Thank you Koen.
Can you type the link on here of your website? I noticed how you were showing some locals where you are at, the gasifier operation. At one point, I thought I noticed you sprayed water on the gasifier and it the engine increased the rpms. Why is that?
Good Morning BillS
You may have caught KonenVL going to bed in Thailand.
He is a charcoal guy and posts up mostly in the Charcoal Gasifer section here:
http://driveonwood.com/forums/charcoal-gasifiers
His in country web site is:
www.renewableenergythailand.com
He is promoting the DOW there and has asked for some of us to participate back.
In charcoal gasification the fuel is premade wood char.
With all of the cooling moderating moistures and volitals pre-driven off in the separate charcoal making step then they have a severe materials overheating problems gasifing thier charcoal. These output a very high CLEAN CO fuel gas with vertually no hydrogen and no made methane.
They have the excess heat and HOT char to rationally convert water to steam and then beable to convert this for internally produced oxegen (rebound with a C to make More CO) and free hydrogen. This is what gave his engine higher speed.
Thermal/chemically THIS greatly moderated thier internal temperatures.
Or: they can engine exhaust recycle and get temprature moderation; hydrogen and oxegen generation out of the engine exhaust moisture and even more CO boosting from the exhaust CO2 being gasifier HOT char converted to 2CO. The HOT char having the heat energy and oxegen affinity to do this, and adding the extra C.
Ha! Sounds perfect.
Then you have to account for a whole separate charcoal making system and storage.
And rationalize the heat losses in these separate steps.
Actually IT IS a much better system for light weight needing mobile engine powering over raw wood fueling gasifing.
The only documented airplane to be made “woodgas” flown WAS a 1940’s Swiss CHARCOAL system. Chris Seymore found and highlighted this here on the DOW.
Charcoal gasifer is what in my opoinon should be the ONLY thing to look at for a motorcycle or a motorized bicycle system.
Ha! Don’t dare say more or charcoal man Gary Gillmore will think he has finally won me “over to the darkside”. Ha! I slipped that rope once. Not going back. Can’t afford to. Without the annual solar to pre-dry the fuelwood to be charcoal made, it is very heat/fuel consumption irrational for me.
20th day now of Artic F. teens tring to maintain a min 40F deferential outside to inside temp and I NEED every liter/cubic foot of woodgas and bit of woodchar buring inside for to do this.
Hurts to view charcoal making pictures now with all of that heat blowing away to the crows with the Artic winds and snow outside.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Bill, Steve and all,
To ad at the explanation from Steve:
1.-Charcoal gasifying is indeed the easy way to start with gasifying / building a gasifier.
2.- The water spraying at the outside generated steam, which was sucked into the gasifier and converted into Hydrogen
since pure CO is an low velocity flame speed gas and Hydrogen a high flame speed gas and both have the same stoichiometric mixture, the combination is excellent for small sized engines. The RPM can be increased above the limits of running on CO alone and there is less need for ignition timing adjustment.
There are already a few case study’s that prove this point, can be found in the files section.
3.- To counter Steve on his statement about overheating problems; the correct sizing and dimensioning limits the exposure from the glowing charcoal to the materials used, in fact i have almost no heat losses with a larger diameter of reactor.
4.- The charcoal gasifier i developed with the original idea’s from Gary Gilmore gives me plenty room for improvement, can use different fuels ( anthracite, charcoal pellets, charcoal )
5.- For me, working with the basics of a charcoal gasifier, gives me the needed insight for further developments. ( modulating nozzles, continuous gasflow circulation, Carbon dioxide recycling, Heat efficiency, feedstock flow)
6.-I am not a premium member, by my choice, because that keeps my mind sharp for new idea’s, but i will share my idea’s for the benefit from people who wants to use gasifying technology and i live in respect for the people who build their own systems. My drive is to solve the mystery’s about gasification 
not to follow the paved roads… I enjoy the honest chuckling from those who notice the mistakes i make and appreciate their critics and or advices. with that i can learn… with what i learned i can teach…
Bill,
What is the device you want to power up with woodgas ?, How much hp? continuous power demand or fluctuating ? How many hours runtime in 1 batch ? what is the feedstock ? always the same feedstock ?
