After 3 minutes of switching on my attempt to “coal gasifier” tar condensed at the outlet of the fan.
The gas ignited with my propane igniter but extinguished as soon as I 'away from the flame.
Finally the fan motor has burnt (tar had glued the propeller)
What have I done wrong?
Here it is cold, it causes more condensation !
I await your advise impatiently.
Thierry
Thierry, it sounds like your charcoal still has volatiles in it. There should be absolutely no condensing tar ever. Take some pictures of the charcoal and the setup and maybe something will pop out…
David Baillie
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Thierry, what size charcoal chunks are you using? The recommended size is 1/8" to 3/4" or 3 mm to 18 mm. Can you break the pieces with your fingers? If not, they might need more cooking. Charcoal should have no tar left in it like David said.
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Thank you for your quick responses
I use a sieve 1/2 “and 1/8”
I will load some pictures on dow, this weekends
Coal seems well cooked.
I can easily crush the coal pieces between the fingers.
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I agree with the others, engine grade charcoal doesn’t have tar. Maybe frozen moisture and soot…
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The first time the gasifier is heated it can liberate vapors?
(Oil residues, coal dust, frozen water …)
How distinger Vapors condensing these, condensation of tar?
Tomorrow I try again with SHOPVAC (my little inflated mattress is burned)
Are you using charcoal (burned wood) or mineral coal (millions of years old plants dug out of the ground)?
I agree with others. With several hours of flaring direct from reactor without filter and using various fans, I have not experienced tar build up on fan. Good charcoal crushed in hand washes right off without soap, bad stuff leaves a stain that takes some scrubbing.
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Small 12 volt automotive vacuum cleaners pull the right amount of vacuum. A shop vac will pull too hard, so use a speed control or a T and valve to limit vacuum to about 5" water column.
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Is there a way to test my charcoal?
Hi Trigaux ,
If you are finding that your flare will not stay alight once you take away your torch then that could be a couple of things , first off what does your flare tube look like is it just a plane pipe or does it increase in size with air holes on the bottom ?
The other reason for a flare not staying alight is air leaks in the system , my set up just point blank refused to stay alight one day after many months of no problems and I found that if I wrapped my hand around the hose going into my little vac it sealed off the air and straight away the flare kept going .
have put up a picture of my little 12 volt vac/blower and wrapped some tape around where the air leak was .
Dave
I
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Dave, I don’t see any air holes in your flare pipe. Are they there?
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Amazing to see this. I have used a similar flare setup with a similar 12 volt vacuum and holes are not needed.
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I used a small 12v fan to test my charcoal gasser a few years ago and l juust culdnt get a flare without a torch. After some frustrating hours and a lot of dirthy words l found out the fan was built to suck some air thrugh the motor in order to cool it down. The resault was air mixing with gas. Just a strip of duct tape sealed the intake holes and the flare started burning strong. Maybee you gave a similar problem Triguax?
About the tar in your charcoal… sometimes there are small peases of uncharred wood that find their way in the engine fuel makeing some poblems. How do you grind your charcoal? l use a device similar to Garry Gilmores charcoal mill just that myne is hand operated. Whenever l feel a hard peace on the crank l stop and it is usualy one of those wood bits.
It is alsow posible that when you make your charcoal a part of wood is still charrinw while the rest of charcoal is alredy cool and it absorbes all that tar from the smoaking fuel. I put my charcoal out of the retort while it is still hot so none of the tar can reabsorb.
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Well spotted Don ,
That tube I had on the vac has no holes in it ,as long as there are no high winds it works fine that way, and also allows me to connect a pipe to blow from there into the gasifier for leak testing , as soon as its windy I sit a tin can on top with small holes around the base and a 1 inch hole in middle makes a good wind shield .
Dave
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Very information interesting Kristijan
'My stove does not work the way I want.
The Uncooked wood is found in coal.
And I get the coal cooled the next day.
I’ll try to annealing coal.
Later, I will try another experiment with my gasifier.
Many difficulties with my computer these days.
Thank you for all the trouble you give yourself to me
Thierry
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Hi Thierry,
as above, charcoal quality is the utmost important thing to start with…
How to test;
use a barbeque and when the first layer coal is glowing hot, then put your charcoal on top, only little fumes are allowed and when start making gas and flames, only so little yellow flametips allowed, no orange and no black sooty fumes should appear.
The higher grade charcoal, less smoke and more obvious the desired blue little dancing devils on top…
To compare with a pure alcohol flame…
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