in an internal combustion engine. I've worked with an engineer that patented an injector... but it never went anywhere.
Motor ships switch over to the rudest crude oil they can buy (at the lowest price) once they leave port.  I know that engine life is reduced, but the company accountants know that too. Fuel is the most expensive part of a powerplant operation. If you do any shooting you soon realize that the ammo expenses exceed the cost of the gun.
The cost of fuel is the foremost consideration, and Coal is one of the cheapest fuels in terms of BTU's per $ delivered to your site.
You could even run with less than optimum efficiency and save $.
Guy talks alot about efficiency, and I have not been reading all the posts lately, the Forum has grown alot, so Guy, forgive me if I accidentally tread on your toes.
Efficiency to the end user is different than that measured in the lab.
Guy's diesel car gets satisafactory efficiency for him, in Miles Per Gallon. The engineer that designed his engine measured the fuel consumption in Grams per KiloWatt Hour (because he is French). That engine probably gets it's best G/KwH at near full RPM and near full rated load, but that is alot more power than Guy needs or wants, so he runs at a modest RPM and low load and uses less Total Fuel, although his Specific Fuel Consumption is Alot Higher.
OK, Now to my point; (He has one? you wonder??)
A Loop Scavenged Two Stroke Diesel is yesterday's news.
Except that you could 'whiff' coal dust into the inlet port using Dr. Diesel's "Air Blast injection" and use pilot injection with distillate fuel to start and control the event.
Port shape, Hat piston crown and 'Whif' timing could be adjusted to keep the coal dust in suspension and away from the cylinder walls as much as possible.
Lower compression ratios, less than optimum 'Otto Cycle' events, and shorter times between overhaul might still be acceptable if coal cost is a mere 20% of distillate fuel. But the efficiency seen by the accountant would be better and that's what the stock holders are looking for.
Scott E

[meteorscatter]

You guys don't get it,

Guy Fawkes is correct and everyone else is wrong, he dishes it out and that's all there is to it. You have no say in the matter, you must follow his direction! If guy/F say's a block of concrete then that's what you have to do. All the while however there is no need for Guy/F to follow his own advice, it's ok for him to put his Som on an old electric milk delivery truck. Geez would that include the ton of concrete plus the Som.

Goto his own site and you will find his answer there on fuel consumption it is said in 6 words or less yet here it takes a lesson in efficiency and a runaway thread.

You lay out your stall, sit back, watch, wait----------- just like a Fox watching the hen house?---------

This post will likely get me thrown of off the Forum but you know what I'm tired of the cursing and rude responses from GF

[CD in BC]

Yeah, there are several of these depolymerization processes out there - all being championed by a few lone wolf inventors with no capital and a distinctly marginal demand.  Usually all these processes make industrial sense at a tipping point somewhere around $80/bbl of light sweet crude.  The trick is that oil has to STAY at that price.  Nobody is going to invest serious capital in one of these processes with oil bouncing up and down like a basketball.

I don't know if you had time to read the articles, but this is not just another process cooked up in someone's garage.  It works and it is working.

4.5 million tons of car shred waste a year that cannot be disposed of in any other way than in a landfill....the only process that destroys the prions that cause BSE...the list goes on.  All at 85% +/- efficiency.

The day will come when our landfills will be mined for the petroleum derivatives they contain and the materials extracted run through this kind of process, I have no doubt.

Of course the idea of every major urban center having it's own diesel fuel generation facility does not appeal to some people: radical evironmentalists and oil execs.  Strange bedfellows indeed.

[SHIPCHIEF]

I doubt that the low volume of this process will bother "The Majors".
I listened to an NPR interview with the founder of Seattle Biodiesel. The 'progressive' reporter conspiritorially asked if Biodiesel was getting any opposition. The answer was that Biodiesel takes about .1 % of the market. "We're not even on thier radar".
I really think that depolymerization will be used for cleaning up industrial waste at the source before it is released into the environment. That's a kind of efficiency akin to keeping your back yard clean. If it saves money on disposal or environmental mitigation, and provides a clean saleable fuel, then it's a win - win situation.