Part two of the fuel review identifies a winning innovation to the problems noted in part one.
Analyzing the makeup of wood at the chemical composition level revealed the nature of the problems described. Wood is a combination of cellulose comprised of proteins, carbohydrates (sugars, both water soluble and non-soluble) and fatty acid structures with lignins as polymerized alcohols. These are the building blocks which make up a monomorized water-proof structural aspect which allows for water and sap to move through the tree without decreasing its integrity or dissolving it.
What we needed was an ability to create a co-polymerized transition by amending other carbon and hydrogen sources as a polymer base to be infused with natural fibers. By way of pressure and temperature we confirmed we could create such an assembly. We also shifted from ground wood product to sheared wood strands to coordinate the grains beneficially. As these more stringy shreds became mixed into the assembly, they provided a structural lattice which provided far greater durability.
At the same time, the co-polymerization increased the total energy composition while also causing the wood fibers to again become water-resistent. In short, we had designed the matrix of a new wood fuel composite product being totally unique to anything else.
The material was then passed to a compression station which compressed the semi-pliable composition into a consistent and repeatable form, most importantly consistent in size and shape as well as having no fractured ends to expose end grains of the plant fibers being bound with fibrous shred.
It's not all that different than a cotton ball except that cotton is purely cellulose, no amendments, no lignin. It's simple to pull apart a cotton ball even knowing all its fibers are significantly intertwined. However if you twist the cotton ball into a thread, the thread becomes nearly impossible to break by comparison. It is the fiber lattice arrangement and dense concentration that provide the additional strength. If you were to saturate the thread with paraffin wax for example, it would become fully water-proof and enhance the energy density as paraffin is a flammable fuel. Paraffin however was off the list for us as it's derived from fossil fuel resources as a semisolid of kerosene. In our case the amendments, wood extraction and lignin become co-polymerized to create the solution without further need.
Due to the nature of proprietary discovery, we can't at this time reveal the entire composite of materials / amendments except to say that the amendments can be modified very accurately to create several secondary forms of the same solid fuel result, depending on how it will be used in our combustion systems.
On our very first samples made, calorific bomb testing proved that our first generation composite was 12.5 percent more energy dense than the same amount of weight of wood pellets. The tests were very consistent. The burn samples burned incredibly clean, no smoke or soot, ignited instantly and burned to complete consumption if allowed to, having less than 1% residual ash.
We now have a proven menu for a cleaner, sustainable fuel source using far simpler and cost effective means than wood pellets. The processing technique opened doors to several secondary products as well. The amendments and process reduced the concerns of raw plant material variations. Finally it became evident we could utilize low cost chipped hog fuel, or even bamboo and ground up tumbleweed. The important part is the composition of the cellulose for carbohydrate, fatty acids and lignin overall. We no longer face having to process solid trees, but could make use of much of the high volume chip fuel wasted each year by timber processing.
The initial patent was filed based upon process, composition and a new terminology which defined a unique shape mathematically in order to use a "dimensionless" relative design to be fully scalable. The patent was constructed by our own group in order to defer from the huge legal fees attorneys attain by stretching the process out over billable hours.
It took months of effort thousands of dollars to winnow out this solution our remarkably loyal team supported during the development, but persistence brought results.
