Biomass

Magh CM Laxmi [MCL] is a Natural draft woodgas stove. It is a modification of Magh CM for convenience of using all types of Biomass as fuel.

In many villages power is rarely available or available for few hours. In such a situation peoples' priority is for Natural draft stoves as compared to forced air stoves. The control on feeding fuel to the stove is another aspect, which people prefer. And more importantly the community wants freedom regarding the type of fuel to be used. They dont want to have stoves for different types of fuels, as they cannot afford as many stoves as types of fuels.

Magh CM Laxmi evolved from Magh CM. One of the user of Magh CM Ms. Laxmi, Peddamaduru village, has removed the fan and started feeding the sticks from side openings. She is able to use this stove with wood shavings and the sticks. She could use this stove for large scale cooking (12 members), during one of the festivals without any problem.

Keeping in view the adoptation factors and convenience of cooking MCL design is finalized. In honor of Ms. Laxmi the stove is named as Magh CM Laxmi (MCL). By increasing the height of the stove (chimney effect) the soot has been reduced.

Apart from using sticks, it is also convenient to use woodshavings / pieces of wood / leaves / dung balls / dung cakes / pellets / any small pieces of biomass fuel through the elevated side feed tray (its inclination can be controlled for fuel to slide down into the combustion zone).

In both Magh CM and Magh CM Laxmi the design enables the user to control the flames in the stove through primary air control shutter, convenience of removal of biochar. This stove costs about $6. For more information on [Magh series stoves]

From Magh CM woodgas good stove design

 

From Magh CM Woodgas Good Stove

From Magh CM Woodgas Good Stove

From Magh CM Production 8 to 18 sep09

From Magh CM adoption by community 18sep09

 

From Magh CM adoption by community 18sep09

Magh CM Woodgas Good Stove http://e-maghcm.blogspot.com/ designed recently is a very low cost TLUD stove meant for Common Man (CM). This can be produced by the local communities with less than 8 dollars (USD). Under Magh CM series I have designed many stoves / burners in the past. This stove design is one of the most acceptable stoves, as it has the options to run on forced air / natural draft. Most importantly the convenient charcoal / ash removal facility is created at the bottom, the grate can be simply lifted using a wire and immediately refilled for reuse. The additional window for secondary air in case of no power, the primary air control and the 12 V DC powered fan makes it like a geared vehicle for multiple options to control the heat / flame / updraft. Used the most commonly available oil tin can of 12 inches x 9 inches x 9 inches with a combustion chamber of 6 inches diameter and 9 inches height for the convenience of adoption for a family of 5 members cooking needs. The tin cans are easily available all over India. Posting here the pictures and the design for your valuable comments for improvement. I am thankful to all for your valuable suggestions in the past. This is the 30th Good Stove design of Avan and Magh series since last 4 years of my research and design. Happy to share that the people who have seen this stove have paid money in advance for having these Stoves. For more pictures and info see http://e-maghcm.blogspot.com/ and http://picasaweb.google.com/saibhaskar.gsbc

Design and Development of a Natural Draft Biomass Gasifier
R. Krishna Kumar February 28, 2009

Natural Draft Gasifier - Kumar

N D G - BASICS & PRINCIPLES

• Operates under the principlle of “ Chimney Effectt ”
• Natural draft caused by density difference

UNIQUE FEATURES COMPARED TO CONVENTIONAL SYSTEMS

• No blower is required for the operation
• Automatically takes the required quantity of air for Gasification
• Convey the Producer Gas formed by Gasification - Naturally
• Reduced fuel consumption compared to traditional chulas

More detail, schematic pictures and testing information are in the attached pdfs and in the 2004 discussion:
http://www.repp.org/discussiongroups/resources/stoves/kumar/ndg.htm

This is an experiment using biomass in the KEROSENE WICK STOVE. http://e-kerbiostoveexp.blogspot.com/ (for more photographs) The stove was lit at the top using a little amount of biomass soaked in kerosene. The fine holes of 1 to 2 mm located all along the inner and outer frame are useful in achieving very good bluish flames. The flames continued for 30 to 45 minutes duration. Only at the end the performance was bad, the option was that, a lid was used to shut down safely. The fire was very high (Reasons I am not sure). If one does not have enough kerosene, and in emergency one can use the kerosene stoves too with fine wood shavings as fuel. The end product is very good biochar. I am thankful to TOM REED for explaining the functioning of a Kerosene stove, which was the motivation for doing this experiment. http://listserv.repp.org/pipermail/stoves_listserv.repp.org/2009-January...
Also see http://e-woodgasstovemodified.blogspot.com/

This is the prototype of Magh series "Magh Utham Woodgas Burner". http://e-maghutham.blogspot.com/ This is a natural draft burner (forced air is optional). Low cost, low weight, easy of operation, easy to collect the biochar by rotating the combustion frame and easy to reload it. As it is can be used for boilers / institutional stoves / domestic cooking / etc. The performance is good. There could be some more improvements in its design to increase its performance. For details and photographs see the link http://e-maghutham.blogspot.com/ . The term "Utham" refers to "Best" which is part of the name of Prof. K. Purushotham Reddy a very well known environmentalist in India.

Magh CM-II http://e-maghcm-ii.blogspot.com/ natural draft woodgas stove http://e-maghcm-ii.blogspot.com/, it is a very low-cost stove for heating and generating charcoal. It can also be described as a mini-charcoal making metal kiln. Instead of incinerating biomass generated from home gardens / any other dry combustible material generated as household waste usually throw into the garbage bins, can be used here. The leaf litter, dry twigs / sticks, chips of wood, wood shavings, etc., are very much suitable.

MJA Biomass Gas Stove
Alexis Belonio, July 23, 2008
MJA Biomass Gas Stove Burning Coal

Alexis Belonio writes (edited and annotated by Paul Anderson and Tom Miles):

Attached is a picture of my latest coal gasifier stove. This
is the same basic TLUD stove I have for wood charcoal and wood chunks.

For domestic use, I use carbonized coal (or coke) as fuel instead
of the raw coal. Coal can be used for the stove, but we don't want to promote
this as a fuel since it emits poisonous gas. I would prefer to use coal for
industry application where gas can be cleaned before it is released to the
atmosphere.

I provide only a small amount of coal fuel in the gasifier stove, enough
for cooking. This mean that the power output is only small and the
metal I use is a stainless steel.

I ignite the carbonized coal by using a wood charcoal that has been soaked in
kerosene as igniter. [This is a TLUD stove, so ignition is at the top.]

[In the Belonio TLUDs, the fan only blows the primary air. The
secondary air is
pre-heated as it rises naturally between the fuel cylinder and the outer
cylinder, finally exiting into the rising flow of combustible gases.]
The smoke in the coal gasifier I have was eliminated [combusted] by mixing
preheated air with the gas generated from the reactor. I think
there is no need of [forced] mixing the secondary air by creating turbulence
with the combustible gases. Because in that case, you will need a
slightly bigger fan with enough pressure to push the air.
MJ Biomass Gas Stove

Alexis Belonio
atbelonio@yahoo.com