Fuels
Paper Cakes as Fuel for TLUD Gasifier Stoves
Preliminary tests have been conducted using paper cakes as fuel for TLUD gasifiers, and they look promising. WARNING: These are preliminary tests, so people try this at their own risk. We don’t yet know if there are heavy metals used in paper inks, nor and if there are any dangerous emissions from gasifying paper containing small amounts of plastic.
Waste paper, soaked, mashed, compressed, formed into 3-4 cm size balls, and dried may provide a way for families to save money, and an income for small businesses. Preliminary tests show that paper cakes can be made by sun-drying, such as on roof tops. The paper mash may be a useful binder for other materials like sawdust and rice hulls.
The paper cakes gasified well in a TLUD. The gas flame had much less incandescent yellow than the typical flame from wood gas, and was efficient to cook on. We speculate that the low incandescence may be due to removal of varying amounts of hemicellulose during the making of the paper. Hemicellulose pyrolyzes from wood at a lower temperature than cellulose, so may release more tars in the produced gas than cellulose. These tars would form soot particles in the gas flame that glow incandescent red-yellow. The quantity and molecular weight of tars may be lower in the produced gas from paper cakes than gas from raw wood.