HungLikeJesus |
03-05-2008 05:44 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by tw
(Post 436906)
What is a capstone microturbine?
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Capstone is a manufacturer of microturbines. Here's their website: http://www.capstoneturbine.com/
The microturbine used in that installation was a 30-kW unit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigV
(Post 436908)
Read the article and see where they remove the hydrogen sulfide leaving 99% pure methane.
wrt Stirling Engines... I never managed to get my mind around how they work. But the diagrams are certainly elegant.
Now that I think about it, what role does the diesel play in the genset? Just a diesel engine that runs methane? I don't follow you there. Can you explain more?
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A genset is just an electric generator with something to spin it. This can be a steam turbine, a gas turbine, a gasoline engine, a diesel engine, a Stirling engine, etc. In this case, a Caterpillar engine was modified to operate on methane (~natural gas), then re-jetted to be able to use the digester gas, which was (I think) about 45% methane, with the remainder being mostly CO2 and CO. Natural gas is about 1000 Btu per cubic foot and digester gas is about 400 to 500 Btu/cubic foot, so the engine requires larger fuel lines or is de-rated for the lower-energy gas. (It's been about 5 years since I worked on this project, so some of the details might not be correct.)
In addition to spinning the generator to produce electricity, the engines also produce waste heat, which is routed back to the digester to maintain the temperature at around 105 deg F, so this is considered a cogen application.
You can read more about the AD project and see pictures here and here (links are to pdf documents).
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