You want to build a copy from existing gasifiers or a own build ?
What materials to build you have available ?
Steve,
i would like to post more off the idea’s i have, but i am a bit scared it would touch the balls from the people, since i am not a premium member. some of my knowledge could already been in use with the premium side, some could be good to be implemented.
this is a small dilemma for me because i would like to share my knowledge
Koen,
I have a Honda GX390. It has 11.7hp at 3500 rpm. My plans are to put a hydraulic pump on it. With a hydraulic pump I will be able to operate a multitude of separate pieces such as a generator head, wood chunker, log splitter, etc.
I would prefer to have about a 3+ hour run time. The current fuel I have available is White Oak and Pine. I can get all the assorted wood chips I want for free.
No, I don’t want to copy anyone’s gasifier. I did want a idea of a good gasifier hearth to know a guideline for dimensions. Because that info became hard to come by, I believe I have a way to make it completely adjustable and maintain a long lasting quality hearth. All constructed with SS. I brought my design in today to a friend who works strictly with SS. I made him aware of the temperatures and the acidic nature of Oak. He agreed to stay with SS. So we made allowances for the expansion and contraction.
Steve made a good point at one time. I looked for it, but it may be edited out. Basically he was telling me I will get out of it what I put into it. He also told me because of our drastic climate changes in Minnesota that the unit will operate differently in the summer than the winter. The summary of everyone’s input brought me to this idea of making it adjustable. I am very optimistic.
Koen, I have to say I really appreciate what you do over there and look forward to your posts
Bill Schiller
Bill,
How much power you are going to use on the hydraulics is the main factor for the gasifier. For example 160 bar at 20 liters per minute is far different then 120 bar at 40 liters per minute.
Running with an hydraulic pump is the most effective way to avoid power gaps from throttling up and down.
Outgoing side of your gasifier ( cooling) should be stainless to to avoid the forming of Methane trough the Sabatier reaction, ( by products are water and CO2 )
Last filter section you should ad some steel wool to reduce the acid from the Hydrogen sulfate which comes with the Hydrogen.
The steel wool gets rusty more when the acids react. ( not from water as many people believe )
The acid will corrode your valve shafts and eventually jam them.
Try to start with small nozzle size in the gasifier and create some vacuum in the heart zone when dry-testing the gasifier.
The vacuum pulled from the engine should be divided at 50/50 over air filter and gasifier, to test with a water gauge is the most simple way.
A restrictor at 60%size from the carburator size in the airfilter helps a lot.
Thanks Koen.
I was going to avoid a cyclone but instead, have SS tubes filled with a coarse steel wool and collection jars at the bottom. After that I planned on running the gas through a series of copper tubing of which I need to revise under Steve’s suggestion. The copper tubing brought my temperatures down to ambient temps on my previous runs and caught a lot of moisture. I was made aware of the scrubbing Hydrogen Sulfide with steel wool from the methane digesters I somewhat worked with.
One other question I wanted to ask you and Steve U. was about cooked animal fat. Have you had any experience with turning this into energy? Is a form of gasification possible? Can it be dripped in like tar through the top of the hopper? I know there’s a lot of energy there and we deal with a lot of it at my work.
Ha! Ha! Hey KoenVL I knew you would object to my “charcoal gasifing makes metals destroying temperatures”.
Yes this can be kept off the housings by sizing the hot reactive area within a larger housing holding the hot reactive area surrounding by inert charcoal. Ha! Works fine until an unknowing, lazy, or sloppy operator runs it low on insulating charcoal as you will find out.
I was speaking primarily of the air nozzles all you charcoal fellows stuggle with. Why you are now using very high temperature resistant ceramics with your converted screw in fuse bodies.
Raw fueling the nozzles are easy as higher volumn air flowing and condensates/volatiles dripping down cooled.
No secret out here that in WayneK’s design air nozzles are actually just inner metal housing torch burnt holes. Precision not nessary.
On the Premium side dilemma. There is none. 99% of premium side talking is about those building and operating direct WK book systems. Much collaborative works to improve it’s performance and even simplify it’s construction.
