Mercedes-Benz E230 vol. 2, charcoal powered

This was the first gasifier, and we flared and flared. Garyā€™s video showed him dropping dog food, pieces of plastic, oil soaked wood, and all sorts of stuff into the unit, and we did the same. We lit the charcoal with a piece of rope saturated with gunpowder, dropped down the inlet. Our flare was not what we were expecting. It was much too yellow, and we were chasing the ā€œMagic Blueā€ color. People offered opinions that we were using charcoal made from land that used to be under the ocean (high in Calcium and Salts), or that we had too many dead possums in the charcoal making barrel, or that some sort of other salts were being picked up by our charcoal. In retrospect, the charcoal had way too many large pieces, included too many fines, and may have had even contained raw wood. Later, we stopped flaring, added a GEK Cyclone, and a Gilmore type cyclone with charcoal and foam filtering, but switched the reactor to a Simple-Fire, and got nice blue/purple flares, and were bold enough to run engines. We never ran the output from the Kalle to any engines, thinking it wasnā€™t good enough.


With the Simple-Fire, we have both EGR and water drip, and the nozzles are protected with castable refractory, including TIG cups, which are copies of the ones Dave in New Zealand had success with. Here is how I made them:

Iā€™m a fanatic about eye and hearing protection. There are safety glass, goggles, and shooting ear muffs all over my shop. I did not protect my skin enough, so I have had 23 surgeries on head, ears, neck, arms, shoulders, and the back to remove skin cancer. (Not a good way to lose weight!) Also, I should have been using sunglasses more than I did.
Now, I suppose I should be more careful about charcoal dust, and probably use those 3M respirator masks longer than I should. Remember those old Western Movies where they used bandannas over their noses and mouth? (Not really effective.)

9 Likes

Yeah, most of the men (and a few women) in my family have been mechanics and welders for 7 generations now. When I was first married, I almost caused a family feud when I told my dad and grandparents and great grandparents that I would not train my boys for that kind of work because of how broken and blind and weak they all looked all the time from breathing welding fumes, and digging metal fragments out of their eyes, and laying in grease all day long, and soaking themselves with brake cleaner and ether, etc.
Then I figured out what none of them ever taught meā€¦You donā€™t have to do it that way. So I tried to break the mold and taught my children to use protective gear. My 14 year old now wears a pair of ear plugs as a necklace. My youngest wonā€™t do anything without goggles and eye protection on. All of them just see that as part of the standard operating procedure now. Truth be told, it gets kind of annoying sometimes to have them reminding me all the time that Iā€™m not wearing enough of it myself. LOL. But Iā€™m glad they seem to have changed the standard. Maybe theyā€™ll live a couple decades longer than their ancestors. My dad now welds by sound and feel instead of sight cause he canā€™t see well enough. Seems to me that I remember both my grandfathers and great grandfathers doing the same thing. I tried to quit that stuff when I was young and I can tell a marked difference between my own health and that of my dad when he was my ageā€¦

6 Likes

Hi Til,
Welcome to DOW.
1: The video posted is actually a raw wood gasifier, mistakenly described as charcoal gasifier.
2: yes, the best solutions for overheating nozzles, tempering the glowing charcoal are EGR and water drip, both enhancing the gas quality. Even stated by Kalle that 17% Co2 mix was possible.
3: The kalle gasifier system is sensitive on its fuel but however teaches us a lot about how to manage some problems that occur to other builders.

My opinion: a: creating perfect fuel is less cumbersome then trying to build your gasifier around less quality fuel. Hence i make high quality charcoal for starters.
b: i completely empty/refill my gasifier for every next run, works as a charm and this i consider as my secondary advice.
building a gasoutlet and a hopper shutoff valve between reactor chamber and hopper are on my list. saves me refill/cleanup time.

The heat accumulation occuring in my charcoal gasifiers does not comes thru the charcoal but from the heattransfer from the metals. The balance between descending charcoal and rising gas has been established in the construction sizing. The less waterdrip i use, the less i need to worry about wet gas heat rising.
using a insulation ring/flange between reactor body and hopper, will block heattransfer thru the metal.

If i put my gasifier in the driving wind the gasifier stays at ambient temperature even at 30 cm above the nozzle.
The gas power is significant greater with cooler gas.

For starters: nothing beats a simple fire system
For advanced: I havenā€™t seen something better or more versatile then a WK gasifier yet.

Overall: I learn here on DOW every dayā€¦ and enjoy every minute reading here

6 Likes

I would like to second that, but my earlier postings would make it a standing jokeā€¦ :grin:
( welding and plasma cutting barefoot or on flipflopsā€¦ )

9 Likes

Thank you again Ray!

Ha, l highly dubt dead possums culd be the reason, afterall, Wayne repots geting 5 miles from a dead cat! :smile:

l am unfortunaly the oposite of protection fanatic. This accident sobered me thugh.
I am truely sorry to hear about your cancer surgerys. I hope you are done with them.

