Looking for cheapest Trompe Designs

Trompe Design

Farside:

Tromps operate in a narrow flow range for a given inlet pipe diameter with max flow about 150% of min flow. My air head designs are able to achieve about 1 cubic foot per minute of air for every 25 gallons per minute of water. In equivalent units this is about 1/3 air and 2/3 water.

I noted that the hydraulic intensifier is a single stroke operation not a reciprocating system does this fit your application?

Wetrocks

 

Hi, 1st rule is: you need a min head of say 20m of 'steady gradient' (minimal ups & downs) to provide the water flow rate to enable the venturi to 'suck' the air into the water flowing down the infeed.

So if your only available water source is a dam at the lowest level of your property, then use either direct wind turbine or solar / battery to pump water to as high a storage dam level as possible (~100m head or more may be achievable). Then start the trompe process. After you've used the water for your trompe/s, you could run it through a ram pump to send a % of it to an even higher dam storage while the outflow may be caught in a swale to be used for tree growing etc, then another contour swale / dam etc and finally make its way back into the original low dam to repeat the cycle, thus containing the water within your property. Use the water as many times as possible while it falls back to its starting point (basic permaculture principle).

As Bill Mollison explains in his YT video, isothermically cooled compressed air in itself is a very desirable and saleable commodity for aqualung divers, although aqualung tank pressures are normally 2400 to 2640 psi - so I'm not an expert, but it would seem on the face of it that the pressure would need to be increased somehow?

I've been toying with some design ideas myself (I hasten to add I haven't yet built it) where the whole trompe processor incl. inflow, air intake, water/air separator, plenum and outflow pipes are contained within one nom 400mm dia borehole to nom 100m depth. This provides 145psi compressed air - a useful pressure in most workshops.

My trompe design (inspired by Bill Mollison's video IS A MUST VIEW! - "trompey, trompey, trompey!" lol!) is a closed system, where the only exposure to air is the 'straw' intake. This allows the syphon to remain in effect between trompes if they are set in series. Each trompe would return the water outflow to a point roughly 1000mm below the air intake and would then continue being syphoned downhill to a potential 2nd, 3rd etc trompe/s of the same design (the 2nd or 3rd trompe/s would benefit from the original 'head' provided for the 1st trompe).

I think it's very shortsighted to say 'you may as well just generate energy directly from the initial devices without going to all the trouble of using a trompe to provide compressed air.' There is definitely a huge potential for the 'benefits' to be multiplied by utilising 'The Simple, Yet Brilliant Trompe'. As suggested by Bill, the uses for isothermically compressed air are many and varied - not least of all: direct refrigeration / freezers, efficient air conditioning, running motors / turbines, pneumatic tools and many more. All of these benefits are derived directly from the trompe, using NO MECHANICAL OR MOVING PARTS!! - just falling water!

For myself I can't wait to try my new design! Best of luck to all of you while experimenting with this excellent, versatile and proven technology.

Kim Best

 

Hi, your best option would probably be to pump water using a windmill to a high tank or dam storage. This is in effect 'a battery' of stored energy at your disposal to use at your convenience / any time by allowing the water to fall by syphon.
Micro-Hydro, ram pump, or trompe are probably the 3 best options for harvesting that energy or combinations of all 3.
My preference would be to use a trompe initially, or perhaps 2 or more, in series to multiply the benefits, then maybe install a ram pump to lift a % of that water back into the same tank, allowing the rest to fall into swales etc. then eventually making its way back into the original source to be used again!
If you need to use more water than is being pumped into your storage, you can put a 'timer system' into the syphon (using a float switch - similar principle to that used in a toilet cistern) to use it intermittently. The trompes shouldn't be affected by this and will restart automatically once the water starts flowing again.
Cheers, Kim Best