Expanding out to differet engines used experence bases.
In this area you must talk in terms of verifiable engine performance or you will get snore ignored, or laughed away as a “never-do-anything” just talk geek.
Speaking for myself I am now 63 years old. I have watched decades and decades; and 100’s of millions of dollars/euro’s wasted on Uninversity and Goverment Top-Down directed gasification systems.
Nothing gets real world usable done except for more papers published. More “names” chasing the published name games, and fame.
On the Premium side this is a place for those of us downright now demanding ACTION TODAY in real world useable made shaft power. Period.
Explain out the Why of the performance later. We do not talk there in maths except simple dimensioning.
DO Talk MUCH in heats, temperatures, materials and engines.
DO talk much about condensates, soots and ashes.
DO talk much about real wood fuel economies and real engine power.
And this all tuned for the individual to make there own power for personal useage. No missionary’ing out to “save the world”.
Save the individual, yes, who is willing to accept responsibility of thier own Lives, In Thier own individual World.
Bill this is actually in tune with your topic of “A new understanding” of the DOW.
Konen I defend you, VesaM and Dutch John even though you are all very much math and science rationalization first; as friends because you ALL DO Build and Proof with today real world IC engines.
The exact same reason I embrace you BillS.
This makes you all Real, and Relevant.
If a person begins as welder, a woodstover, a blacksmith, a metals artist with no care for the advanced maths, energy balances and detail chemistry of it; there is this same standard of earned respect and earned value - Make an engine produce measurable verifiable shaft power for a useable purpose.
To me that is the DOW universal standard said very clearly in the name: Drive (Power) on Wood.
Not my selection. WayneK and ChrisS/KY, the owner and administrator.
This stikes a cord with most active here also.
Both approaches actually work: math/science ratioanlization first: or lots and lots of cut and burn AS LONG AS THEY ARE HELD TO THE SAME STANDARD of keep is real, relevent and useable to real human beings as judged by verifiable engine shaft performance.
And this is why both you KVL and BillS belong here on the DOW in my opinion.
MagneK is another member I value much. He put up a photo out of a collected book that detailed out the first Up, accross, then Down, accross, then back UP, accross then back Down and out pathway in the flat tube vertical cooler on a 40’s German tractor system. See. Clumsy to discribe in words.
I can now link and refer to this as BUILD THIS WAY to experienced accommodate for gravity collected consensates and soots.
Very real useable info for today builders and users. This IS open front side information!
Wished I’d had the museums, used books, old operators and systems access the way some of our Eurpean members have, and USED.
I could have saved a couple of years rescovering woodgas realities already clearly documented out in pictures.
No advanced maths, no degrees needed to understand a straight forward line drawing. Respect for thier efforts back then, yes.
Matt Ryder and Chris Seymour also chose not to be Premium members with thier own developed commercial sold systems.
Very valuable DOW contributors. They show engines loaded running. They put up much good, broad spectum of useable woodgas information.
They have humor, and humility and humanity.
In truth the DOW as WayneK keeps clearly saying by refusing these isn’t about heroics or heros but showing the way Home to personal energy Freedom and Independence one real person at a time.
True Freedom is not cheap, but hard work. Never ever “free”, but earned. Not earned: then squandered away and lost.
True Independence is just as expensive and valuable.
Those missionary’ing out to use “bio-mass” “to save the world” always seem to have either a lack of humor, or humililty, or both.
These the ones who walk away from the DOW unhappy and are much happier out on a different soapbox blog or forum matching thier very different world view goals.
Regards
Steve Unruh
2 Likes
Hi Steve, Bill,
Thanks for the kind words…
I think in live is also a big difference between people: I can build a good gasifier or i can teach you how to build a good gasifier.
Since i want to be a teacher… i need to understand any aspect, including, yes, the mathematics.
It is exactly your knowledge about the mathematics in IC engines what makes you able to debate with a sound sense.
Thats what makes you a solid debating partner.
Without these “basic” understandings, there is no way to improve, coz you would not be able to debate…
Bill,
Regarding the copper tubes, be aware of any oxidising…oxidising reveals the presence of acids, possible if the temperature is optimal , also a conversion.
