Pyrolysis Open Source Design Rationale (OSDR)

Product Definition

  1.
        1. General - Pyrolysis Oil is oil obtained from the anaerobic burning of a given mass. The gases from an object burning in an airtight container cool and condense to form oils which store energy for later use. For a village, pyrolysis oil can fuel a steam engine, in turn the steam engine can provide electricity, power vehicles for transportation and farming. Pyrolysis oil can be obtained from burning most dry biomasses (grass, wood, etc). 
        2. General Scope - The initial scope will be to find a simply constructed pyrolysis reactor which can be scaled up to produce 1 ton per 24 hours. The next phase will be to reduce the most toxic by products by determining the best heating rates to this end, the best cooling methods towards this end, the best biomass preparations, and the best biomass towards this least toxic end. 
        3. Product Ecology - Pyrolysis oil can be the base energy source for all the village's energy needs. Pyrolysis can be burned to heat water, creating steam for the village's steam engines. The steam engines provide electricity, transportation, and other machine powered mechanical items. Pyrolysis by products are oil, heat, and charcoal. The heat from the pyrolysis process can be used to heat buildings. Charcoal can be used for heating buildings, kilns, and foundries. 
              1. Localization - Pyrolysis oil can be obtained from any local biomass. In desert areas this may present a challenge, however, solar concentrators may provide the steam for steam engines. Currently, pyrolysis oil could replace the global flow of petroleum products.
              2. Scaleability - The design will include the flexibility to go from the ability to create pyrolysis oil either on a vehicle, in a small dwelling, to a reactor which can produce 1 ton in 24 hours.
              3. Analysis of Scale - section unfinished (Exploration of the appropriate scale for carrying out this enterprise, based on the notion that human orgnization works most effectively up to a certain size, after which organization begins to break down. The effective scale may change depending on the scenario).
              4. Lifecycle Analysis - section unfinished (material flows analysis, 'from crust to dust').

Enterprise Options

    section unfinished

(Note that village design favors neosubsistence in order to integrate participants' lifestyles for increased self-sufficiency. Enterprise may involve production of the product itself, fabrication of devices that build the product itself, production of other items using the product, education, training, certification, consulting, further R&D activities, and others)

  1.
        1. Development Approach
              1. Timeline section unfinished
              2. Development budget - 
                    1. Value spent - section unfinished (total value of monetary and in-kind contributions utilized specifically by the project, and provided by voluntary contributions; summed in US dollars; voluntary labor is not counted)
                    2. Value available - section unfinished (resources that are available but have not yet been utilized)
                    3. Value needed - section unfinished (This is what's needed in labor and materials to complete the project under two scenarios: normal and accelerated. The normal scenario assumes voluntary labor and materials at cost. The accelerated scenario refers to spending money to outsource the necessary developments. Outsourcing means spending the money on independent contractors who would otherwise not contribute their services in a volunteer fashion. For this, labor is accounted in hours. In the industrialized world, typical professional services may be $50 per hour.) 

Deliverables and Product Specifications

section unfinished

  1.
        1. Industry Standards - section unfinished 

Market and Market Segmentation

  1.
        1. Salient Features and Keys to Success - section unfinished (Explanation of the critical features of the Deliverables, and how they can produce breakthrough developments, such as those of ecological features, durability, cost reduction, ergonomics of production, and so forth.) 
  2. Technical Design The general assumptions for product design are, wherever possible: (1), lifetime design, (2), design for disassembly (DfD), (3), modularity, and (4), scaleability. Technical design progress will be visible in real-time, as updates are posted on an ongoing basis.
        1. Product System Design section unfinished (This parts starts to define the technical aspects of products beyond Product Definition. This includes the product itself and framework of other products within which the product is used or fabricated. Product system design includes components of the Scope as defined in Product Definition. Different options, variations, or implementations of a product are included. Product system design is an iterative definition, such that the best approach will be pursued as additional information becomes available. Particular product development forks may be selected.) Product system design includes:
              1. Diagrams and Conceptual Drawings - 

                    1. pattern language icons that help simplify technological discussion, see technology pattern language icons
                    2. Structural diagram of the technology
                    3. Functional or process diagram
                    4. Workflow for productive activities 

Technical Issues

section unfinished (main technical issues to be addressed and resolved)

Deployment Strategy

I. Create model pyrolysis reactor to gain empirical understanding of overall process. II. Locate pyrolysis specialist willing to contribute to an open source pyrolysis reactor. III. Come to prototype agreement amongst contributors. IV. Create small prototype to determine issues if any.

(Prioritization of steps to be taken, such as design prototyping fabrication iterations. The goal is to build on past work, involve additional developers, obtain peer review, identify prototyping collaborations, and follow import substitution to build capacity locally, until an integrated technology base, including provision of feed stocks, is under control of a community.)

