/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10674723]

My graduate thesis is about using sewage gas as free fuel for residential water heating. What would happen to the water inside the tank if my build was like this?

[Anonymous No.10674725]

>>10674723
You don't need to reinvent the wheel here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j4Q_YBRJEI

[Anonymous No.10674729]

>>10674725
In other words: it would work?

[Anonymous No.10674734]

>>10674729
The problems you would find are more with your heat source than your pump.

[Anonymous No.10674740]

>>10674734
There's no shortage of sewage gas or urban waste so I think I'm good on that front

[Anonymous No.10674748]

>>10674740
You know not all fuels are equal right?

[Anonymous No.10674758]

>>10674748
And...?

[Anonymous No.10674763]

>>10674748
>expecting someone on 4chan to be smart
>probably some engineer

[Anonymous No.10674764]

>>10674723
>my graduate thesis is about a retarded idea that's been thought of and discarded a hundred times before

[Anonymous No.10674765]

>>10674764
Which part of it is retarded? Both principles work separately

[Anonymous No.10674770]

>>10674765
>Both principles work separately
HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Anonymous No.10674777]

>>10674770
>air conditioning works on its own
>petrol engines work on its own
>/sci/ thinks it's impossible to make a car with air conditioning

[Anonymous No.10674787]

>>10674777
M8 that's not the part I'm laughing about. Burning trash does not "work". It sucks a big one.

[Anonymous No.10674789]

>>10674787
>Burning trash does not "work"
Do you have any evidence to back that up or are you just assuming it? Because I've done experiments on just that and I can assure you it works

[Anonymous No.10674790]

>>10674765
You should first figure out the power output of burning such sewage first then start thinking about design. Design is secondary. Also, you need a pump for your water to make it through the pipes.

Why sewage, why not something else?
How are you pumping the water?
What do you mean by "what would happen to the water inside the tank"?
What temperature do you expect to heat the water up to?
How are you "burning" the sewage? Why not just use the burner as the heat source in the first place?

[Anonymous No.10674791]

>>10674723
The water will heat up, but I can't predict by how much. Do you know how to control the heat transfer?

[Anonymous No.10674793]

>>10674789
>Because I've done experiments on just that and I can assure you it works
Enjoy your throat cancer man.

[Anonymous No.10674801]

>>10674790
>Why sewage, why not something else?
Because it's free
>How are you pumping the water?
Convection
>What do you mean by "what would happen to the water inside the tank"?
Would it get hot? Would it create a cycle in the copper pipes? Would it boil off?
>What temperature do you expect to heat the water up to?
60 degrees at least
>How are you "burning" the sewage?
Am I burning the sewage or are you imagining things?


>>10674791
>Do you know how to control the heat transfer?
Not really but I can control how hot the burner burns with a butterfly valve

[Anonymous No.10674809]

>>10674801
>Not really but I can control how hot the burner burns with a butterfly valve
Fuck, Pack it in folks this guy doesn't know anything about safely burning trash.

[Anonymous No.10674813]

>>10674809
>Fuck, Pack it in folks this guy doesn't know anything about safely burning trash.

Air mattress pump worked

[Anonymous No.10674818]

>>10674813
>Air mattress pump worked
Look, this thread is comedy gold but as far as science and research it is plastic painted to look like iron.

[Anonymous No.10674826]

>>10674818
I'm just a very practical man. You know what that means? I don't have time for theory.

[Anonymous No.10674832]

>>10674826
Well guys, time to leave this thread. OP doesn't know anything about heat transfer, fluid mechanics, or even how much power he is getting from his stupid idea. OP, you need to get some random undergrad to help you because you are going to get laughed at and demolished at your thesis defense

[Anonymous No.10674838]

>>10674723
>burning your garbage
terrible idea

[Anonymous No.10674839]

>>10674826
>doesn't have time for theory
>doing a graduate thesis
Fuck man how did you even get this far?

[Anonymous No.10674843]

>>10674832
>about heat transfer
I do

>fluid mechanics
I know it's very complicated, which is why we in the field use software to simulate it and not pen and paper

>or even how much power he is getting from his stupid idea
That would need to be measured because the paper accepts everything

[Anonymous No.10674846]

>>10674826
What fucking degree did you do to be this retarded

[Anonymous No.10674855]

>>10674846
Did you know that out in the wild you won't use muh calculus for anything at all? You just build and rebuild until it works or you run out of venture capital money

[Anonymous No.10674856]

>>10674843
>we in the field use software to simulate it
Confirmed, OP is LARPing.