A simple trik could be, same as they did in the old days, using 1 tube with coarse charcoal as first filter ( charcoal can be reused as fuel later ), the temperature wil then already be much lower, then coarse SS steel wool, then cooler, if possible in and outside of SS tubing with powder coating black, then 1 tube pvc filled with fine steel wool and at last a dead end paper filter.
Regarding the animal fat:
depending the water content, does the fat comes from an aotoclave ? just find out the ignition - flame point, bring the fat to this temperature and let the gas flow in your charcoal reduction zone. The temperature where it gets from liquid state into a gaseous state is also important.
I did many tests between 2008 and 2011, even have a car driving on a blend with diesel-benzine-used vegetable oil and used gelatine…
Bill,
About your feed stock:
The pine contains more resin then the oak and will need a “larger” reduction zone to be converted into a tar-free gas. The design from above with the second air nozzle would help at that point.
Steve,
about the housing i have foreseen a temperature “kill-switch” for the ignition.
The other layout, without extra outer jacket, is a larger diameter for using the isolating capacity of the charcoal itself( ad about 12"). This will deprive me dough of the preheating of any water into steam for the hydrogen generation.
Morning all
I did go back and try and break up my compound sentences. Change out my colloquialisms’ for standard english. And with new day fresh eyes correct my spellings.
BillS yes their IS much energy in animal products. Why explosives were traditionally made from fats and urines. And still can be.
The plants collect and convert the raw sun energy. The animals farther condense and conentrate this down to a much more dense form.
Personal choice here how you would use this. Home here, my chicken fat goes to our security, companion dogs and cats as the best value.
I’d never consider buring it. Too valuable as a food versus an energy. Not that I am squeamish or picky.
When they are done with this Life and say, yeah - help me, I shoot and bury my own dogs.
God put dogs on earth to make us to be better humans. I brutaly will judge a fellow by his dogs.
Using animals fats for energies are slippery slopes to somewhere you will find to do not want to be. Really.
You will step by step yourself back to killing whales for your needs for fuels, lubricants and cosmetics.
And on the road back to that Hell on Earth you will be back to selectively breeding pigs and chicken just for thier fats value as fuels and chemical base stocks.
We did do these you know.
And then you are just one tiny step from treating people the same way as “the natual order of things”.
Do not take the first slippery step is the best.
Yes. I have actually stepped over real laying money on the sidewalk to avoid the attached strings that would divert me from my perpose for walking there.
This seductive “easy dollar” IS the shepple addicting refined fuels of today. Why the 100 car fossil coal and shale oil trains travel through my county heading to fuel the growing Asian “needs”. Leaving us with the disruped landscapes and mining/refining pollutions. Same way PNW back in the old 1970’s 12 mile limit days we here were offshore foreign fleets trawler swept lifeless and dead for thier “needs”.
40 years now of very resticted local fishing trying to fight our way back to even a percentage of what once was.
KonenVL here in the US Ford motor company has series of current running TV ads showing the humourous disasters of taking the linking “and” out of proven common wisdoms. “Nuts AND bolts” as the latest disaster in de-linkage changed to your “or”. Thier backyard above ground DYI swimming pool failed disastrously without the nuts for the bolts.
Sorry man you must both build/develope AND teach. These cannot live well in isolation.
Culturally here it is an often quoted wisdom that, “Those that Can; Do. Those who cannot; Teach.”
To have always needed balance those who Can-DO must learn to reach out and teach a bit even if only by example.
And those who would chose to Teach must first DO some to be relevent. And then go back and keep refreshing this DOing to remain relevent.
On the word “debate” you are using this very precisly and correctly. Again I will say I refuse to debate here on the DOW. This is a dangerous slippery slope to start here. This is not a Greek society where the best debater wins.
The Greeks and thier current day emulators feel this is the best way to distill out the truths. Oh, Really?
Not so. No more than the middle ages “truths” revealings of a hot sword to the tongue, or rack stetching a person could find truths.
In debates I most often win. Not because of elegance or superior logic. Because I have thicker skin and staying power and can absorb more hurts than than given.
