Simple wood gasifier
Wood gasification is the process of turning wood into carbon monoxide and hydrogen by reacting the raw material (wood) at high temperatures with a controlled amount of oxygen. Without oxygen, the wood can't burn so it transforms into gas. This gas can be used as fuel in an internal combustion engine.
During World War II wood gas generators where used to fuel automobiles in Europe. I've been thinking about building one and seeing if I could run a small lawn mower engine off of wood gas.
For an experiment I built this small wood gasifier. My setup is not a full scale gasifier. It justs pyrolysizes the wood. A few more steps are needed for full gasification. The gas coming out of the can, has a high tar content. If used in an engine, it would eventually coat the cylinder with tar and cause it to seize up.
All I used was a quart paint can, propane stove and some plumbing fittings. I used the propane stove just to make things easy. In a regular gasifier, charcoal is used as the heat source. The plumbing fittings where used to carry the gas away from the can. They are not really needed, but I wanted to make sure I showed that the gas can be piped away. First I drilled a hole in the lid of the paint can. Then put a connector in the hole and J.B. welded the connector to make sure it had an air tight seal. I then added a few more pipe fittings just to show that the gas could be piped away. Last I made a burner out of a small tomato paste can.
I filled the paint can with dry wood and made sure the lid was on tight. A minute or two after I put the paint can on the stove, wood gas/smoke started to come out of the plumbing pipe. The wood gas easily ignited. It took a few more minutes before enough gas was being produced to sustain a flame.
The gas contains carbon monoxide which is both flammable and poisonous, so you need to make sure to do this outside and not breath in the gas. Because you have a paint can full of flammable gas, there is always the chance the can could blow up. Hopefully just the top would pop off with a loud boom, but I wouldn't put my head to near the can.
Here you can see the wood gas coming up through the plumbing.
All that is left of the wood is charcoal.
My next plans are to scale this up and use charcoal as the heat source. There are a ton of plans on the net. One of the best documents I found, was made by FEMA back in the 1980's. It describes how wood gasification works and how to build a would gasifier for use on a tractor.
Plans for FEMA emergency wood gas generator
Other wood gasifiers
mother earth ran numourous
mother earth ran numourous articles on wood gasifiers for automobile propulsion during the 70's
Net Heat in/Heat Out
Any idea as to what was the net heat in to the net heat out? Also, the mass of wood used and the mass of charcoal produced? The efficiency of charcoal production and net amount of usable heat would be useful to know -- this could possibly be scaled up -- producing usable gas, as well as a good source of "bio-char"
"Bio Char" is a more useful way of using charcoal than as an energy source!
reply
I read thru it but the fact still remains that the viedo is not gasifications as such but distillation. The former creates "Producer Gas" the Later drives off combustible products like, acetone ,wood alcohol, and phenols etc. These are what you show burning in the video not "Producer Gas". i have been playing with a simple down draft retort using a combination of home made pressed fuel blocks (straw , paper, plastics, dung..etc), and have a first hand experience with the retort chemistry. I guess i was being a bit anal here but i would rather be anal than have someone misunderstand the process. We may need this technology again If gas goes to $10 a gallon like some people are prodicting. Keep up the experiences though it never hurts to have more eyes and hands on the process.
Fair enough. I gave up on
Fair enough.
I gave up on making a "real" gasifier because I didn't want to smoke out my neighbors. Distillation was the best I could do without having someone call the fire department.
Dont give up yet! Either one
Dont give up yet!
Either one of these urls below will lead you to a real gasifier stove that you can build and experiement with and burn most anything. The best part is that the neighbors will not even know ur cookin with (wood) gas :)
http://aftershock.heirloomseedsource.com/midge.htm
http://www.crest.org/discussiongroups/resources/stoves/midge/THE_COMPLETE_MIDGE.pdf
or Google "MIDGE stove plans"
Good luck
Rip
woodgas unit
The Url below will explain a real Gasifier for you, not a charcoal maker. :)
http://www.gengas.nu/byggbes/index.shtml
If your technically incline, go to the following url its even better.
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/T0512E/T0512E00.HTM
After reading thru these two sites you might want to rename ur Video to "Charcoal Maker Demo"
Good Luck Guy regardless
Rip
What your doing is
What your doing is distillation of wood not gasification. If you had been producing actual C0+H+Methane (producer gas), you would have ended up with nothing but ash in the can not charcoal. You need to read about the process of Gasification before you publish a page like this. Sorry but this demo of yours is bogas guy!
Rip
If you had read the entire
If you had read the entire post you would have seen this line:
My setup is not a full scale gasifier. It justs pyrolysizes the wood. A few more steps are needed for full gasification.
Wood gas demonstration
Chadphil,
Thanks for a very simple and convincing demonstration of producing woodgas in a small retort.
I did a similar demo, but I force draughted the air into the top of the coffee can - about 3/4 of the way up through a 3/4" pipe.
The air pipe enters the can tangentially and causes a cyclone effect in the top of the can which mixes the air and wood gas thoroughly. The result is the woodgas burns with a powerful roaring flame like a propane torch.
I used woodchips as the fuel, and it burns like crazy for 5 minutes - with no need for the camping gas stove to get it started - I light mine with a heat gun.
A friend made a big cyclone burner, with a forced air blower , 40" diameter and 40" deep, filled with woodchips. This burns for 4 hours with a 100kW (340,000 BTU) flame and gas temperatures of 1650F (900C).
Have fun.
Ken
powercubes.com/listers.html
thanks. Your site is cool.
thanks. Your site is cool. I would love to play around with vegetable oil. But I don't have a place to put a diesel engine.
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