Corn Furnace

Isn't the best way to burn corn is turning it into whiskey first? ERS

I have been playing with this idea for awhile as well. Having a virtually unlimited supply of corn, and the ever increasing cost of fuel, I have been thinking about it a lot.

What I have done so far is look at all of the display models to get an idea of layout and design.

JW

Have you considered making a horno like the Indians in New Mexico have used for hundreds of years? - GWE

The small ones are hornitos. O hornito para uno (Or hornito for one). It means oven. ERS

For those of us who don't know (maybe only me?), tell us what a corn burning furnace is and does.

The cost for the fuel value of corn is less than the equivilent cost for fuel oil or propane. In the rural farming communities of the Midwest, corn is abundent and very cheap. You can also pick up some that may be contaiminated so it cannot be used for animal feed even cheaper than normal.

Just curious, but does it just burn the left over chaff, or only the husks? Do you feed in the kernals? If you feed in the kernals, does it smell like popcorn when it's running?

Corn stoves and wood pellet stoves are virtually identical. Corn stoves burn ONLY the kernels. No it smells like burnt corn. The big thing is making sure the corn is DRY and stays that way.

On 18 Feb 2005 15:34:51 -0800, the inscrutable snipped-for-privacy@rgs.uci.edu spake:

Now you have ME curious. ;) This looks like a good tutorial site:

I thought they were burning the stripped cobs after taking the food kernels off, but they're burning kernel corn. Who thought up THAT one?

Archer Daniels Midland ?

Ned Simmons

A number of folks in my area have copied the design of corn stoves for sale. I seen a really nice one at the MN state fair last summer. Three problems have cropped up with the stoves I'm aware of:

1. Heat cracks and bends the agitator fingers. This could be solved by using only 304 SS for this component.
2. Ash buildup is a serious problem. Daily cleaning is required with some lots of corn. Combustion efficiency goes to heck when the air holes are plugged. Oyster shells have helped, but not enough.
3. Most units only produce 50,000 BTU on a good day, too small a heat source. You'll still need a backup.

I was talking this over with a friend last fall. Someone should look into building a unit that works like a coal boiler: Grind the corn up, feed into a firebox with a strong air flow from below. This is called a fluidized bed. The ash goes out the stack. Making a working design small enough would be the biggest challenge here, most commercial coal unit are for 1,000,000s of BTUs

Karl

When I was working, I was involved in wood chip burning and I remember one company was working on a small fluidized bed but I do not know if they ever finished the project. The problems that you mentioned seem to be common to the stoves. I am looking for a furnace, a corn burner or stoker in a boiler. The underfed system seems like the best design to me. The corn comes in from the bottom pushing everything up and the clinkers are pushed out of the pot. I know in the wood chip burners, the underfed was one of the best design and less trouble. There is no dealers around here so I am limited to looking on the web. Some pots seem to have the air holes around the top of the pot and other seem to have them part ways down the pot. It is something that I will have to experiment with so the prototype will probably be fairly light steel, as long as it would last a few weeks. Once I would have a good design, I would probably get a pot casted in cast iron. It is hard to see the details from small pictures on the web.

Thanks guys for the input and I would appreciate any other information.

Eric "Karl Townsend" wrote in message news:pM0Sd.1422$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...

It's a furnace that burns corn. Auger drops kernels into the fire pot at a timed rate. Very little ash, and depending on the prices, can be cheaper per BTU than, say, propane or natural gas.

Someone who can do math, I'd expect. Cost of A is less than cost of B, so do A. As soon as I have my summer project built, I hope to be able to add a corn auger to my existing woodburner. Dave Hinz

Dave Hinz wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

And I thought I'd read in this thread somewhere towards the beginning tha the corn should be completely dry. I'm wondering if it isn't more like I had heard when the corn furnace came out here in northern wisconsin the a higher moisture corn would give a higher temp (steam?)..hmm makes sense to me unless I'm missing something.

Well, I suppose that would affect how it "flows" in the hopper, and how hot and completely it will burn.

I think if you're heating up water to boil it off before you can burn the kernel, you're wasting energy. Drier corn would seem to be the best fuel. This is all spitballing, I haven't read about moisture levels and how they change heat output per bushel, but I'd think it's like firewood - the drier, the better.

Nice thing is, if you get a dual-fuel furnace, you can burn wood _or_ corn. I've got a forced air setup that I'd love to put into use; it's rated for coal as well, but that's unlikely in my area than corn is (south-central Wisconsin).

Eric I have burned corn in my home in commercial units for the last

6 years or so & have also modified a monarch wood stove to accept corn for heating my shop. Im not sure what the under fed system is but I just ran an old coal auger thru the side of the wood stove & built my own firepot. If you need more details, email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com. Jerry

Hi Dave if you build this unit I would like to know more about it. What I am mostly looking for is the size of the pot for a 100,000 furnace, where to place the air hole for combustion air. Searching the web, most are using a

60 cfm fan for combustion air. They are using a 2" auger. Somebody ask about the underfed system. It has the auger in the bottom of the pot pushing fresh fuel into the fire from the bottom, thus pushing out of the pot ashes and clinkers. These system do not require the daily cleanup that some of them need. I would appreciate any information.