Joshua - So far, my experience is limited. However, based on what I have observed, the rest of the system would last indefinitely (with the possible exception of the blower - others report failure at some point, and recommend having a dual gas path so that gasses only pass through it for start up, but not for running). With that said, this assumes that you don’t let the ambient temperature of the exiting gas rise too much beyond 120 F. I usually shut mine down when the lid gets 150 F. Using a grease barrel for the main reactor, I am getting about 1 hour of run time before that happens.
But that limitation is just because of the cheap plastic sump pump hose that is used to conduct the gas from the reactor to the filter. If you did that through some sort of metal pipe or flex pipe (or through a cyclone), then the radiative cooling would extend your run time significantly. If the entire setup was metal rather than low melting point plastic, I am not sure how far you could push it before the engine would start complaining.
Certainly, you wouldn’t want to push it beyond the auto-ignition temperature of CO (1128 F).
As a practical matter, I imagine you would want to stop around 500F.
At this time, I can’t give you a good estimate of how long it would take to get there, but I would imagine it is at least 2 or 3 hours. Maybe more. After that, it would be time to refuel, in any event.
An automotive radiator or the backside (condenser? Evaporator?) of an air conditioner with a strong 12 volt blower on it could cool it down real quick. I guess its just a matter of more heatsink surface area. I dont mind using electric to cool it. Especially DC. A nice K&N washable air filter would be a nice last line of dust filtering. A cyclone would be a first start to cool it down. Wouldn’t want to burn my filters. hmm. I will look into this some more tonight and start drawing out some plans. So as long as i can keep it cool and I have a big enough reactor I can get long run times? Really I would like to see if i can get 14 hours unattended. I know that will have some design hurdles alone but it would be very sweet to run the air conditioner for once.
From what I gather, these cause WAY too much restriction/friction losses to be useful on even the smallest of engines. I once suggested an intercooler like used for turbo induction applications in racing, which should give proper flow-through, but they’re expensive, and woodgas might cause corrosion in aluminum.
hmmm i guess I could always make my own. Use thicker steel pipes and fins or better yet, a long steel box with pieces of angled steel zig zag inside it to make it cross it a lot (not to small so you dont get the said restrictions) and some form of heatsink like a large aluminum one and a strong 12 volt fan.
Hi Joshua , if you are low on funds and have plenty of free time I would defiantly try a charcoal simple fire design for your first attempt at running a engine for generating power , if you can get your hands on just a few everyday items from a local scrap yard you could be up and running very quickly indeed .
Don’t worry about buying lots of black iron pipe you wont need much at all if you go with Kristijans nozzle design as I think that seems to work very well .
Intercooler works great for that application. Had it on my wood powered moped but havent run it long enough to see how long it wuld last. Made it charcoal powerd later.
ln a good system you can theoreticaly run your geny for days. This is the buty of charcoal. Set and forget. But keep in mind you will burn lots of charcoal, and you have to make it first.
Yeah thats what I am looking into now. Trying to figure out how long a smaller generator will run. Like a 5 hp engine or so.
Pretty sure a 55 gallon drum would get around 5-6 hour of run time.
I have been on the dow quite a bit talking about engine fails, and so far it has been failure after failure, and all on motors i have tryed too rebuild, allthough none of my motors have ever ben run on wood gas yet.And the motors i have installed without rebuilding lost bearings oil PSI from petro gasoline washing out the bearings from some of my past carb motors years ago. have fun building lots of good quallity experianced wood gas design builders of the WK design And some of the imbert type design builders have drove on pure dry wood for years, by knowing the signs of the 75% leaning part. That all comes with the have wood will travel quallity book.
Joshua if your engine can still run on gasoline figure out consumption that way. How much run time does a gallon of gasoline give you while under load? Now figure on anywhere from 11 to 14 lbs of charcoal to replace that gasoline. Volume will depend on species of wood you used for your charcoal. Best I’ve got to offer…
David Baillie
You have to consider a geny rated at 5hp will be sbout 2,5hp on chargas.
In a 55 gal barrel there is about 10kg (20 pounds) of useable charcoal. That is ecvivalent to about 2 gal of gasoline. Thisis just a crude calculation.
But you culd just make a second hopper and an auger to extend your run time, l think Garry G. has made something in this fasion.
The question now is are you capable of produceing such quantitys of charcoal?
If you are absolutely certain you want to use charcoal in your system, this is what l wuld do:
get a 55 gal barrel, fit it with gas outlet and make a nozzle similar to my thick walled pipe nizzle (see nozzles for charcoal gasifiers, post 21) in a triangular or circular shape. This way you can have 3 nozzles in wich help you to use as much space as possible. Run the gas trugh a small cooler with a thermostat, set at 60°c that kills the engine when its time to refill. Or just warns you about it. Ad a simple filter and that is it. lf you know how to use basic tools you can make this in 2 hours.
I have not used a 55 gallon drum on my gasifiers yet , i use the large propane tanks that stand about 3 foot high , with a nozzle about 3 inches off the bottom and filled to the top it will run a 9hp briggs engine under load charging a bank of batteries for 6 hours easy , the new 87cc generator I have will run the whole day with ease on a tank full , a 55 gallon drum might run an engine even longer as long as it does not create rat holes up the centre due to the larger diameter of the barrel .