Really no different than a slugging out fest with flying teeth, down in the mud, with the blood. “Debating” becomes pretty brutal and human demeaning actually.
Here I will show you.
You say “use a final paper filter on your engine”.
Actual raw wood fueler gasifier guys have learned this one well from Europe to North America that all woodgas is wetgas. Actual Woodgas versus charcoalgas this paper engine filter will wet and stop gases flow. The engine will then suck this wettened paper filter inside out, tearing it, offeten then clogging all flow with decreased engine power on this raod to preventable failure.
When you said this a collective groan came up from the operaing members on the Premium side having expereinced this first hand.
You lost relevence.
The only way to learn woodgas is to do woodgas.
Step up your game man out of engine easy charcoal into real woodgas before you would advise on woodgas for engines.
-10C here this morning. Will be -12C tomorrow morning. Not expected to get above 0C anytime for the next 4 days. Then waming to 0-2C into multiple cm’s of accumulating snowing.
Chemical formulas and maths cannot convey the brutality realities of these conditions. Irrelevent unless you are in artificial heated lab conditions.
BillS’s “Thursday in Minnesota” conditions rule.
What IS much more relevent and usable is the forced learned finate understanding of heats and temperatures of effectivly using wood for fuels. I am now 600 hours refreshed into to that now this season. Yep. Down to 30F OK to use my highwer ash and slower reactivity Red Alder fuel woods.
Below 30F now I need the quicker energy release in the “pitchy” “sooty” much lower ash Doug Fir fuel wood.
At the consumtion rate of 6 kilos an hour the higher ash alder neds daily ash cleaning out to prevent choking and over insulating. Needs overaired forced reaction for enough BTU’s driving up my flue losses.
Ha! At least we do not have the terrifying snakes you have slithering around! You are a braver man than me choosing to live with these.
There it become true, “Love conquers all fears”.
My best to you and yours,
your friend
Steve Unruh
Good morning Steve,
We in the pseudo Tundra got to wake up to -11 today. Some of us get to experience wind chills of up to -30, the perfect recipe for black ice. This will catch the unexpected travelers in the ditches.
I learned quickly about paper filters on my first ICE run. I tried using an inline water filter to catch the final moisture prior to the engine. It ran good until the filter was drenched. I took the filter out and it did pretty good at catching moisture.
I ask about animal fats is because another part of my company pumps out grease trap waste. Not to be confused with yellow grease. We service all the Walmarts and Wendy’s in the state. This adds up to about 200,000+ gallons of waste every 3 months. 10-15% of that is vegetable oil and animal fat. Also known as FOG, Fats, Oil and Grease. We pay $50-$65 per 1000 gallons to dispose of it. Obviously it is real expensive to completely separate the water from this free energy.
I do understand this is a wood gas site, I just thought may Koen has maybe dabbled in this type of energy. Knowing that some people used the tar they collected from their unit and dripped it back through the system for additional energy? Maybe the two fuels aren’t conducive with each other. Anyway, it was just a thought that ran through my head.
Bill Schiller
Morning all,
Hi Steve, Bill,
Yes Steve you’r right, only a do’er can teach, but with the needed knowledge of course
I always hated a teacher who showed me that it works without he was able to explain me why it works…
This time i should have chosen a better word “dead end paper filter” better i replace that with “fine fiber”
lesson learned, people chuckling, carrying on now…
Any experiences with swimmingpool filters as the final filter ?
Would there be a way to minimize the water content in the gas before it enters the final filter ?
Is there a way to control / measure the amount of water ?
Where does this water comes from ?
Now i remember why i started with charcoal… ( big grin on my face now )
The wisdom of debating is not to win but to share idea’s and gain knowledge, getting to know the other perspectives and finding out other ways to solve problems.
For me, debating is not a contest, its opening my mind for idea’s from others in a respectful way.
Bill,
Since we are on the “off topic” section
animal fat also comes from the big slaughter houses where they boil down the residu’s before disposal, also known as gelatine.
Grease trap waste… i did not had my hands in it yet, but if it can burn it can be gasified
certainly worth to give it a drip…