There seems to be a piece of the puzzle missing here with me. When I drained My hopper condensate, I intentionally let the water evaporate because I believed there to be energy in the solution. I put a torch to it and in fact there was. If we are converting H2O into HO and tar into energy as well why can we not use the condensate as well? Why can’t the char bed be increased and the velocity slowed down in the fire tube to convert this potential energy? Is it because the wood moisture varies?
Bill, that condensate burns because of tar droplets in it. As long as there is enough heat in hearth, It will process it. Sadly, with wood gasifiers, there isn’t enough heat to convert all of it. That is the reason for the hopper condensate drain. So far I am the only one I know of that is separating the tar out on the fly.
So - how do you do that Terry?
Yeah, what Don asked.
Don, group,
I bring it up about once a year but it still seems to fly under the radar.
It is the lid to my Ranger’s gasifier. I was proud to display it the first time I brought it to Argos. Even though I explained it, people just didn’t seem to “get it”.
I basically distill the tar out of the condensate and let it drop back into the hopper. If I were to guess, I would say it’s about 75% efficient.
I directly asked Max at the Yahoo site if he ever heard of a gasifier design that addressed this topic. He didn’t know of any.
I have photos of my lid at Yahoo. I’ll post them at my Ranger thread over here in the morning.
Carl - “I could support some serious habits with that kind of money!”
I’m guessing that you would spend your wood vinegar money on sheet stainless, ss welding wire, thermocouples and digital gauges.
And we would benefit greatly from your research…
Al D
Right. My tests have proved to me that wood vinegar from my hopper does not kill mites on grapes. Nor does it repel deer from eating mellons. So I guess I’ll start saving it for Ali Baba and the fourty thieves. The way it looks, wood vinegar is becomming a fad among organic growers. I have read that fed to hogs it eliminates the foul smell of their maneur. Also makes chicken eggs taste better and have less cholesterol. Kills mites. Promotes plant growth. kills plant diseases. And more. http://www.afaci.org/ansoft/B01/view.asp?boardid=78&boardtype=N010&boardsubtype=ORGANIC&boardidx=74&boardstep=0&boardorder=0&searchunit=&searchtype=&searchword=&curpage= Surely this stuff is worth a fortune. To Ali Baba.
Especially when used in conjunction with bio char! For real…
Interesting. Thanks for the read John.
I wounder if by ‘small pests’, if it includes mosquitoes?
people like John Stout, who try it and find it don’t work. Ha!
If i make charcoal, i collect the vinegear and use it in the rubber three plantation and my pineapple field.
It does reduce the growth of the weed and so reduces the cost of pesticide a lot, also benefits the soil and supplement the fertilizer.
so fas as with mosquito’s, i did paint them with a drop and they did not survive it 
so catch them, paint them and see them die…
I have found if the vinegar is fresh, it kills grass, but left open for a day or two it does nothing !
Hope this helps
Thanks Patrick
All my wood vinegar is stored in sealed containers. I am still hoping for positive results in the Northern hemisphere spring (a long time from now…) Perhaps all the vinegar I sprayed on my grape vines last summer will have some effect on the mites next summer. If not, I will stubbornly try it again. Maybe there is some use for the stuff, who knows.
Koen, if youre there, how did you determine that wood vinegar “reduces the cost of pesticide…”
John how much did you dilute the vinegar before application? I too want to try this next spring. From my understanding, it should be reduced to 1 to 200 up to 1 to 300.
John S. I’m not exactly sure what Koen is mentioning, but I’m guessing he is referring to how wood vinegar lowers water’s “cluster factor” (I think that is the term), which makes water molecules not cluster up as much, and therefore makes it easier for chemicals to dilute into it.
For this reason, I know that a very small amount of wood vinegar (up to 500:1 ratio from what I’ve read) can make fertilizers and pesticides much more efficient, resulting in needing to use less.
:EDIT: The article on that topic was posted near the top of this page by Al Denniger on Thu, 08/21/2014 - 09:47.
Well, Bill, last summer, (it is surely winter now…12" snow today!) I tried various dilutions to kill mites. I had read of some researchers using wood vinegar for that.
It seemed that at 200:1 nothing happened to the mites. I watched them closely under a stereo microscope. Then I tried 100:1. Then full strength. The full strength would wither and brown the grape leaves, but the mites were doing fine. The article, or paper, that I read said that full strength applied to the mites killed them real good. I did not find that to be the case. Different mites? Different WV?
Brian, I was hoping to hear from Koen just how he had determined his success. You know, sometimes we can just imagine great success. When I first tested the diluted WV in grape leaves I kept my samples in closed 8 oz jars. The mites died overnight. I was excited, However, the mites in untreated samples, kept in jars, also died overnight…
Maybe your mites are allergic to glass jars?
They mite be, or it mite be the lid.
Years ago when I first got into gasificaton, I worked with some PhD’s who strongly cautioned me about the tars. They had a feeling they contained cancer causing and highly toxic ingredients. I’ve smelled some really foul stuff from gasification/pyrolisis of chicken litter and other biomass. We’re talking terminally funky smelling! No surprise it could be a good “organic” weed killer.
As for having a value, I have a feeling it is like the glycerin generated from biodiesel production. The market is probably for highly refined and pure wood vinegar, not what we generate. So, how can we increase the value of our liquids? Everything has a value somewhere. Sometimes it takes a little creativity to get there.
Chris I was just wondering did anything ever become of this?