I think I see the problem here. it is in your wood.
As you know, the gasification has to take place in an oxygen restricted environment. In the Fema design, the level of oxygen present is controlled strictly by the restriction of the air flowing through the wood in the firetube and hopper. In your video, you have only a very little wood in the firetube of large pieces, and no hopper at all. this allowing almost unrestricted supply of air. What you need is burn tube full to top of small chunks of wood, perhaps pellet size. this is of course on top of your bed of fine charcoal.
I agree with Andy. Peanut size wood would be nice. Husks or shells of some kind would be easy.
Chris has not replied about posting the pdf file so I will PM you to see if I can email it to you.
Carbon monoxide is very poisonous so if you are running that inside or shelters from wind it will kill ! ! ! ! !
BE CAREFUL ! !
As Andrew and Jeff said already and i ad:
At this point you only have a smoke producer pot
now you have to blow that smoke thru a bed of glowing charcoal to make gas that burns
You will need to follow some
basics of gasification: temperature high + oxygen low in the glowing char bed…
no glowing charcoal bed = no gas that can burn
to start with a bottom full of charcoal, small pieces, minimum layer 1/3 of your tube
to fill to the top with small dense pieces of wood, in your case not bigger then 15 to 20 mm
put a cover on top with a hole diameter smaller then your gas outlet
No need to use a paint can to make your flare, just make a little fire pot to reduce the risk of CO poisoning, if the gas will burn, you will see it easy.
Hello Olajide,
I watched your video several times and spotted a few things. At 1:04 you turn on your fan, however at 1:28 to 1:30 I see some smoke coming UP through the fire tube instead of being drawn down. This tells me that your fan is not powerful enough. Also locate your fan as far as possible AWAY from any heat that might melt your wires or motor parts.
I agree with Andrew and Koen, the wood as you show it isn’t quite loaded correctly for start up. You need to develop a bed of charcoal that the gas passes through to do the chemistry to produce the flammable gases.
This is the start up procedure I used and my grate. For meaningful results you must use DRY wood. Wet wood loads the smoke up with steam and you will never get it to sustain a flame. You can hold a torch to it and see that there is burnable gas there, but move the torch away and the flame will not sustain by itself. If you try to start an engine with wet gas, the spark plug immediately fouls with water and will never start. Now how did I find that out?!
I included this video to show what the start up flame should look and sound like before you load it up with fuel.
@ 1:18 this shows the fully loaded firetube. The fire burns up the tube and the CO2 and H2O (products of complete combustion) are drawn down through the the red hot coals and the C, H, and O atoms reunite to become the gaseous fuels, carbon monoxide CO, methane CH4 and hydrogen H. As it stands now you have incomplete combustion that is loaded with steam.
I never ran an engine off my FEMA because I started my work on the imbert gasifier, a superior design for sure, albeit more complex to build. The results, however, far out weigh the hassle of the build. I realize you’re working on a proof of concept for now, but the bug will get you. I used an air ejector system, but a fan will work fine also.
Hope this helps.
Pepe
hi all, am going to work on my wood feed-stock, i will to get wood pellet or wood chunk in my next test, another to good thing is that i just understand is that i should try as much as possible to reduce oxygen inflow in the hopper by arraignment of the wood material, using wood pellet or chunks of small pieces.
Big thanks to jeff davis, you always talk about safety which is very important, Carbon monoxide is very poisonous, am aware. the result of next test will be shared here .
Big thanks Andrew, i believe my gas will soon flare.