Rocket Forge/Still /w Recuperator and Atmospheric Condensers

I present a conceptual rocket forge that could be used to alleviate drought and high gas prices. It uses a recuperator to keep steel temps low and combustion temps high. The pre-heated air at the entrance of the burn tunnel is hotter than a conventional rocket stove, thus there exists some vicinity of the wood where combustion is more complete than in the equivalent J-tube of a conventional design. The still serves to improve heat transfer between the barrel (which boils the brine/low wines) and intake air (which condenses the vapor). One could layer multiple condensers and air passages (not drawn) to separate alcohol from drinking water. The heat capacity (technical term for thermal mass) of the water in the boiler/condenser and cold air would also condense some water from the exhaust. Lastly, since the intake air insulates the RH from the surrounding, the recirculation of heat acts as virtual heat capacitance. Combine with the heat capacity of water that can be drained/added, we have an easily transported system with a high effective specific heat capacity (thermal mass to actual mass).

I should note that since everything above the burn tunnel is radially symmetric about the riser, one could place water/steam/gas turbines and air compressors in each shell in a single rotating assembly.

Edit: If it's not clear, this could be used to power a generator or machinery and would improve condenser efficiency since converting heat to mechanical work has a cooling effect (see turboexpander).

The Role of Atmospheric CO2 and Incident Radiant Energy in Charge Separation at the Air–Water Interface

From the research of Dr. Pollack and others, it should be possible to induce charge separation in water using infrared and agitating the water with CO2 from the exhaust, thus allowing for the distillation of electric charge, and making electrical generation without electronics or moving parts possible. Since we cannot generate something from nothing, the process should also work to accelerate condensation of water and pre-heat the intake air.

Wow, Jonathan;   That is some fascinating but (to me) confusing information.
I realize this is all conceptual.
Where is the superheated intake air coming from?  I see an anvil/hammer do you have a conventional forge set up?
You mention a rotating assembly.  Is running resistance taken into account?
The layering of condensers seems like another resistance point.
You appear to still load wood as a J tube. where/how is this exhausting?
Water is certainly one of the best mass heat holders,  what volume of water and where are the storage tanks?
I don't see this as easily transported at all.
I may call myself a Rocket Scientist, but this is an advanced conceptual theory a bit beyond my level of tinkering...
After all, I'm just a self-educated hillbilly, what do I know?

Let us know if you or someone takes this to a construction stage, that will be extremely interesting!

thomas rubino wrote:Where is the superheated intake air coming from?

The air is being heated in the cyan-colored pre-heating channels along the condenser, barrel, riser, and burn tunnel. The air gets hotter as it moves towards the burn tunnel, so there shouldn't be any excessive cooling along any section.

thomas rubino wrote:I see an anvil/hammer do you have a conventional forge set up?

I do not have a forge at the moment, but I had the opportunity of using a gas forge on a farm, which was just a horizontal tube lined with kaowool. My first thought was to cut a hole in the center and weld on a riser.

thomas rubino wrote:You mention a rotating assembly.  Is running resistance taken into account?

I was thinking the upper pre-heating channels, riser, barrel, boiler, and condenser would be mounted to the burn tunnel on a sealed bearing.

thomas rubino wrote:The layering of condensers seems like another resistance point.

Everything above the burn tunnel would be rotating in one fixed assembly, so the only resistance would be the bearings on the burn tunnel. If you have turbine/compressor blades pitched in opposite directions, the blades can spin together and combine outward flow of steam/water/exhaust with the inward flow of air. You can account for different fluid velocities by varying the blades' pitch relative to one another and to the distance from the riser.

thomas rubino wrote:You appear to still load wood as a J tube. where/how is this exhausting?

The exhaust should come out the far end of the condenser, wherever that may be. With a turbine, the condenser can be shortened so as not to add complexity or interfere with the feed tube. I tried marking parts where the 3D geometry overlaps in 2D with alternating colors.

thomas rubino wrote:Water is certainly one of the best mass heat holders,  what volume of water and where are the storage tanks?

I haven't decided on a size. However, the boiler drawn is just a cross section of a cylindrical shell and acts as the feed water storage.

thomas rubino wrote:I don't see this as easily transported at all.

I think it would depend on the size of the boiler, which is application dependent. The condenser has a drain valve and the boiler could be siphoned off, so water weight isn't an issue. The stove is also lighter, because of the steel construction instead of cob/firebrick.

thomas rubino wrote:Let us know if you or someone takes this to a construction stage, that will be extremely interesting!

I am currently welding the prototype. My first milestone is to achieve forging temperatures with just a pre-heating channel on the burn tunnel and a riser. I'm not going to post photos at the moment due to the tendencies of stick welders to burn holes in stainless steel sheets.

Pretty cool concept!
The regenerative jacket-cooling/intake air pre-heating is very reminiscent of the sort of cooling loop you see in actual rocket engines. In fact, if the turbine you mentioned were used to spin a blower that forced more air into the system, you'd have the basic ingredients of the expander cycle - like some sort of wood-fueled steampunk RL10.

Mike Fullerton wrote:Pretty cool concept!
The regenerative jacket-cooling/intake air pre-heating is very reminiscent of the sort of cooling loop you see in actual rocket engines. In fact, if the turbine you mentioned were used to spin a blower that forced more air into the system, you'd have the basic ingredients of the expander cycle - like some sort of wood-fueled steampunk RL10.

Yup, regenerative-cooled jet engines were some of the inspirations for this concept. Since there's no liquid fuel, nor are we concerned with ramming as much air as possible, but rather maximizing internal combustion temperatures, pre-heated air should suffice as the coolant. Regeneration has been used since the industrial revolution, however they were not concerned with weight nor cooling their refractory-lined furnaces, but simply improving the efficiency. Light-weight designs, on the other hand, are a requirement in aerospace engineering.