Mark, If you can get your hands on a used trough solar collector (the kind used professionally to heat water to steam) that might be the best bet.
Anyone have any experience with this, or know of a salvage place? James Slayden On Wed, 21 May 2003, girl_mark_fire wrote: > Spent part of the morning out at our nice new big 'experimental' site > (Team > Canola, a not-very-official 'coop' of sorts), installed our first shiny > new over- > feature-ified 110 gallon processor, Yay! > > anyway it was blazing hot out there, just a few miles inland and it's > about 10 > degrees hotter than where I live. Made me think about getting more > serious > about the solar batch collector bit to at least take advantage of this - > there > were certainly a lot of BTU's diffusely floating down all over the place > threatening me with skin cancer, and here I was slathered with sunscreen > and > installing a few kilowatts of electric heating (temporary). > > Batch solar box heater is a probably a bit undersized for what we have in > mind, though. > > The start of the eventual "real" solar heated biodiesel project (ie with > panel > collectors, not the batch solar oven type heater) is building the backup > gas > heated system (we don't have a roof at this place so the backup heat > comes > before the roof and the panels). We'll probably have to 'bite the bullet' > very > soon and buy a cheap propane domestic water heater (I am cursed with the > fact that I work at three biodiesel-making sites and at none of them can > I run a > natural gas line, yet every free heater I run across here is natural > gas). > > I want to use the propane heater (or two?) to heat water as a heat > exchange > medium, then run that water into the manifold heat exchanger system I'd > described, into the various tanks. (heat is mostly going for the > processors of > course, we'll have two processors since we're into ... you guessed it, > acid- > base, and the theory is that we'll eventually be doing two batches every > time > we go out there- one batch of acid and one batch of base, to compensate > for > the fact that commuting to make fuel is complicated and very simple > processors are nearly free.. in fact we got an awesome donation of a > stirred > stainless steel 150-200 gallon tank, already containing a motor and > agitation > paddles installed, just needs insulation and heating to make big old > batches). > > So I'm curious about steam and have a very basic question about it, in > the > application that Ken describes: Why is steam used for this application > rather > than hot water like I'm planning? is it because one can heat steam much > hotter? > thanks, > mark > > > > -- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Ken Provost <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 0. > > > > > > > > I'd like to plumb my workshop with steam lines the way some > > shops are plumbed with compressed air. Then you could have > > some immersion coils and a few steam-jacketed kettles. > > Just hook up to the closest steam valve. > > > Yahoo! Groups Sponsor > ADVERTISEMENT > Click Here! > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Biofuels list archives: > http://archive.nnytech.net/ > > Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. > To unsubscribe, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
