Has anyone tried a catalytic converter at the top of the riser?

What would happen if a catalytic converter was placed at the top of the riser, before the barrel?

would this burn more off the unburned gasses?

Any thoughts on this?

It would burn!

Satamax Antone wrote:It would burn!

What if it was high up enough to where the flame didnt touch it directly?

jacob green : this is certainly an interesting idea, I do not think anyone has tried it, there is so little Accurate Equipment for measuring Percents of Oxygen,
Carbon Dioxide and Monoxides that is affordable at the D. I. Y. level that we are left with no way to measure the true effect, the catalytic converter is thus
a Very expensive luxury item !

The catalytic converter would itself have to come up to operating temperatures, before it would do anything at all, and this is the point our Rocket stove is
at its most effective, so there is little room for gain!

There has been some talk that due to the high exhaust temps and 'rich' unburnt wood gases of conventional wood stoves, a catalytic converter might cause
the Wood Stove to pump out Various Oxides of Nitrogen, I do not know this for a fact, this is merely what I have Heard ! For the Good of the craft ! BIG AL

allen lumley wrote: so there is little room for gain!

This is what I wondered about. It seems that the conventional RMH is very efficient as it is regarding the maximising of fuel burn.

Also, the inner dimensions would need to be completely altered to accommodate the extra drag from the converter, so clearly it can't be tried on existing functioning rmh's.

The other downside would be that one of the most valuable aspects of current RMH design is their simplicity. Designing an RMH to accommodate a catalytic converter would ADD variables. And my general approach is that it's better to go with solutions which have fewer variables. Also the converter would wear out, so it would also be a part that needs replacing, and a part that is not easily manufactured DIY.

But still it sparks my curiosity just because it's a different WAY to burn the leftover gasses, so I wondered what would happen when combining two different methods to process the same effluent.

But it's probably a pull yourself up by your own bootstraps type of fallacy. It would probably alter the flow to such a degree that what happened at the barrel would no longer be as efficient, thus countering any gains achieved by the converter.

A cat treats the symptoms of an unclean burn. The rmh cures the problem in the first place.