Billy, good point. I look up to you at raising my 2 kids, my 2.5 year old son is about starting to help me with simple tasks, l hope he becomes as capable as your kids are in a few years.

Koen, l am preety sure the gasifier from the video is a Swedish Mako downdraft charcoal gasifier. Look again. No cooler condense tank, only 3 big nozzles, no restriction, cooler wery smallā€¦

Ha, the hopper shutoff idea is interasting. Makes sence.

I agree on the simple fire design. Hard to beat simplicity. Its hard to do here thugh, with a max height of the reactor at 65cm and powering a 134hp engine! The reaction zone needs to be shortened/lowered to gain hopper volume/range.

In this spirit, two designs come to mind. My Seat gasifier milti nozzle updraft desigh, or a crossdraft.
Sincce the updraft showed problematic at insulated hoppers, l will, for a start, go with a crossdraft.
And, l second what you sayd on fuel quality. Thats why l was thinking to either make the nozzle or grid adjustible. That way l can set the lengh of nozzle-grid, takeing the gas out at the edge of reduction zone. This shuld burn most tars shuld they be present.

5 Likes

Good Morning (depends on which part of the world you are :wink: ),

Koen, thanks for your long reply.

Iā€™m sorry, but I think you are mistaken here and I would join Kristijanā€™s statement. And it matches very well with the cross section of the Mako in the swedish gengas book.

Yes, this is for sure a better approach. If you can guarantee good quality char, Iā€™m absolutely with you.
But if you are traveling around and have to rely on different fuel sources, this may be a problem. This is why downdraft charcoal gasifiers were almost exclusively used in Sweden in WW2, except from the KƤlle. And today, just think of a bag of BBQ charcoal, which is not engine grade.

This is very interesting and for sure practical experience that Iā€™m missing so far.

Kristijan, I really like your Seat gasifier. It should for sure be possible to upscale it for the MB.
If you go for a cross-draft, I for myself find the Gohin-Poulenc very inspiring, both gasifier and the filter design. Quite compact and simple. It was very popular in France.
For sure you know this thread: Gohin Poulenc
And there is a french web-site with more information and pictures: Admission d'air par tuyĆØres
There is an interesting nozzle design with two different cross section for the air entry, making it kind of adjustable to the suction load of the engine. In a book from Switzerland I found a drawing of a moveable nozzle. I donā€™t have it here, but will look it up later at home.

The only disadvantage that I have read often about cross-drafts are slag formation and fairly high pressure drop.

Hope that helped a bit and I dindnā€™t wrote just things you all already know.

And Kristijan, hope your eye will be soon OK again! Be careful with eyes and ears, they donā€™t grow again once lost! I was also a bit careless in the past with that, but I can feel the first problems with my ears now. Not too bad, but enough to be an alarming sign for me.

Regards,
Tilman

3 Likes

Good morning Til!

Its late morning here too, and l am from Slovenia, l guess we are close?

Culd you be more exact on which Gohin-poulanc do you reffer to? They made different gasifiers as far as l know.

Slag formation will be somewhat dampened with egr/water drip, and pressure drop will be dampened with placeung the nozzle/grid at a 45Ā° diagonal. A cross between up and cross draft. Thats the primary plan rhughā€¦

3 Likes

I never did read the Gengas book entirely and i should haveā€¦

This particulate section says it all: page 95
ā€œit has been pointed out that rational charring, utilizing all byproducts,
yields large quantities of byproducts that are valuable for the nationā€™s economy, so that
charcoal operation is well justified and useful for the nation, in spite of its larger wood
consumption.ā€
Yes, and certain where as Heat for other purposes is needed. Byproduct Charcoal

Types of Charcoal gasifiers: page 100
ā€œ(1) up-draft, (2) down-draft, and (3) cross-draft. The Kalle generator may be
considered a fourth type.ā€
I think a Gilmore style, My style, Bob Style and Kristijanā€™s are rather the 5 th styleā€¦ as long we keep the charcoal premium grade
Following the updraft principle for good reactivity and the Nozzle sizing and waterdrip for higher temperature controlā€¦
so much we can learn from and ad to the old stylesā€¦

Kristijan,
I do see the similarity with the Mako, it looks however a modified version ? only 3 nozzles and the blower in push mode.
must be a rebuild or copy from model coz the original had a Gragas system vertical center nozzle and the later S1 had four nozzles pointing downwards and a typical egg shape for front installation.

1 Like

Hi Kristijan,

yes, we are not too far away from each other. I live in Germany. Compared to those over the big pond or Koen, itā€™s pretty close :slight_smile:

Yes, of course. I was referring especially to the one shown on the french website: Admission d'air par tuyĆØres
There are some pictures of the gasifier, filter and some drawings of the water cooled nozzle.
The nozzle with the two diameters (one for full power, one for low power or idling) is shown in the last pictures. Everything is written in french, but google translate should help.