  1. Performance specifications  section unfinished 
  2. Calculations: section unfinished (design calculations, yields, rates, structural calculations, power requirements, ergonomics of production - labor and fatigue, time requirements for production, economic break even analysis, scalability calculations, growth calculations)
  3. Technical drawings and CAD
  4. CAM files

Component Design

section unfinished

(Design of components related to the product system. This will be the main thrust of the wiki, as product ecologies are based on individual components. These components are likely to be located on their own subpage, because each component design has a number of subsections:)

  1.
        1.
              1. Diagrams
              2. Conceptual drawings
              3. Performance specifications
              4. Performance calculations
              5. Technical drawings and CAD
              6. CAM files whenever available 

Subcomponents

section unfinished (breakdown of components into subcomponents will be provided as needed.)

  1. Deployment - section unfinished (Deployment progress is visible by the documentation provided in the sections above, but tangible results of substance can be documented by pictures, video, data, and so forth. Progress is designed to be transparent to the observer.)
        1. Production steps - section unfinished (fabrication, assembly, and any strategic insights of the production process)
        2. Flexible fabrication or production - section unfinished (describes infrastructure requirements (equipment, utilities, etc.), tool requirements, techniques, processes used)
        3. Bill of materials - section unfinished (materials, sourcing, and prices of required materials or feedstocks)
        4. Pictures and Video - section unfinished (of materials, parts, prototypes, working models)
        5. Data- section unfinished (any results that are measured) 
  2. Documentation and Education- section unfinished (this section is dedicated to preparing and disseminating results, in the form of publications and technical reports.)
        1. Documentation - section unfinished (reports on results, or more comprehensive reports educating interested individuals in mastering techniques under consideration.) 

Enterprise Plans

section unfinished

(The bottom line to this entire project is whether economically significant goods and services can be produced in a replicable fashion. Are people able to use the presented information for entrepreneurial, right livelihood goals? The best mark of a complete development process is the number of independent replications. That is, is the information sufficiently complete and clear, such that people can egage in an entrepreneurial, subsistence, or neosubsistence opportunity? To facilitate this process, we are publishing enterprise plans that help to clarify and deploy enterprise opportunities related to the products in this wiki. Since the authors will be either directly or indirectly engaged in many or all of the projects- in an economically significan way- it is natural for working business models to be developed and shared. )

  1. Collaboration - 
        1. Review of project status
        2. Current Steps - Purchased five feet of 3/4" copper pipe, five 90 degree elbows, one 1/4 turn shutoff valve, 10' of 1/2" nominal copper tubbing, MAPP gas, silver solder, flux, pipe cutter.
        3. Developments needed - 
             1a. Donation Delivery of: 1' of 2" copper pipe, 2" solder cap, 2" screw cap donation. 
             1b. Water vessel and lid. 

        4. Collaborators Sign-Up List - Name, email, and Skype are preferable.
             1a. Negligiblek, negiliblek at yahoo dot com, phone available upon email request.

  2. Resource Development - (This section is aimed to organize resource development or funding for project deployment. This includes:)
        1. Identifying stakeholders - this is a list and description of individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions that may be particularly interested in the product under development, at any of these levels:
              1. Information collaboration
                    1. Wiki structuring, markup
                    2. Addition of supporting references
                    3. Production of diagrams, flowcharts, 3D computer models, and other qualitative information architecture
                    4. Technical calculations, drawings, CAD, CAM, other technical designs 
              2. Prototyping - collaborators with access to fabrication capacity
              3. Funding
              4. Preordering working products - see Soliciting stakeholders below ###Grantwriting - see below
              5. Publicity - help in getting the word out on developments, and recruiting new collaborators
              6. User/fabricator training and accreditation - New skills will be required to operate the economy proposed here. Training and accreditation is a natural part of product dissemination.
              7. Standards and certification development - Independent review will be solicited as a means to verify and control quality of products and services.
              8. Other 
        2. Grantwriting - The development process is designed to have sufficient background, motivation, definition of issues, breakthrough potential, technical content, and integrated comprehensivity; such that grants and various proposals for support should fall out as a direct byproduct of the information content. This is a mechanism for outsourcing some of the fundraising function of this deployment effort. We encourage codevelopers to study any or all of the products to understand them sufficiently well to be capable of writing grants related to product deployment.
              1. Volunteer grantwriters - One avenue is grantwriters who volunteer to write grants at no cost grantwriters.
              2. Professional, outcome-based grantwriters - These grantwriters collaborate in grantwriting by adding value to the proposal effort, and get paid a percentage upon success of bringing in resources 
        3. Collaborative Stakeholder Funding - Once products are demonstrated, we will solicit stakeholders to fund production capacity. This is a highly innovative social enterprise model, where stakeholders contribute a small amount, say $50, to the actual building of a facility for producing a specific item under the model of flexible fabrication. Funding will go towards: (1), building the flexible fabrication facility with the appropriate equipment, (2), bringing in and training a person who will operate the flexible fabrication facility. The motivation for the stakeholders is an absolutely lowest cost product - at near the price of materials - if the design is sufficiently simple and flex fab capacity is sufficiently advanced, to minimize the cost of production. The trick here is to be able to fund a facility collaboratively, such that the price reduction in the cost of production can be realized. This is essentially a question of distributing the development and production cost via a collaborative enterprise model.
        4. Tool and Material Donations
        5. Charitable Contributions