pyrolysis products

[dave]

In the following link, college students demonstrate pyrolysis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzv6fIDsNwM

This is a nice illustration of separating out the charcoal, crude tar, pyroligneous acid and wood gas (as described on page 117 of "The Knowledge")

[Dave Z]

Thanks for the link, Dave.

This is a section of The Knowledge I feel could use more development. Pyrolosis products, I think, are especially central to the project, as wood will be pretty much universally available, and very low-tech approaches produce a useful range of products.

The illustration (as often the case throughout the book) is unlabeled, and depicting the industrial scale apparatus offers less help to the small-timer. I'd like to see a range of techniques, starting with early field methods for gathering pitch, baking wood in open fires and separation techniques (where possible) which don't rely on distillation.

An accompanying table of products and their associated chemical description, properties and a range of uses would be valuable (as for each process in the book).

One of the particular applications of creosote(?) I'd like to see included is as anti-fouling for boats. I know of it as a possibility, but without the techniques. As I understand it, it was practiced until recently in the British Isles. The film depiction I saw hinted at important procedures, but did not go into them. [The Secret of Roan Innish... great movie with whitewashing and thatching, too, also shown without full techniques... close your eyes as the 'fishermen' try to row!).

Dave Z

[Maurice Goldsmith]

I recently came cross a machine made by a Japanese company called Blest which claims to use pyrolysis to convert plastic into fuel.http://inhabitat.com/japanese-inventor-akinori-ito-creates-machine-that-converts-plastic-bags-into-fuel/. Checking on Google it appears that there are several such machines being developed. I'm finding it a bit hard to believe that this is genuine, because in my experience heating up plastic just creates highly toxic gases, but maybe there's something in the process that gets round this. If so this could be a very useful technology.

maurice