[Anonymous No.10674860]

>>10674855
What fucking degree?

[Anonymous No.10674862]

>>10674860
Civil engineering

[Anonymous No.10674867]

>>10674862
Press "F" to pay respects to this thread.

[Anonymous No.10674873]

>Reinvent an idea that has been on the market for decades
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/climate/sweden-garbage-used-for-fuel.html

[Anonymous No.10674881]

>>10674873
But this is for a much smaller scale, for developing countries where electricity is intermitent, you have a lot of trash piling up and need to heat water on the top of a fire. It would be nice if everyone could afford Sweden's system but not everyone in the world can. My system would be affordable and improve the lives of millions.

[Anonymous No.10674888]

>>10674881
>Improve the lives of millions by pumping dioxins into their lungs.
Only a Civil engineer could come up with this Idea.

[Anonymous No.10674893]

>>10674888
>Improve the lives of millions by pumping dioxins into their lungs
How soon can we get this running in Africa?

[Anonymous No.10674903]

>>10674888
The diseases caused by trash piling up are far worse than the ones caused by a bit of dioxins. It's a trade-off. Many countries like Japan have gone with this route until they implemented emission controls.

[Anonymous No.10674906]

>>10674903
>The diseases caused by trash piling up are far worse than the ones caused by a bit of dioxins.
Maybe you should do more researching and less posting on /sci/ and come back with some sources that aren't your own asshole.

[Anonymous No.10674910]

this is the type of shit you draw on a bar napkin and realize how retarded you are in the morning

[Anonymous No.10674913]

>>10674906
>Maybe you should do more researching and less posting on /sci/ and come back with some sources that aren't your own asshole.
Try living a month in a landfill. This is how many people live every day of their lives.

[Anonymous No.10674919]

>>10674913
First of all you aren't going to win with an appeal to humanity on /sci/. Half of us actively want the earth destroyed and the other half just want to be off this planet.

Second:
Try living a month in a smokestack. This is how many people live every day of their lives.

[Anonymous No.10674928]

>>10674919
>Try living a month in a smokestack
I did a lot of test burning in my own home and every now and then the wind would blow the smoke back in, but it still beats living near a landfill because it's something that can be solved through clever engineering

[Anonymous No.10674940]

>>10674928
>it's something that can be solved through clever engineering
Explain yourself how this problem can be solved.

[Anonymous No.10674947]

>>10674940
Rotating chimney cowl

[Anonymous No.10674955]

>>10674947
So you think a rotating chimney is a magical feature that gets rid of smoke for everyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bqTBh1yxbM

[Anonymous No.10674967]

>>10674723
I'm really concerned that this is a graduate thesis, not an undergraduate thesis. What are you in grad school for? Elementary education?

[Anonymous No.10674983]

>>10674955
Chimney cowls are made for the specific purpose of avoiding downdraft, this probably sounds like magic to you but it's just science, m8

[Anonymous No.10675006]

>>10674983
What if your neighbor was also burning trash?
What if all your neighborhood was burning trash?
What if your entire town was burning trash.?
What if all this was true and you lived in an area with 10x population density.

It's not about individuals it's about everyone.

[Anonymous No.10675014]

>>10675006
>What if your entire town was burning trash.?
Then the entire town would have free hot water and it wouldn't look like a landfill

[Anonymous No.10675020]

>>10675014
>ignoring the downsides to smoke inhalation especially from waste even after being informed about potential problems
Is it possible to loose your credentials for ethical malpractice in a graduate thesis?

[Anonymous No.10675022]

>>10674723
DIY here.

Biomethane/biomethane digestor are the search terms you look up. So you can make an example one at home. They are really easy to make and use. Just don't be a dumbshit and store gas in a poor manner and blow up your neighborhood. There's also many biomethane power plants now and more being constructed all the time. It is a legit resource.

Now, for bomethane at home there're many turnkey companies that will setup stuff for you if you want to pay that much. Those are either terribly small or large enough that you need a farm with enough livestock to fill it.

The biomethane is used for heating, electric, and cooking gas. The effluent from this process is a high nitrogen slurry which can be pasteurized then used as fertilizer on farms. Heavy emphasis on pasteurizing it. The beset part about a biomethane plant is the fact that microbes are doing like 90% of the work. You basically have a slave army of microbes working non-stop to turn organic materials into a high energy resource with almost no work on your part.

So, you are certainly on the right track for researching this...

