Talk:Steam Powered Wood Chipper

Basic concept: a steam engine is directly (mechanically) coupled to a wood chipper. No electricity is generated. The whole purpose is to process wood. A portion of the wood chips is used to power the steam engine. The heat module relies on pyrolysis instead of combustion of biomass.

It's easier to shred the wood when it's freshly cut, but then you can't use it immediately in the gasifier because it contains to much water. Any solution ? Maybe having some dried chipped wood in a cart to load the gasifier..

EDIT : I missed this, sorry The steam engine's boiler may also generate some superheated steam that is used to quickly dry the wood chips. It's not far fetched, but we should look at the energy equation of all the process.. --EtienneD 12:45, 21 February 2011 (PST)

There should be plenty of energy available for this. The device can be designed for heat recovery (regeneration), which should capture ~80% of the heat. --Rasmus