DSR using Geopolymer Settings

[peterberg]

Nov 12, 2018 9:22:53 GMT -8 sksshel said:

I have a question about measuring the "Rockety" level of the burn.  Is there a way to measure this? I thought about decibel levels of the fire. They peak at 60 to 70db.After the burn has peaked, they drop quickly to 40db while the embers burn. Is there another way to measure this?

I've never measured the rockety of the burn. In general, from the moment the "rocket roar" becomes audible, clean burning is coming on. And smoke will disappear unless the thing is running in a fuel overload or thermal runaway, which aren't the same incidentally. All my core designs are optimized for a time frame of the "complete combustion" as stretched out as I was able to get those. The first iterations of the DSR had a much smaller time frame during which it burned clean. One of the crucial things which took a lot of time to sort out happened to be the secondary air provision.
During the burn process the noise becomes louder and dies out at the end but the frequency doesn't change much or at all.

[sksshel]

Here's a quick update so far:

- DSR is performing above my expectations
- Our Electric furnace and heat pump have not run for the last 10 days.  Yeah, it's only November, but it could be the coldest November on record in Kansas City.  Also, yesterday a blizzard hit with 50mph winds and 6 inches of snow.  Some areas got dumped on.  It just missed us.  
- So far, we have been using 1 - 2 cubic feet of wood a day.  This is largely dependant upon if it's sunny.  If the sun shines, the solar gain from our south-facing windows allows us to only have 1 fire a day.  Each fire uses about 1 cu ft of wood. 
- this would extrapolate to about 1 cord of wood for the year.  This is more than what I was expecting but is not bad considering I can collect wood for free.  
- It took several days to figure out the best way to set up the set-back thermostat to work together with the DSR.  We ended up setting the thermostat to 55^o F.  This in effect only uses the furnace as a backup device.  
- Downstairs, where the DSR is located, is very comfortable at all times.  The lowest temperature recorded was 63^o F. The average temperature overall was 67.5^o F. The upstairs is a tad on the cool side.  During the daytime, the average is around the upper-60s.  The lowest temperature recorded was 58.5^o F.   The average temperature overall was 65.1^o F.
- 2450 sq ft home.  2/3rds of that is the upper level. 
- I was worried that the DSR room temperature would be uncomfortably hot when it is burning.  This turned out to NOT be the case.  After the learning curve, the high temperatures were just a tad over 70^o F.   Not bad IMHO. 
- The electric savings should more than make up for the construction costs in less than 2 years.  WOOHOO!

[Deleted]

Congrats to your successful implementation of the very first rocket stove in this forum using a geopolymer mixture.
However I am sad that it took such a long time until someone was brave enough for the task.
To much naysayers here discouraging people.
Some of the recipes I have published are much cheaper.
Geopolymeric Cross-Linking (LTGS) can be almost as cheap as dirt
and works with virtually any kind of alumino silicate like clay or stone flour.
www.geopolymer.org/fichiers_pdf/ltgs.pdf
People could save lots of money.

[sksshel]

Nov 27, 2018 5:26:40 GMT -8 @karl said:

Congrats to your successful implementation of the very first rocket stove in this forum using a geopolymer mixture.
However I am sad that it took such a long time until someone was brave enough for the task.
To much naysayers here discouraging people.
Some of the recipes I have published are much cheaper.
Geopolymeric Cross-Linking (LTGS) can be almost as cheap as dirt
and works with virtually any kind of alumino silicate like clay or stone flour.
www.geopolymer.org/fichiers_pdf/ltgs.pdf
People could save lots of money.

Thanks Karl.  Your input was crucial to get me to this point.  Thanks again for all of your help.  

[sksshel]

Karl,   I am interested in doing a similar process with another recipe.  What recipe (or two) would you recommend?  

I have leftover materials that might be useful:
- Kaolin clay
- KOH
- Monopotassium phosphate
- Portland Cement

I thought the formula I used was very inexpensive.  If you have one (or two) that is (are) even "much cheaper", I'd like to look into them. 

[Deleted]

Creating an oligosialate geopolymeric precursor with each 50% by weight of clay and 50% NaOH, KOH equivalent is the cheapest.
Kaolin clay can be replaced by kaolinitic clays with a lower alumina content of at least 25%.
AFAIK there are some fire clays for about $10 or even less per 50lb bag.

[coastalrocketeer]

Nov 27, 2018 6:07:42 GMT -8 sksshel said:

Karl,   I am interested in doing a similar process with another recipe.  What recipe (or two) would you recommend?  

I have leftover materials that might be useful:
- Kaolin clay
- KOH
- Monopotassium phosphate
- Portland Cement

I thought the formula I used was very inexpensive.  If you have one (or two) that is (are) even "much cheaper", I'd like to look into them. 

sksshel - I have recently obtained a significant group of materials to experiment with, and am hoping to obtain similar guidance from Karl to develop other “specific recipes” for people to follow. I started a new thread describing these materials obtained, and hope to be doing some experimenting and developing a second working (presumably DSR2) batch box from Geopolymer.

I am looking forward to your longer, in depth stove tour video when you get around to it! Great work!

[phiii]

Nov 28, 2018 8:11:59 GMT -8 coastalrocketeer said:

sksshel - I have recently obtained a significant group of materials to experiment with, and am hoping to obtain similar guidance from Karl to develop other “specific recipes” for people to follow. I started a new thread describing these materials obtained, and hope to be doing some experimenting and developing a second working (presumably DSR2) batch box from Geopolymer.

I am looking forward to your longer, in depth stove tour video when you get around to it! Great work!

Hello everyone, I've been following this for a while now and am thinking about starting my own experiments with geopolymers (and finally hopefully succeeding with doing a super tiny shoebox for a 20m2 straw bale hut in Burgundy, France).

I do have some pottery clay as well as powdered Kaolin here (I believe, it is super sticky white clay powder I from a small enterprise that calcinates lime, they use it to glue refractory bricks to the sides of their oven) and am searching for crystalline lye to start.

So I'm super happy @karl, sksshel and coastalrocketeer have been doing so much research and experiments already.

(If needed, I can maybe also help with German-to-English translations...)

[sksshel]

phiii I look forward to seeing your progress.