Grass as fuel

crude vegetable oil, diester, bio-ethanol or other biofuels, or fuel of vegetable origin ...
urok
I learn econologic
I learn econologic
posts: 31
Registration: 11/04/11, 22:54
x 4

Grass as fuel




by urok » 02/05/18, 07:06

Hello,
knowing that there are biomass boilers or multi-fuel stoves, I want to know if it would be possible to use the grass, recovered after the mowing, as fuel in this type of heater. I do not mean using biogas by fermentation but directly to burn, like peat for example. If so, is there somewhere a press that would form compact briquettes of cut turf? I saw that it existed for paper (to burn the many flyers that we receive in the mailbox).
Thank you for your help. Best regards
0 x
User avatar
Remundo
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 15993
Registration: 15/10/07, 16:05
Location: Clermont Ferrand
x 5188

Re: grass as fuel




by Remundo » 02/05/18, 07:40

I have never tried, but it must be dried.

The dry hay burns very well. But the density is poor compared to wood.
0 x
Image
User avatar
Grelinette
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 2007
Registration: 27/08/08, 15:42
Location: Provence
x 272

Re: grass as fuel




by Grelinette » 02/05/18, 09:56

Hello,

As Remundo says, well-dried grass cuts must be able to burn. To compact the lawn freshly cut into briquettes, when the turf is still very green, malleable and compressible, must be quite easy provided you have a press of course.

I had asked the same question for the wood chips from brushcutting, and there is a discussion on this site about it. I will try to find her.

For my part I imagined I could do a press simply with a long lever that compresses a piston in a large metal tube but I think I remember that Ahmed explained that it needed a compression of several tons impossible to obtain by hand and that it was also necessary to very high temperatures to agglomerate the compressed material.
Someone had also published photos on the ecology of a DIY press with a hydraulic crack fixed in a frame and that seemed very simple to do and effective.

There is a lot of waste produced in very large volumes, grass cuts are part of it, especially in this season, and end up loose in the dump while they could be easily recovered.

To return to the manufacture of combustible logs, we can see that there are various sources of materials that are common waste and that can be converted into fuel.

Here is a list of garbage I've already heard about log transformation projects:

- so the grass, or more precisely the cuts of grass
- wood chips
- sawdust
- the leaves of trees
- the bark of wood with which the compressed logs called "night logs" are made because they burn very slowly.
- newsprint or advertisements that fill our mailboxes
- Horse manure and more generally all kinds of excrement of animal origin (cow dung, Yach dung, sheep, goats, etc.).
- (according to Chatelot16, PE plastic would burn very well without polluting ...)
- etc

It would be very interesting to know the combustion characteristics of each of these wastes, as well as the advantages and disadvantages for each of them, and to have simple compression techniques to obtain tips.
If someone has a summary table on hand ...

To finish my comment on the subject, by doing a search on the net we find quite a lot of experimental feedback on the subject.

I found this one which seems to me interesting and could be taken again with the clippings of grass:
I have the solution I use for a long time. It is long (drying 1 years) but it works.
Do not take sawdust, leaves and tree sizes can be used
You need a plant grinder. I also put paper (not glossy paper, but the newspaper, p'tites announcements and misfires of my printer).
And for the binder, I use a starch. (approx 2%). Either rice break (50 kg cheap pet food, the idea came to me looking at the consistency of a sushi)
Either potato starch or starchy residues (potatoes from the bottom of the potato crate which have branches that grow and are all soft)
By combining the cellulose of the crushed and moistened paper and the starch mixed with hot water and mixing with the crushed vegetables too, I get a kind of mashed potatoes that I pour into recycling molds (the plastic tray of the frit hut)
In fact when I do it I take the day, and to mix I use a small concrete mixer
And I let them dry for one year in a sheltered and ventilated place.
After I unmold some kind of briquettes in the form of tray sintered. There you go.
And I start every year every time I pick up the leaves of my garden and I size my plants.
At home, green waste is not picked up, I have to drive them to the rubbish.
The energy that I use to make my bows (vegetable paper electric grinder + concrete mixer for mixing + hot water for starchy foods) and roughly equivalent to my fuel consumption to go to the waste disposal.
Check my logs is all good.
0 x
Project of the horse-drawn-hybrid - The project econology
"The search for progress does not exclude the love of tradition"
Ahmed
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 12298
Registration: 25/02/08, 18:54
Location: Burgundy
x 2963

Re: grass as fuel




by Ahmed » 02/05/18, 12:35

Using grass for fuel is a particularly absurd idea, from whatever side this hypothesis is examined. The turf is an excellent fertilizer and removing it to destroy it would ultimately lead to the spread of fertilizer from gas or oil ... : roll:
1 x
"Please don't believe what I'm telling you."
User avatar
Grelinette
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 2007
Registration: 27/08/08, 15:42
Location: Provence
x 272

Re: grass as fuel




by Grelinette » 02/05/18, 14:19

Ahmed wrote:Using grass for fuel is a particularly absurd idea, from whatever side this hypothesis is examined. The turf is an excellent fertilizer and removing it to destroy it would ultimately lead to the spread of fertilizer from gas or oil ... : roll:

The fact that grass clippings are an excellent fertilizer is one thing, but the fact is that this fertilizer is not used and that huge amounts of mowing end up in dump.

