THE HOME INCINERATOR

INTRODUCTION

Coal and oil are not renewable resources, so their cost will increase as they become scarce and more difficult to extract. Wood is renewable, but, as wooded acreage declines, and the population increases, its cost will soar.

More garbage, delivered to fewer dumps, on more expensive land, has already become a high-priority problem. Clearly we must burn our garbage to delay the crises resulting from scarce fuel and mounting waste. The difficulty is that most garbage can't be burned in a fireplace or woodstove.

From the information listed below it is seen how the home incinerator system can solve a surprising number of problems resulting in a highly beneficial environmental and economic impact. Details of system operation and construction are presently proprietary - awaiting venture capital interest.

Rubber, plastics, asphalt, all treated woods (such as particle board, fiberboard, plywood, pressure-treated or pentachloro-phenol-treated woods), high sulphur fuels, fabrics, disposable diapers, leather, newspapers, corrugated boxes, pine and other softwoods, paint and painted wood, dioxins, toxic wastes, motor oil, solvents, and more. Worldwide, a billion trees per year are used for disposable diapers making up 3% of all landfills.

2. Fluidized bed scrubbing is incorporated in order to prevent the sulphur content of many fuels from entering the atmosphere. Sulphur dioxide gas is combined with cheap calcium carbonate resulting in calcium sulphate. This is not possible with the ordinary woodstove.

3. Warm stale room air is not reheated and recycled, but is used for combustion. (This is an important requirement with modern air-tight homes.) Thus there's no buildup of toxic gases, smells, dust, mold, spores, pollen, or humidity, in the home, from humans, pets, plants, cooking, paint, solvents, formaldehyde (from treated woods), asbestos particles, dioxins (from aerosols), radon, cigarette smoke, new carpets, chlorine (from bleach and cleaning agents), and more. (Common indoor pollutants such as formaldehyde, benzene, and trichloroethylene can cause many health problems from headaches and eye irritation to certain cancers.)

4. Stale room air is prewarmed before it enters the firebox in order to cool the incinerator surface and to increase the firebox temperature.

5. The flow rates of outgoing stale room air and incoming fresh air are both regulated:

• The rate of stale air flow, and thus the rate of combustion, is regulated.
• No cold outside air enters the home through cracks and crevices. A controlled flow of heated outside fresh air replaces the stale room air being used for combustion.

6. No costly complicated chimney construction nor flue installations are required to satisfy local codes because the chimney and flue are eliminated. Thus there can be no chimney or flue fires due to creosote buildup.

7. Unsightly stovepipes are replaced by a small exhaust pipe thru a wall.

8. No damper to open, close, or regulate. No bypass damper is necessary for starting.

9. Smoke and fumes cannot leak into the home from any portion of the incinerator system, even when loading more fuel.

10. The design is such that a forced air furnace, a kitchen fan, or opening a door, will not affect the operation of the incinerator system, nor affect its heat output.

11. Because, within the stove, fuel gases and air are hot enough, and in contact long enough, we achieve mixing at the molecular level, and so obtain much more complete burning and very small amounts of ash. (As much as 30% of wood's energy can be lost as unburned hydrocarbons or particles in the smoke.)

12. As much as 90% of a family's garbage can be cleanly burned in the home incinerator, saving money, fuel, conserving our resources, and helping solve the world pollution, energy, and garbage buildup problems.

13. The world's total stored carbon will decrease at a lower rate thus helping solve the global warming problem. How? By burning garbage for heating and power, commercial fuels, such as coal, oil, gas, and wood, are thus conserved. When we burn commercial fuels, releasing carbon into the atmosphere, and bury the garbage, this unburned garbage breaks down (burns), anyway, in a few decades releasing even more carbon into the atmosphere without mankind ever having extracted the energy of the garbage.

14. Because combustion is easily controlled, the firebox temperature can be kept within a narrow range - high enough to combust toxic wastes, but not too high to produce NOX (oxides of nitrogen), nor to melt ash (a problem in solid fuel combustion).

15. Complete combustion and low pollution are achieved even when operating at low heat output. This is accomplished with no creosote buildup and no catalytic combustion.

16. A catalytic combustor will not increase combustion efficiency and is therefore unnecessary. In addition, catalytics are expensive, easily clogged and damaged, and cannot be used with many fuels, such as coal, newspaper, and plywood.

17. A fast response time is obtained when a change of heat output is desired, due to inherent design and low mass. This is important for manual or automatic systems to properly control combustion, such as for maintaining the optimum secondary-to-primary air flow ratio which minimizes excess air and NOX.

18. Outside fresh air is filtered for insects and particulate matter before being heated and directed into the home. This air is easily humidified if desired.

19. Even the cooled exhaust gases can be filtered, if desired, with little complexity and negligible loss of efficiency. (Exhaust gases should be filtered to trap particulate matter that could contain compounds of lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, etc., if such wastes as motor oil, paint, and treated woods are incinerated. A reusable filter has recently become available especially designed to filter hot exhaust gases from commercial power stations.

20. Easy loading of the fuel (or garbage). No need for grate-shaking.

21. Very simple startup and shutdown procedures.

22. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are improved by:

• more complete burning from higher temperatures and better fuel/air mixing.
• ability to burn a greater number of combustibles.
• use of secondary combustion.
• judicious use of simple heat exchangers.

23. This incinerator system will easily meet tough state requirements, such as the July 1988 Oregon Emission Level law.

24. The Environmental Protection Agency states that incineration is the safest, cleanest way of disposing hazardous wastes.

25. Multi-billion dollar world market.

PROBLEMS AND/OR DISADVANTAGES

2. Provision must be made for scrubbing high-sulphur fuels and testing the exhaust gases so as to know when to remove the accumulated calcium sulphate and replace it with calcium carbonate. Depending on the sulphur content of the fuel, and the total fuel burned, 100s of pounds of calcium sulphate could accumulate every year, possibly exceeding the accumulated ash.

3. There's the expense and inconvenience of adding calcium carbonate to the scrubber and removing and disposing of the calcium sulphate. Also known as gypsum, calcium sulphate is a good fertilizer - however tests should first be made for Pb, Cd, Hg, As, etc.

4. Abouts 200 watts of continuous electrical power is required during operation, and about another 500 watts when starting up.

5. The possibility of flash ignitions must be studied and eliminated.

6. For most efficiency, fuels such as garbage and biomass should be dry before burning.

7. Any problems arising from the accidental inclusion of forbidden materials (such as glass, metals, dirt, and rocks) with the fuel to be burned must be solved.

8. A clean fuel (such as coke or natural gas) is required for startup and shutdown.

9. Total system cost, including installation, may exceed $3000 (less if installed while constructing a new home where, also, the cost of building a fireplace is eliminated).

10. Injection of air just before the scrubber will be necessary because oxygen is required to complete the reaction converting SO₂ to CO₂.

© 1991 Oscar Falconi, Saratoga, Calif, USA
USA, Canada: 800 325 2664
Elsewhere: +1 408 871 9519
World Fax: +1 408 867 6236