A measure of success

1. Diesel engine one careful owner
2. Night market on the Dongduk road, home of Madam Montizuma
3. Kids returning to Dongduk near Dougs house, practicing for SEA games opening ceromony
4. Roadworks on the way to the RTC this is deep soft sand, 4 x 4 essential
5. MK, mself & Noi (MK's wife)
6. Cute kids bathe in poluted lake
7. Delia & Chevy Ute
8. The test set up on back of Ute
9 -12. Making the gas filter



As many of you long time blog followers will be well aware, my association with Laos goes back to just over a year ago and the meeting with a fellow EWB ( Engineers Without Borders) member Sunny Forsyth who had just helped install a biogas digester at the (RTC –Rural Treatment Centre)located about 45 Km’s north of Vientaine . My involvement started with the attempt to get there small diesel to run on the biogas which in theory would relieve some of the burden of the cost of diesel fuel. During the numerous visits to the RTC and meeting with the resident Doctor, a simply fascinating man they call Master Kampuu, I have had a modicum off success although it cannot be described as overwhelming. The plan this time around was attempt to improve the quality of the biogas by passing it through a filter first. The filter in question was a pretty crude soaked wood chip affair in a sealed 20 litre plastic bin. Anyhow, first things first, was to re-establish contact with Master Kampuu at the RTC and arrange to do the tests. Sunny made the call, MK hardly speaks any English, and the jist of the conversation evolved around the fact he was reluctant to run any tests on his engine. Fortunately Doug (LTE) stepped up and offered us his Kubota diesel generator set which had used for his Soya bio diesel experiments plus the Chevy Ute to take it on. Now it was just a matter of keying up with MK if we could use some of his biogas for the experiment. We organised a ‘social visit’, Sunny was keen to pass the concept of abundant water filter passed him. MK is a respected healthcare provider and has a good deal of experience of trying to introduce new healthcare concepts into remote rural villages which has more “cultural sensitivity mine fields” than you could possibly imagine.
It is something that the UN have come a cropper with time and time again. A mixture of tribal traditions, suspicion of outsiders, mistrust of all things Fulong and a local of understanding of invisible pathogens (just because water looks clean it does not necessary mean that it is clean). This doesn’t apply just to Laos but all through Asia and developing world, the world littered with good intentioned but failed projects because the appropriate procedures weren’t followed. We were lucky this time we were to be accompanied by Delia (Doug’s daughter) who spends her time travelling between Laos, NZ & Queensland and speaks fluent Laos. We drove to the RTC with Tony, a colleague of Doug’s in a Toyota Landcruiser which I must admit to not being in the best state of repair. On arrival I gave his diesel generator the once over I understood and immediately understood Kampuus’s reluctance for us to use the engine. Astonishingly the engine is in worse condition than it was back in February. Lunch was had, water filters discussed and arrangements made for the return of myself and Delia, with the Ute and the Kubota diesel the following week.
I had a few things to prep prior to my return, the gas mixer needed to be mounted solidly onto the engine and some replacement parts for the fuel inputs needed to be purchased and fitted. Also the parts for the gas filter which would be prepped and then assembled on site. All done and the unit hoiked onto the back of the Chevy Ute. All that remained was to give it a test run to ensure it would start at the RTC. This turned out to be a more exhausting and sweaty affair than we first imagined with myself, Doug and Sam the workshop Forman at LTE taking it in turns to attempt to get the thing up and running. The engine had not run for about 6 months and that was on bio diesel made from Soya and since then had grown a reputation of not liking normal diesel fuel.
The following day myself and Delia set off in the Chevy Ute a quite absurdly large affair but we did get lot of respect on the road.
At the RTC I inched the Ute into position which was a little tricky as the low hanging wires interfered with the CB aerial. I decided to conduct three basic trials firstly running the engine of pure diesel oil and time the consumption and the repeat the test with the introduction of the biogas and time again for the same amount of revs. Lastly the introduction of the gas filter and the test repeated.
What happened next took us by surprise, me more than anyone else. This time when the biogas was introduced the engine took off, similar to the effect with propane. With the RTC engine, it just splutters more and just died if more gas is introduced .I had to notch the throttle back to get it in a similar speed range to that of the 100%, to have some sort of reasonable comparison, but the upshot was we were running on around 80% biogas. The results I was hoping for in the last test. To say I was happy with the result is an understatement. We concluded that the much improved performance could be attributed to a combination of two factors, firstly, the engine is in much better condition with the compression still around the design point of about 17:1 ( the RTC’s is about 13:1 or even lower). Secondly the biogas seemed to be more volatile, there was no condensed water vapour in the feed line.
For full technical details I have posted a report with videos on my other blog www.erawan-biogas.blogspot.com.
The test with the gas filter was not so good, for some reason I have not quite fathomed, the cement used to fix the hose connectors in place melted the hose connector threads ( but not the sockets ?), therefore no way to seal the unit, hence the filter could not be tried.
I am a bit behind with my blogs at the moment, last week has been pretty busy, and I’m off to BKK soon. Next blog will have the results of the Rice husk burner tests from Vanviene, also the discovery that the music I used for the Biogas video presentation I did for EWB is actually funeral music. Sometimes very difficult to get things right.

Catch you on the flip side