Koen, you are right, itā€™s not exactly a Mako S, maybe a modification, copy or slightly different type. But itā€™s close.

This is what Max Gasman often says and that is why I try to read everything about gasifiaction what I can get. The books from the 40s are very useful, as there is a lot of condensed practical knowledge and lessons learned. Add the knowledge and materials from today and we have an excellent base for gasification.

Regards,
Til

3 Likes

Koen, l read trugh all of it last weekend, it offers amazeing knowlidge usefull for all, newbies to profesionals.

I second on all you sayd. I am most interasted in your work regarding other byproducts of charcoal production. Keeep us posted, l wuld love to have a fully developed sistem at home.

Til,
We are quite close then! Chalk a nother line for team Europe :wink:

I will send the link to my step mother, she is French. thank you.
If you remember reading my Seat topic, those nozzles are exactly the kind l used first on my Seat crossdraft.

I decided to try and start makeing some progress today.

Cold temps and one eyesight forced me to work slowly but accuretly, and in all dedication my dearest wife came by, with a sharp ā€œwhy are you makeing a mailbox?ā€ :smile:
So this gasser is now officialy named ā€œThe Mailbox gasifierā€. :smile:

Now, what lead my wife to belive l got a new hobby building mailboxes, is in fact a mufler shaped reaction chamber. Since l extracted the original mufler, l thod of makeing the lower part of the gasifier mufler shaped, and make the light port/air intake look like a tailpipe.

8 Likes

Hi,

yes, Team Europe is growing. Maybe one day we can organise our own ā€œArgosā€-Event :slight_smile:

I read the complete seat story of course :wink: And can remember your first nozzle design.

Great to see your progress with the mailbox gasifier.

I donā€™t want to push you, but could you please make a sketch of this if time allows? Is it something like Fig. 13 (from the book "Pegasus Unit, Driving on Wood: The lost art of driving without gasoline)?

Regards,
Til

4 Likes

First mailbox ever with a tailpipe :smile: Looking good.

2 Likes

Hi Til, I really like that idea.

3 Likes

Great information exchange guys.
I love to read this.
I am so much enjoying my winter woodstove fireside retirement reading.

Left out is the Australian Pedrick system. A sidedraft with an internal heart plate mass to decrease some of the the disadvantages of side draft charcoaling.
Ask Chris Seymour to chime in as he built one for a heavy duty towing Ford commercial van.

For your MB trunk space KristijanJ, you are finding as BenP did on his in-trunk Mustang car unit that sideways flows rule supreme to fit your space. Even overriding other considerations.
The wine must fit the bottle. You cannot resort to just a larger bladder filled box.
Regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh

3 Likes

Kristijan, if you keep this kind of crafty stealth work going in your gasifier build, you wonā€™t have to pull it out for your yearly inspection. How many exhaust pipes under the car? Yes sir I can prove they give me incredibly better GAS mileage.
KristijanL Mailbox Gasifier. The KLM Gasifier. Sounds good.
Bob

5 Likes

Hi again,

once more I found something in old books. Just say if itā€™s getting too much.

First, the already promised moveable nozzle for better adjusting to low and high power output:
nozzle
The legend is in german, but you can see the dotted idle-position and the position for higher loads. And there are cooling fins.

There is also a drawing and a picture of the KƤlle gasifier, but not much information.

And an example of an updraft gasifier, a bit similar to the forge type. The air inlet seems to be arranged to cool the metal parts of the hearth and thus preheat the air.
updraft

All pictures above are from a book from Switzerland, published in 1944. Similar to the swedish gengas book, but even more comprehensive. Lots of gasification theory, many practical examples, recommendations of engine modification and so on. But it is written in german. If anyone is interested, I can send a scan.

Regards,
Til

6 Likes

Til, not sure if I have seen the Abb. 14. nozzle in the DOW library.
Maybe @Chris could check it out on what you have, and add it to the library if we donā€™t already have it in there. He is The DOW Web Administrator. My memory fails me sometimes these days.
Thanks for posting it. My nozzle does some what the same function, ha and I thought I was coming up with something new. @SteveUnruh you are so right on this gasification stuff, nothing new under the sun here,
Just repeating things that have already been tried, and somethings work quite well I might say.
Bob

2 Likes

Hi Till,
yes please, a scan would be great.
I donā€™t have a problem with reading German

2 Likes

Thatā€™s great Koen, then you could tell us what being said in the text.
Iā€™m reading by pictures only, and might be missing somethings being said.
Bob

2 Likes

Never too late to study other languages, there are worlds out there unknown to English speakersā€¦ :smile:

4 Likes