I wasn't gone, I was lurking and thinking
. I hit epiphany as to HOW to organize stuff this morning. Also, RL has been a b@#$@. In the last two weeks, my wife has gone to a funeral, and is getting a biopsy on Monday for lymphoma. Plus I started a long term sub gig teaching ELA full time, which I have never done before. Since last July, life has not been either stellar or kind in our household.....
Interesting question, and I am pondering how to answer. I figure neither one of us is really a chemist or a physicist.......
Methane from poop has been around a long time. I remember getting a book on "how to" energy independance back in '79, and lots of chapters were devoted to the straight poop on poop. Human manure is the least energetic, cow manure is fairly energetic, and pigs practically poop energy. Just google the BTU ratings. Sewage to energy is more about sewage to safe manure then sewage to energy. By converting some small fraction of the sewage to methane, the sewage becomes "treated" as in safe to either release or use as fertilizer. The part about the methane is that properly done, your EROI is about 0, i.e., you don't have to buy power to heat and manage the conversion process. Done really well, you can sell some electricity back to the grid. No real hoodoo there ( or should that be hoopoo??).
Okay, taking that sewage sludge even after methane production, you have a LOT of long chain carbohydrates/hydrocarbons molecules, such as proteins and DNA. C/TDP BREAKS up those chains into SHORT molecular chains. Long molecular chains we call things like meat, vegetable oil or plastic. Short molecular chains we call things like naptha, gasoline, kerosene or diesel. TDP literally does this by 'cooking' the feedstock. When you cook meat, the reason the flavor changes is that you are "denaturing" the proteins. C/TDP "denatures" the long chains into short chains.
Two other places you can see this - fire and sugar. If you burn a log, you are starting a complicated situation that works likes this...
Wood does NOT burn directly. According to a UK fire department documentary, when wood gets heated enough, the wood "denatures" into short chains that are released as a plasma, which interacts with oxygen to produce the flame you see.
A 2nd way you can see this is with sugar and sulfuric acid. Take some table sugar (long chains) and add a little sulfuric acid. The sugar "denatures", produces carbon, a big stink, and LOTS of heat. IF you ever try this at home - read up on it first for safety guidelines and amounts. This is a VERY energetic (exothermic) reaction.
As for being hairbraned, keep in mind I am in no danger of going bald.........
Every problem has its solution, and every solution has its problems....