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incinerator

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Doggy,

If you had an incinerator that converted garbage to energy for almost free with no emissions, that would indeed be popular, to say the least.

The only way I can believe no emissions is via e=mc squared. Basically, you convert 1/2 the mass to antimatter and let it combine with the rest. Otherwise, whatever you put in has to come out, some of it in a lower energy form such as CO or CO2, or heat would not be produced.

Well, crap! Send me a load of anti-matter, and we'll get 'er started! ;)
 
mc2, close, extract the co2 since it stagnates the "burn", the NOs & COs will help the "Burn" so ill cycle them back in to "furnace", however SO2 may be a trickey one, ;;i didnt kno about that one;;since it dont burn, maybe i could extract it from the cycle too and maybe electrolyze the S out of the SO2?
 
mc2, close, extract the co2 since it stagnates the "burn", the NOs & COs will help the "Burn" so ill cycle them back in to "furnace", however SO2 may be a trickey one, ;;i didnt kno about that one;;since it dont burn, maybe i could extract it from the cycle too and maybe electrolyze the S out of the SO2?

I suggest you read up on catalytic combustors.
 
Gigantic catalytic converter.
 
the thing about catalytics is that the device completes the reactions with platinum(electrolysis?)

but each CO reaction it completes to CO2 is literally wasted energy
 
How efficient are you trying to get or why? When burning anything there are always going to be losses that are just part of how the burning process works. If you are using garbage or free fuel from wood or other left over materials why concern you self with the efficiency.
I am not understanding your concerns about reusing CO and other combustion byproducts being they are only fractions of what is produced by burning something.
 
Thats the part I don't understand either. What the reasoning behind dwelling on the minute hard to re oxidize molecules and trace compounds when there are far greater losses to be dealt with when producing electrical or mechanical power from burning a fuel.

The overall conversion process from burning fuel to usable power output still losses 40% - 70+% of its energy before any usable mechanical or electrical energy is produced at the end.

As far as removing CO2 is concerned that what the exhaust system is for. The compounds form the burnt material have to go out before fresh fuel and oxygen can come in. Its a basic rule of chemistry.
 
I just look at the typical burning system we have(auto) and look at all the chems that could be REUSED, and all the heat losses involved(coming out of the exhaust pipe alone), with simple integrations alot of these could be cut back, and be made pollution free

I guess my big question here is what is the best(efficient)/easiest/cheapest way to take that incinerator heat and get electrical output from it?
 
Boilers work quiet nicely, you'll spend a good penny on heat exchangers and insulation if you want to reduce waste heat appreciably. If you want to squeeze every bit of heat you could use a heat pump on the exhaust gas heat exchanger, it would take energy to run the pump but if the math works out you could pull more heat energy out of the gas than you're putting into the compressor. It'd be a nightmare to design.
 
I see. A few problems you will run into is that you can only take so much heat out of the exhaust before you will eventually end up with most of your particulate matter condensing inside it and plugging it up. Also a large portion of the combustion process produces water vapor as a byproduct along with the CO2 and other compounds.

What I am getting at is capturing the combustion byproducts and refining them to the levels of being useful for other purposes will take as much energy or in some cases more that what the combustion process itself will liberate and can be effectively transformed into usable energy.

Mostly the big issues are the cost and practicality. There is no point in spending the efforts to collect the exhaust gas compounds and recycle them if they are just not worth that cost and effort in the return. Nothing is free so someone has to pay for it and I am certainly not going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a reclamation system on my boiler to capture the hundred or so tons of CO2 and what not I produce a year.
 
Natural gas boilers for residential use have reached 93% or so of input.

That is about the best you can hope for.

When it comes to wood and trash furnaces, the act of burning and the chemical reactions involved make it cost-prohibitive to clean-up too much.

The number of catalysts required to neutralize ~90% of the unwanted emissions would not be feasible. The cost would be far ahead of electric heat.
 
Natural gas boilers for residential use have reached 93% or so of input.

now when we say that can i assume that a gas boiler its a convection system that burns the fuel then exhausts it?

NEXT time someone gets in to a car turn up the heat all the way and drive around for a bit, see how hot it gets, then open the window a crack and see how much cooler it gets, this all just seems like tremendous amounts of energy?

WHO designs these things>? WHO would i go bug with my ultra new design?
 
NEXT time someone gets in to a car turn up the heat all the way and drive around for a bit, see how hot it gets, then open the window a crack and see how much cooler it gets, this all just seems like tremendous amounts of energy?

If you want to talk efficiency you need to specify what units and where in the systems you are referring to. At the moment what you are going on about is rather vague and confusing.

1 kwh = 3114 BTUh's = 1.34 HPh (horsepower hours).

Around here an average home furnace is around 100,000 BTU's and can be expected to run around 7 to 14 hours a day depending on the size and the level of insulation in an average home. That equates to about 225 to 450 KWh's or about 300 to 600 HPh's of energy consumed per day.

A typical car has around 100 - 200 horsepower, most of its capacity is not used all the time though, and the heaters are capable of around 10,000 BTU or less in most vehicles.
 
i don't know much about efficiency, only workout/workin *%
all im sayin is that all the work done in radiators to cool and the heat lost in exhaust must add up to something...

one thing iv always wondered, since im on the topic is: if i had 2CH4 + 4O2 -----> 2CO2 + 4H2O "how much energy would be released@100%efficency?
 
i don't know much about efficiency, only workout/working *%
all im sayin is that all the work done in radiators to cool and the heat lost in exhaust must add up to something...

one thing iv always wondered, since im on the topic is: if i had 2CH4 + 4O2 -----> 2CO2 + 4H2O "how much energy would be released@100%efficency?​


If you don't know the basics of the physics or chemistry behind how energy transfers and chemical changes occur you are way in over your head and well beyond our common help. Theorizing is something anyone can but knowing the whats and whys of the real life working conditions behind those day dreams is not.
 
If you don't know the basics of the physics or chemistry behind how energy transfers and chemical changes occur you are way in over your head and well beyond our common help. Theorizing is something anyone can but knowing the whats and whys of the real life working conditions behind those day dreams is not.
[/INDENT]

im just using mechanisms that already exist, evolution isn't just in a discovery, but when 2discoveries come together,

Didn't you say that the typical engine heat transfer process is 93%,, once i heard that you can get the same amount of "energy" from a jet engine but with 1/6 of fuel consumption? was that their "daydream"?
 
RMMM was referring to natural gas boiler efficiency being around 93% in post 31. Vehicle engines are typically around low to mid 30's percent wise or less unless they are emissions compliant designs which are in many cases at their peak still well under 20% in real life driving conditions. It comes down to the simple and often overlooked fact that 'clean burning' is not necessarily more efficient.

Burning solid fuels has more efficiency limitations due to the having to deal with a solid combustion byproducts such as ash and the other less easily oxidized compounds and residues that form from either not being burnable or from condensing in the system as they get away from the hottest point in the system.
 
In spite of all the skepticism, energy recovery technology marches on:

http://Rock Salt Converts Waste Heat to Electricity

Though not targeted specifically to automobiles, the amount of heat that's recoverable is pretty significant. Using numbers already established:

200HP/2*1/.3(efficiency)*14%*.5(arbitrary fudge factor)=23hp waste heat for recovery. Over say one year of commuting, that would add up to ~11KHp*hr.
 
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