EFM Coal Stoker for Bit. Coal on YOUTUBE

 
boilermaker
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Post by boilermaker » Mon. Nov. 10, 2008 11:28 pm

To all.....
If you're a soft coal burner and you're interested in seeing how an EFM stoker works with soft coal, I suggest you go to YOUTUBE and have a look at the videos that are posted of a guy running a unit without the boiler on top of it. It shows perfectly how this thing works. Very interesting videos. There are a total of 3 that this guy put on. Here's a link to the first one. You should be able to find the other 2 on your own.
BTW, why hasn't anyone thought of posting their stoker units on YOUTUBE so other less fortunate people can see what the rest of us already know. It might be educational for those thinking of getting into coal burning and need to see first hand what it entails. I thought of it but I'm still hand fired right now. I think it would be great for the public to see it first hand. Think about it gang.
Keep the fires hot and the ashes low.
Check out this video too.




Doug


 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Mon. Nov. 10, 2008 11:32 pm

Doug Look on the efm Manufacture section on this forum it is all there and under the Bituminous thread ;)

 
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Post by stoker-man » Tue. Nov. 11, 2008 5:54 am

EFM Bituminous Boiler Testing Is Next Week

That's the link to the topic. The unit is being shipped to Wyoming for testing as a complete boiler unit.

 
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Post by NEPANewb » Tue. Nov. 11, 2008 11:45 am

Yeah I saw that before as well....the chimney hooked up to that thing is gonna smoke like the dickens when that bad boy stokes hot though.

 
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Post by Flyer5 » Tue. Nov. 11, 2008 4:12 pm

I'm already hoping no one else catches on to this coal thing . Coal is getting hard to get already at a decent price . :D

 
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Post by stoker-man » Tue. Nov. 11, 2008 4:50 pm

We'll see how it goes.

It was installed into an existing stoker boiler inside a house in Shenandoah and it didn't smoke, but I'll hold off commenting until the Wyoming test is finished.

It was removed because of the faint odor, which smells like a housefire and is unfamiliar in anthracite country.

 
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Post by LsFarm » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 12:43 pm

For Wyoming, with their coal, I think this will be a success.. But I'd like to see this stove set up and run various eastern Bituminous coals..

The eastern Bituminous coals tend to clinker a lot more, and the sulphur content is higher.. And the Volitiles may be higher too.. This is the problem with Bitum. coal.. it varies so much that developing a stoker to burn it requires a lot of attention to the variables in the available coal.. unlike anthracite.

Greg L.

I think this thread should be in the Bituminous forum....


 
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Post by BigBarney » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 2:12 pm

LSFARM:

I burn bituminous coal from W PA and never see any clinkers it burns down to the same type

of ash that the Anthracite coal, whitish gray/brown,with a sandy texture.The coal burns up completely

and leaves about 10% ash.The coal has about 35% volatiles,from Valier Coal Yard.

Clinker come from high ash coal with a lot of iron and sand impurities in it,the coal I use is called

a house coal with a mix of pea and nut about 60% nut 40% pea and burns with a hot blue and yellow

flame and very little smoke,there is some soot which collects in my heat exchanger of the boiler and

has to cleaned out,especially in the summer when the firing rate is low and it idles a lot.

From what I've read the coal from Illinois/W Ohio has a high volatiles and a high ash content,any body know

how much ash in these coals?,and burn with a lot of soot and a lower heat value.

The Wyoming coals are also high ash and lower heat values with instability as far as spontaneous combustion

because of the type of volatiles in them.

Eastern coal volatiles are a type that take 300-500+* to burn so are stable at normal temperatures and stay with

the coal till in the fire and released and hopefully burn for their high heat value,not burning these wastes a large

amount of the BTU's in the coal.

On thing that puzzles me is when the Anthracite members complain that the reprocessed coal from culm piles are

of lesser quality than fresh mined coal,the anthracite coal is already 90%+ carbon which would never deteriorate

no matter how long it is stored,most of the problem would be with the processing not getting a clean enough

product.The volatiles ~5% are also not going to evaporate so they are still there no matter how old the coal is,

and we all know the ash isn't going anywhere so they are the same as new mined,except the processing which

has to deficient at some of the plants.

BigBarney

 
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Post by Freddy » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 6:10 pm

While the conversation is talking volitiles, help me wrap my brain around what they are & where they go. (I know they can go boom!) Generally, these volitiles are a gas that comes from the coal? Any idea what gas? Hydrogen? Natural gas? And when it comes out, is the hope that it burns and you get heat from it, or is it just sucked up the chimney & that energy is lost?

