Fuel Refinement:

Fuel refinement is the means and method whereby the raw materials are progressively altered to change their chemical composition.

The goal is to...

  • increase energy density, (how much energy is stored in a given weight of the refined fuel) and
  • alter, reduce or otherwise remove chemistry leading toward unwanted emissions.

This is a critical step defining how much weight in total the fuel will weigh or how much space is taken up by any given fuel in storage and / or transport.  Both of these contribute to the cost to ship, store and utilize a fuel source economically.

For example, all plant-based solid fuel materials contain X amount of fatty acids per weight stored in their cells.  These fatty acids offer considerably more energy than the starches, proteins or other carbohydrates in the same plant structure.  Unfortunately when the plant matter is stored in volumes in bails, drums or other containment, the fatty acids break down from oxygen also bound in the plant structures.  As they do, they emit byproducts, the more dangerous being carbon monoxide (CO).  This creates a lethal risk anywhere wood pellets are stored in enclosed containment, cargo or warehouse sites.

The wood pellet industry has begun treating the raw wood with steam and Ozone gas (O3) for several minutes while conveying the material to the pelletizing machine then drying the final product to less than 3% moisture by oven heating the pellets before packaging.  The Ozone gas effectively oxidizes the fatty acids depleting them so they could not form CO after being pelletized in the presence of oxygen from trapped moisture as H2O.

The problem with this approach is the loss of energy in the fatty acids plus the added cost of steaming and drying, a huge burden to pellet fuel production costs.  By oxidizing the fatty acids, the energy density of the material is wasted with further demand to dry the finished material to as low as 1% moisture. This means a much greater volume of natural resource is required to form the same pellet, increasing the cost of materials and shipping while lowering the effective energy density.

Here's why: Fats (or triacylglycerols) are highly concentrated stores of metabolic energy. They are the best heat producers of the three chief classes of foodstuffs.  Carbohydrates and proteins each yield 4.1 kilocalories (4.1 kcal) of heat for every gram oxidized; whereas fats yield 9.3 kcal more than twice as much.  Fats contain more carbon and hydrogen in relation to oxygen as compared to proteins or carbohydrates.  In other words, fats are compounds that are less completely oxidized to begin with and therefore can be oxidized further and yield more energy.  Furthermore, triacylglycerols are very nonpolar so they are stored in a nearly anhydrous form (crystaline), whereas carbohydrates and proteins are much more polar and more highly hydrated. In fact, a gram of dry glycogen (a carbohydrate) binds about 2 grams of water.  Consequently, a gram of nearly anhydrous fat stores more than 6 times as much energy as a gram of hydrated glycogen.

Carbon Analytic addresses this issue by hydrocarbon amendment which works under heat and pressure to polymerize the fatty acids in combination with natural lignin in the plant material. This has the added benefit of "plasticizing" the material in a way to integrate the fatty acids while making the fuel product nearly waterproof, far more so than even coal is.  Rather than a loss of energy density, Carbon Analytic's formulation actually increases the total energy density by as much as 12.5% / weight.

The result is a solid fuel considerably more potent with better burn characteristics which further retains moisture in a way to support still greater refinement upon combustion.  This results in a water-gas shift reaction during combustion under increased oxygen, reduced nitrogen and balanced PH, netting far greater volumes of volatile gas in the primary combustion chamber.  By reducing nitrogen the byproduct of NO(x) emissions is further reduced.

The remaining benefits occur as interim combustion and post combustion refinement plus catalytic conversions resulting in a turnkey solution for clean emissions well below standard and key to greenhouse climate solutions.  Without sacrificing on demand 24 / 7 capability, the Carbon Analytic systems become both distributed residential solutions as well as industrial grade solutions for power production fixed and portable.