Decided the Hydrogen gas was a failure. Didn't fail to make gas, started off slow but then came along very nicely.
Failure was in me being too scared to use it once I realised what it's flammability ratio was in air.... Way too wide for my comfort level.
On to bigger and other wastes of time....
With the weather warming up here and my solar production going through the roof, I decided to give the Bio gas thing another go.
Got a 110L Plastic drum same as the one I used for the hydrogen generation but instead of cutting the backside out of it, I left it complete, screwed the Valved outlet from the Hydrogen generator in the top and filled the thing about 80% with a mix of horse manure, Rabbit manure and a good handfull of Biological pellets.
Premixed it all into a slury of unspeakable Yecch! and put it in the Drum. I'm just going to try a batch system first, make sure I can get the thing to work this time. Last time I think I went the wrong way adding sugar which makes booze and CO2 not the methane I want.
The day temps are getting up to around 25 oC here and the solar is going off it's nut so using some to heat the mix is not a problem at all.
I put the smaller drum inside the larger one and sat that on some expanded white polystyrene for insulation from the cement floor and put it inside the shed door. I heated the water using a 2 KW element meant for Cups of water or whatever and my trusty old plastic Urn which was doing just under 2 KW. With probably only 120L of water to heat up, I was over heating pretty quickly and had to back them right down. I got the water jacket up to about 47 which I figured was OK because the inner drum will take a while to heat sink and stabilise the whole mix. I want to run the thing around 35 but I might go to 40 in the day as the inner drum probably won't reach that anyhow and from what I saw, 40 is the upper limit for the middle temp digestion anyway.
I wasn't going to worry about insulating the outer drum as I'm not worried about the power to heat it and in a few weeks daytime temps will be 30 and night won't go below 20. One thing I over looked was the digestion drum is supposed to be dark to keep out light so Algae don't grow and waste Nutrient that the gas microbes could use. The outer drum is blue but the inner is translucent.
With this in mind I found a larger Black Nylon tarp and wrapped the outer drum and covered the top. Probably provide some insulation and well as darkness. As the air in the shed will be still at night, I wouldn't expect terrible heat loss anyway.
I have my Voltage monitoring Relay hooked up to the PWM Controller to reduce the power of the heater element which I have set to 1 KW. Soon as the solar starts pushing the voltage in the Circuit up, the heating element will kick in. I have enough hysteresis programmed into the Voltage relay so once it kicks in, it will stay on at the reduced voltage level and not see saw all the time.
I spose now I wait a week to a fortnight and see what gas I make. I have been looking for a a way to burn off the extra solar I am making and this is probably a tragic return But I have nothing else I can do with the power I'm making atm anyway. Maybe in another month or so, The average temps will be high enough that I won't need to heat at all. Certainly will be like that at least 4 months of the year.
I will need t stir the mix and that one is eluding me for the moment other than to give the Digestor barrel a shake now and then.
My preferred option is see if I can find an airpump with an in and an out I can tap a hose to. I'll take the gas from the outlet Tube and put a Feed to the bottom of the tank and it can Agitate with it's own gas. For this half arsed system probably wouldn't matter if it wasn't stirred, just make for slower gas production. Speed isn't the object here, just getting a successful gas production at any rate is.
I see on the net many Systems that use household scraps, Chicken, horse, cow and pug dung as the feed source but also a lot that utilise Human waste.
Really am not the least bit concerned about getting elbow deep in animal Crap but I sure draw the line at what comes out my own Fundamental orifice.
That said, I'm surprised I haven't seen any commercial systems that work like the Aerobic system everyone round here has done as an anaerobic with the gas as a by product. Might be something that requires too much maintence for the average householder.
If this shows to be worthwhile I Might consider a bigger system but I doubt it would really be viable here. I would definitely have to heat it in winter and electricity is in short supply then. Could use oil but it would need daily attention. Highly doubtful I'd get enough gas to do anything worth while with it anyway. Might get enough to cook with but I'm not going to plumb it to the house and sure as hell not going to go up the yard for anything more to boil the kettle during ( a fine) Day.
To run an engine, I'd need a Much bigger digestor and a few cows in the back yard or be running to the equine park every weekend and shoveling a ton of shit literally. Much easier for me to run on oil.
Even just setting these things up you learn a lot which if nothing else is good experience and knowledge for having a real world understanding of these alternative " save the world" technologies and their viability.
From what I have seen on the net, there is a lot that could be done with municipal waste to reduce landfill here, get a renewable energy ( or 2 in gas and power) and have a worthwhile by product in the fertiliser. Other countries are making it work successfully which is why it will probably NEVER be adapted here.