Your design is a bit flawed. The system you are showing doesn't have an active pump so it relies solely on thermosiphon flow. Due to this, the design of the heat exchanger is incorrect. It will result in low flow and high steam creation. An optimal system will have a high flow without any steam creation. If it creates steam you end up with failures, leaks, etc. Instead of a zig-zag pipe heat exchanger, you need a simple straight pipe. You also don't need copper. Yes copper is all great for your thermals, but it isn't a requirement. Steel pipe will work just fine for this purpose. Make a big rectangle. On one side you heat the pipe on the other side you cool it. Insulate it between. Have straight sides, as few elbow/turns as possible and have as large a diameter of pipe as possible for best flow rate. Don't use check valves. Use T&P valves for steam emergency release.

[Anonymous No.10675048]

>>10675020
>he thinks I'm proposing burning toilet paper with a lighter like he does

>>10675022
>Biomethane/biomethane digestor are the search terms you look up. So you can make an example one at home. They are really easy to make and use. Just don't be a dumbshit and store gas in a poor manner and blow up your neighborhood. There's also many biomethane power plants now and more being constructed all the time. It is a legit resource.
I've seen people in rural areas with no plumbing/electricity using a burried water tank with goat turd to make gas for cooking, granted it wasn't their idea but it works and can be done very cheaply

>Your design is a bit flawed. The system you are showing doesn't have an active pump so it relies solely on thermosiphon flow.
Yes, for reliability. Also solar water heaters use this principle.

>Due to this, the design of the heat exchanger is incorrect. It will result in low flow and high steam creation. An optimal system will have a high flow without any steam creation. If it creates steam you end up with failures,
I'm assuming the water would expand and move upwards/pull the water behind it (since it's incompressible) before it created any steam, which I expect would happen without the valves (the water in the serpentine would just boil and bubble off to the top).

>leaks, etc. Instead of a zig-zag pipe heat exchanger, you need a simple straight pipe. You also don't need copper. Yes copper is all great for your thermals, but it isn't a requirement.
It's easier to bend but steel is an option too

>Steel pipe will work just fine for this purpose. Make a big rectangle. On one side you heat the pipe on the other side you cool it. Insulate it between. Have straight sides, as few elbow/turns as possible and have as large a diameter of pipe as possible for best flow rate. Don't use check valves. Use T&P valves for steam emergency release.
Now this is interesting

[Anonymous No.10675058]

>>10675048
In b4 op blows himself up.

[Anonymous No.10675061]

>>10675048
>Also solar water heaters use this principle.

Batch solar water heater systems have a design similar to that which was posted in the image. The cold tank to heat up and store energy is above and the long tubes are below for thermosphion. Those are used in areas where there's no freezing winter. For cold regions the water tank is in the basement or just indoors and the heat exchange system is closed loop with active pump since thermosphipon won't work or work well enough without it.

>serpentine
When people make these, they just sputter like mad, explode(rare), or are generally super inefficient due to low flow rates. I see that a great deal in many DIY stuff online.

>steel
You won't need to bend it unless you have more going on that is shown in the MS paint image. You just need a few elbows and straight joints. A lot of simple DIY hot tubs use this method. I call them coffee cup hot tubs since the diagram looks like one. They are super effective and easy to make.

[Anonymous No.10675071]

>>10675061
In other words my plan would work if I removed things from it

Thank you very much

[Anonymous No.10675076]

>>10675071
Make it as simple as possible. If you ever make the heat exchanger circuit a closed circuit you will need the T&P valves. Otherwise, the pipe make explode.

[Anonymous No.10675091]

>>10675071
>In other words my plan would work if I removed things from it
We've been telling you this the whole thread.

[Anonymous No.10675098]

>>10675091
>We've been telling you this the whole thread.
Not really:

>>10675006
>>10674940
>>10674919
>>10674910
>>10674888
>>10674867
>>10674856
>>10674846
>>10674839
>>10674838
>>10674832
>>10674818
>>10674809
>>10674793
>>10674791
>>10674790
>>10674787
>>10674770
>>10674764
>>10674748
>>10674734

[Anonymous No.10675118]

>>10674723
Patent US4320756A

[Anonymous No.10676800]

>>10674723
You're just going to poison your neighbors with the exhaust fumes during demonstration. I'm guessing based on the ridiculousness of this thread that you're either in Florida or California.

[Anonymous No.10677054]

>>10675118
If the smoke doesn't pass through the water, it's not a bong. What you've got there is a very large pipe.

[Anonymous No.10677831]

Frat boy majored in Civil Engineering cause it seemed easy. Time to sober up. You dig holes and pile up dirt. Go have another beer.