Taboo fuels

This is probably a bad idea. But I thought I'd ask just in case.

What would happen if I burned, oh... a plastic bottle in a rocket stove mass heater? How toxic would the exhaust be?

brian

Brian Lanning wrote:This is probably a bad idea. But I thought I'd ask just in case.

What would happen if I burned, oh... a plastic bottle in a rocket stove mass heater? How toxic would the exhaust be?

brian

Who said dioxin?

Who said dioxin?

I don't say, burning plastic bottles is a good idea, but dioxins are not a likely problem.

first: plastic bottles are usually PET - thats Polyethylenterephthalat - neither Cl nor Br involved here.
The group of Dioxins are Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans - so they need the presence of Cl to develop.

second: there ist the dioxin window: thats the temperature range in which dioxins can form. This window is between 300°C and 700°C.
Wood burning temperatures are between (600°C –1300°C), if the rocket stove is actually burning at the upper limit, it should exceed the 700°C border. This means the Dioxin molecules will dissociate.

So in a properly burning rocket stove I see no problem with the development of dioxins.

I'd like to weigh in on the burning plastic. There's a tremendous amount of energy encased in plastic (18-19,000 BTU per pound). The problem in a rocket stove, as I see it, is not nearly enough air. It would have to be force fed. Pennsylvania State U. has designed and the Koreans have built a safe plastic heater. It's worth checking out.
#2 and #4 plastics are basically oil. One of these days we are gonna be mining our landfills.