1:Running on charcoal gas is the fastest way to get any result.
2: Where as my 6,5 Hp genny runs 1800 watts measured on gasoline @3000 Rpm, it runs 1300 watts @3000 Rpm with charcoal gas.
3: my 200 liter drums give me between 20 and 25 kg yield per burn
4: Using nipples from the plumber , in any given size, is the most cost efficient way to do the nozzles.
5: building a sturdy design, based on a Gilmore system, will perform and last forever.
6: As Chris said earlier, and i second that, there is no substitute for a well build Wayne Keith gasifier ( sorry Mr Imbert, but its true)
7: A simple fire will teach you most from whatever you need to learn before building a full fledged woodgasifier.
8: The charcoal gas will protect your engine better then any other liquid fossil fuel, it does not degrade your engine oil nor eats away any seals
9: The charcoal consumption, compared with gasoline, is between 1 and 1.5 Kg per liter gasoline used. the closest number is 124 grams charcoal for 83 grams gasoline
My advice: follow the words of Brian, he nailed it.
For a DIY novice or starter: Charcoal, based on Gilmore
( shortest way to succes)
ow, before i forget: gasifiers are gratefull creations, feed them well, they perform well, feed them sh*t and they give you…
Your data on geny is based on water injected gasifier? l dubt plain chargas wuld give such great resaults.
l based my calculation about effective load in a 200l barrel gasofier based on the charcoal l use. Made out of low quality oak and chestnut it has a density of about 150g/l, meaning a full barrel has about 30 kg of charcoal. You can not fill ti to the edge and you can not burn it to the bottom so l think 10 kg might be a bit unerestimated but not far from the truth.
What kind of bulk denity does your bamboo char give you?
I agree on every point, well said.
Kristijan - I am trying to visualize what you are recommending.
You seem to be suggesting that your “massive nozzle” design would work in a simple fire style gasifier.
You talk about a triangular or circular configuration.
For a triangular configuration, do you mean insert 3 massive pipes spaced around the bottom of the barrel, with the pipes penetrating the outside shell to conduct the heat away?
Do you mean for the pipes to be in the traditional horizontal orientation “blowing” towards the center, or do you mean for the end of the pipe to be plugged, and holes drilled in a vertical orientation, like your seat?
Koen - I have never been exactly clear on how you do your nozzles. In the above post, you say:
“Using nipples from the plumber , in any given size, is the most cost efficient way to do the nozzles.”
I have seen a picture of one of your gasifiers where it looks like there is a pipe nipple sticking up from the bottom of the reactor, rather than coming in from the side. Vertically oriented.
Are you saying that this is all it takes to solve the “nozzle problem.” Just orient the common pipe nipple vertically, from the bottom?
There are many ways one culd make this nozzle arrangement, you named a few your self. I wuld make three air inlets on the base, put a 1" pipe in and a 90° bend faceing up. Screw a niple in and… Done.
If you want to use steam or exhaust intake you wuld have to connect them together or make a different arrengement.
You are right, The only 2 and most important things are the nozzles faceing up and haveing enough mass to conduct the heat from the tip of the nozzle. Not nesesery as thick as on my Seat (l used what l had on hand), a cast iron niple is about masive enough.
The reason l wuld go with 3 nozzles on a 200l barrel is that it is to wide on the bottom. lf you have one nozzle in the center, your char burns in a cone depression leaving a lot of unusable char around the nozzle. If you have 3, you not only loose this effect but allso lower the reaction zone (think in a way you now have 3 small gasifiers in 1) wich gives you longer runtimes. Allso you can always plug one or two nozzles lf you want to hook a smaller engine up for testing etc, without haveing to empty the gasifier, thus keeping that valuabe nozzle air velocity.
Like Koen sayd, lf you make your system right and use good feedstock you can preety much run it forever. And sometimes the simple, cheap solutions work best. l learned that the hard way
Kyle , I have been running this new 87cc DC generator last week ,on the very first run with a full load of charcoal I ran it for 4 hours , coming up to the 4 hour mark I went out to shut it down and took a reading of the gas pipe out and it was 2 degs above ambient ! that’s after 4 hours run time , I could also hold my hand flat and hard against the tank all the way down to about 6 inches above the nozzle height , to say I was amazed is an understatement at how low the temps were , and that’s running through a 1 inch TIG nozzle , it had also used only 4 inches of charcoal on that first run , compared to the 9hp the same times my temp would be around 40 degs C and about half a tank full of charcoal , the large inverter generator uses a whole tank in 4 hours and runs at around 40degs C after an hour from a full tank and around the 60 to 70 deg mark nearing the end .
The gas comes from the top of my tank on a 2 inch stainless pipe that is then reduced to a 1 inch steel pipe that runs for about 3 foot along and into a small cyclone and then into a filter bucket and out to the mixer and engine ., I have never had the filter tub hotter than about 30 degs C no matter how long I have run on any engine .
Dave
ps I am using a water drip on the small engine to increase the revs to get the amps up and at times seem to be able to get just a few amps less than what Its rated for on petrol .
