Horizontal Bed Kiln

An Innovative Approach to Thermally Decompose Biomass

The CarbonZero horizontal bed reactor is based on a very reliable industrial oven design that is used in everything from commercial bakeries to glass recycling plants. Feedstock such as wood chip or various forms of biomass waste are heated in successive stages. An example configuration of a 3 stage unit might be the following:

• drying at about 180° C
• pyroligneous acid extraction at about 280° C,
• syngas extraction / pyrolysis at about 450°

This staged process of thermo-decomposition has multiple advantages. First, it allows for the easy separation and processing of vapors produced into water, pyroligneous acid and burnable gases, as each are outgassed at successive temperature gradients.

Second, a staged process is much more energy efficient. In our example, drying and pyroligneous acid vapor production are staged at their most efficient temperatures, and no more. Hence, the condensation of pyroligneous acid can then occur with only minimal cooling.

Third, the target temperature and heating rate of each stage can be individually controlled, so the final pyrolysis temperature of the above example configuration could be raised or lowered without affecting the functionality or output of the previous stages.

And forth, stages can be added to increase throughput capacity or provide additional functionality.

Unique to this design is the fact that it has very few moving parts, all of which bear minimal loads and are all very simple. Critically, none of the bearings are in the hot zones of the device. The risk of mechanical or structural failures typical in other pyrolysis designs is completely avoided. In addition, very little energy is needed to transport tonnes of material through the device per day.

Also unique to this design is its simple and highly effective heat distribution approach. The feedstock particles are spread out in a relatively thin layer, and each particle is heated to the exact target temperature. To accommodate various feedstocks and processing specifications, it is possible for the operator to vary the overall throughput speed, and the target temperature and heating rate in each of the stages.

Our Horizontal Bed Design Compared to "Traditional" Auger and Rotary Kilns

For its throughput capacity, our horizontal bed kiln is also very economical to manufacture, maintain and operate compared to other types of kilns.

A common alternative is a rotary kiln, similar to a giant cement mixer, where the entire heated vessel is rotated to evenly heat and mix the feedstock particles. The walls of the kiln must be very thick, to bear the entire weight of the biomass, steel vessel, and insulation (if it is insulated). The bearings of a rotary kiln are massive, and must be designed to withstand high temperatures. Because the entire kiln rotates, loading biomass and unloading char during continuous operation, injecting hot dry gas, and extracting vapors without allowing air to enter the vessel all become complex engineering challenges that are expensive to implement. And of course the energy needed turn the kiln plus tonnes of feedstock thousands of times per day will be substantial.

One of the main issues with this design is that the residence time of the feedstock cannot be regulated with any degree of precision. The internal vanes guide the biomass through the vessel, but some tends to fall back and some fall forward. So by the time the biomass traverses the entire kiln, there is typically a 50% variation in residence time. Hence the feed rate must be significantly slower than optimal to wait for the delayed particles to be fully processed, and that many particles will be over-processed.

To develop a staged heating process with this approach, to make it more energy efficient and productive, would require 3 separate vessels all with separate intake and outtake mechanisms for solids and gases, bearings and drives. This becomes even more expensive to build, operate and maintain than a single vessel design.

Another common alternative is an auger kiln, where the feedstock is fed through a large auger assembly and hot gas is injected into a jacket surrounding the auger tube. The idea here again is to mix the feedstock to distribute heat evenly to the particles, but it is an expensive way to do so, and the main problem with auger based pyrolysis designs is that they often jam. Forcing the evolving gases through the feedstock and char in a tight space often causes tars to re-condense and stick particles together, called “bridging” in the industry. Bridging progressively blocks the flow of gas and heat until the auger jams on a compressed tar / wood chip / char mix. Once the auger jams, the solids within it continue to cool, and it can be a major maintenence task to disassemble the auger to free it, or worst case replace the whole assembly.

There are dozens of innovations found in the patent literature that attempt to solve the problem of bridging, including clutch assemblies to prevent the auger from breaking when it jams, auger housings fitted with a series of hatches to allow an operator to clear these blockages when they occur. Pyreg, whose unit is shown above, operates their kiln at a fixed temperature no lower than 750° C in an attempt to ensure that tars will not condense in their auger assembly. Required high temperature pyrolysis is common for auger kilns.

Most auger pyrolysis kiln manufacturers must modify their auger assemblies multiple times to overcome various failures. These designs generally become reliable through multiple iterations of trial and error, and once a particular design works, it cannot be scaled to a larger capacity. Just like the rotary kiln, a large capacity auger kiln requires a lot of energy to turn tonnes of feedstock thousands of times every day. The metal components required to mix the feedstock are expensive and prone to failure because of their exposure to high temperatures.

Compared to the alternatives, the horizontal bed design is simple, very economical, and very reliable. Bridging cannot occur because the evolving gases have plenty of space above the feedstock bed to flow out of the device, rather than being forced to flow through the feedstock. Heat is distributed evenly to all particles in the simplest manner possible, by spreading them out, rather than turning tonnes of material thousands of times per day. And because of the simplicity of the design, an economical staged pyrolysis process of water vapor extraction, wood vinegar extraction, and syngas extraction becomes vastly easier to accomplish than with a rotary or augur kiln.

Our 3 stage base capacity unit configured as in the example given above will process about 500 kgs of wood chip per hour (dry weight basis), producing 170 liters of pyroligneous acid, 165 kgs of char, and 500 kw of chemical energy in the syngas stream. These figures are indicative and will vary according to feedstock type, moisture content, and process conditions of temperature and residence time that are applied.

Capacity can be increased by adding sections and/or running units in parallel. There is sufficient excess syngas to operate a commercial genset, provide process heat, or provide heat to additional horizontal bed units to torrefy biomass rather than char it. Waste heat at 50° - 80° C is available from the condenser for a pre-dryer. Drier feedstock can be processed at higher throughput rates.