 
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Post by europachris » Wed. Nov. 12, 2008 9:01 pm

BigBarney wrote:From what I've read the coal from Illinois/W Ohio has a high volatiles and a high ash content,any body know

how much ash in these coals?,and burn with a lot of soot and a lower heat value.

From what I've read the coal from Illinois/W Ohio has a high volatiles and a high ash content,any body know

how much ash in these coals?,and burn with a lot of soot and a lower heat value.
Our Illinois coal averages about 10% ash and around 40% volatiles. Here is some historical info on various coals mined back in "the day" - 1946. Most of the really "good", low sulfur coal is gone, but there's some 1.5% being mined currently, but most is around 3%. The info is two pages - print and place side by side as a wide table.

We actually have very good coal to burn in stokers, but the main issue is the lower ash fusion temps due to the iron content. I think if we were to test this coal in the EFM style bituminous stoker, it would possibly have issues with clinker formation. But, that's just a guess.

Soot - yeah, that's a big problem when burned in a hand fed stove - I know....been there, done that, got the dirty t-shirt. But a stoker will eliminate much of that issue if the clinkers can be managed.

Chris

Attachments

Illinois_Coals_pg1.pdf
.PDF | 72.5KB | Illinois_Coals_pg1.pdf
Illinois_Coals_pg2.pdf
.PDF | 78.6KB | Illinois_Coals_pg2.pdf

 
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Post by Berlin » Thu. Nov. 13, 2008 12:45 am

"While the conversation is talking volitiles, help me wrap my brain around what they are & where they go. (I know they can go boom!) Generally, these volitiles are a gas that comes from the coal? Any idea what gas? Hydrogen? Natural gas? "

volitiles are just the hydrocarbons in the coal that help produce a visable flame just like burning wood. the flames seen from anthracite are actually carbon monoxide gas burning; this produces the bright blue/orange tipped flames (although the orange tips/flames w/ anthracite is mostly due to bits of glowing ash minerals in the tips of the flame which is why you will see more orange tipped flame in stokers). Volitiles in bituminous coal are primarily hydrogen gas, acetylene gas, and carbon monoxide gas, but there are hundreds of other hydrocarbon gasses present in smaller amounts. these gasses are released from long-chain and complex hydrocarbons present in the coal and are released when heated. take a piece of soft coal and microwave it sometime, it's pretty impressive.

"Yeah I saw that before as well....the chimney hooked up to that thing is gonna smoke like the dickens when that bad boy stokes hot though"

no, it's not, unless it's badly misadjusted. there should only be a barely noticable light grey coming from the chimney during stoker operation and the only time you should really see any smoke from the chimney of a stoker is imediately after shutdown; there will be a few minuite window of visable smoke untill the coalbed cools off.

 
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Post by LsFarm » Thu. Nov. 13, 2008 1:10 am

Big Barney, I'm glad you have a source for pretty good Bitum. coal.. the Bitum coal I bought in NE West Virginia/western Md. had a low AFT, and made clinkers with every load.. I had to let the fire go out and clean the clinkers off the grate every 5-7 days..

This is the problem with Bitum coal, every mine, every vein of coal is different.. The coal in one end of a vein can be different than the coal at the other end.. Bitum is just not as consistant as anthracite..

As for the volitiles in old coal from culm piles.. don't underestimate the power of cooking in sunlight and being washed with fresh rainwater for many decades.. I've heard the same about old culm pile coal not burning.. and I've bought some coal that I found out later was mixed with culm pile 'coal'. This rice coal had a very high quantity of unburnt coal in the ash,, and when I recycled the unburnt coal it just came through the fire untouched.. still looked like unburnt coal.

Greg L.

 
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Post by LsFarm » Thu. Nov. 13, 2008 1:11 am

Berlin, you changed your source for coal,, is this to get different burning characteristics for your Stokermatic furnace?? Or did your old source dry up? or did their coal quality change??

Greg L.

 
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Post by Berlin » Thu. Nov. 13, 2008 9:51 am

hi, greg,
I changed suppliers primarily to obtain the exact coal size I needed for my stoker 1-1/4"x 1/4". The coal i'm burning now also has some improved characteristics for my particular stoker, it has a slightly lower ash fusion temp, higher volitile content and lower ash content than my previous coal which was from valier coalyard, same as "bigbarney".

 
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Post by LsFarm » Fri. Nov. 14, 2008 3:33 pm

Hi berlin, so with this new coal, you are trying to get more clinkers [lower AFT] and [lower ash]. ?? Does your stokermatic have over the fire hot secondary air to burn off the volitiles??

It sounds like you are getting your stoker furnace 'tuned in' for the season..

Take care,, Greg L


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