On the other hand, it is likely that grass clippings have other qualities (although not the most interesting) than fertilizing, and are more likely to be usefully exploited in a given context.
Reusing grass clippings for heating may be good, and for fertilizing it is surely better ... but "The best is the enemy of the good"; Everyone sees noon at his door !

Do not you think that it is better to consider the recycling of a material taking into account the context and external parameters that make or not recycling, even if it is not a panacea?

That said, maybe the clippings have absolutely no interest as fuel!
0 x
Project of the horse-drawn-hybrid - The project econology
"The search for progress does not exclude the love of tradition"
User avatar
Remundo
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 15993
Registration: 15/10/07, 16:05
Location: Clermont Ferrand
x 5188

Re: grass as fuel




by Remundo » 02/05/18, 17:01

the trees that rot on the ground are also excellent fertilizers, so let our chimneys go out.

More seriously, we can recover biomass for valorization. Personally still, I leave the mowing at the place of the cut, it makes me less work and it leaves the biomass on the ground.
0 x
Image
Ahmed
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 12298
Registration: 25/02/08, 18:54
Location: Burgundy
x 2963

Re: grass as fuel




by Ahmed » 02/05/18, 20:25

Let's be a little serious: how to consider burning something stuffed with water and more difficult to dry? Once the drying is done, what will remain as dry matter? :(
The fact that "recycling" via waste reception centers is generalized does not in any way make the burning solution less absurd: "a wet dog does not dry the other!" : Lol:
0 x
"Please don't believe what I'm telling you."
User avatar
chatelot16
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 6960
Registration: 11/11/07, 17:33
Location: Angouleme
x 264

Re: grass as fuel




by chatelot16 » 02/05/18, 21:38

what is absurd is to waste gas to run a lawn mower to not know what to do with what was mowed

at home right now I have a dozen goose who likes to save my home to eat grass in the fields of the neighbor who has horses and he is not happy ... he is afraid that goose leave nothing to the horses

so I put the lawn mower once a day where there is grass on the side of the road, and I empty the grass catcher at home under a shelter and the geese eat what they like and leave this she does not like ... so what she does not eat dry, and the next year it can make fuel

Another method to promote the grass as a fuel: the mix has dry ground wood: the dry wood instantly absorbs enough moisture so that the grass does not rot, and finish drying until the following winter. it's a thing that does not heat up as good ground wood but that I use in the end of the winters when there is no longer a lot of power to heat.

you can always say that it would be more useful as a fertilizer ... but I do not need fertilizer ... so it is better to use it to avoid consuming a better fuel than to let it lose
1 x
User avatar
Remundo
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 15993
Registration: 15/10/07, 16:05
Location: Clermont Ferrand
x 5188

Re: grass as fuel




by Remundo » 02/05/18, 21:45

Ahmed wrote:Let's be a little serious: how to consider burning something stuffed with water and more difficult to dry? Once the drying is done, what will remain as dry matter? :(

not difficult to dry grass: it should be spread on a dry and preferably covered ground. In summer in the field, it's called haying. There are even fenières that catch fire spontaneously, when the hay is not enough dry precisely! http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/french/live ... yfires.htm
0 x
Image
urok
I learn econologic
I learn econologic
posts: 31
Registration: 11/04/11, 22:54
x 4

Re: grass as fuel




by urok » 02/05/18, 21:51

good evening everyone,
I am very happy that my subject is the object of various and varied reflections.
I hope it will continue to progress on the issue because contrary to what Grelinette said we do not find much on the internet about it (or I'm not good).
Actually I am interested in grass from mowing because it is an abundant potential fuel (brought into landfills) and therefore valuable. It is not a question of weighing the pros and the cons compared to the fertilization of the soil: each uses this grass as it wants but it does not prevent that if the dumps are filled it is good that it is under -used: so there is room for both.
Regarding drying, I have more than 5000 m² to mow, leaving the cut grass on the ground, I realize that it dries very quickly, so I do not think it is a problem. But it had to be addressed because, as Ahmed says so well, it is necessary that it is not wet or it will not burn well.
2 points are in my opinion crucial to answer to see if it is valid or not.
1- Does anyone know, although cut grass is varied but it is surely possible to have an idea (an average), if the calorific value is interesting or not? For example Miscanthus (another herb, and produced since 2016 in Brittany: https://www.novethic.fr/actualite/envir ... 02117.html) seems promising in this regard, like peat for that matter, but what about turf? Because if it is a "poor" fuel and it takes tons to heat up, it is not worth thinking about it.
2- Another problem addressed but not really answer: the making of granules or briquettes. In DIY catalogs, I saw hand presses compressing paper to use flyers that rotted our mailboxes to use as fuel. But you have to wet the paper to be able to train it. As a result, the moisture remains inside the briquette and so I think it must be badly burned ... In my opinion, it must not be great, but if someone has experience on it, do not hesitate to let us know.
To conclude, I think it must be playable to heat in a multi-fuel stove or a biomass boiler, hence the idea of ​​my post because everything started when I discovered that: https://www.stovax.fr/poeles/poeles-a-b ... bustibles/, a company that says manufacture multi-fuel stove where it is possible to burn grass ...
To read ...
0 x

Back to "biofuels, biofuels, biofuels, BtL, non-fossil alternative fuels ..."

Who is online ?

Users browsing this forum : No registered users and 114 guests