Nozzles for Charcoal gasifier's

Yes but it wasnt very expensive before about 1900 if l remember right. Napoleon was the only guy in europe with an aluminium fork and spoon, it was worth much more thain gold.
I iften think how nice it wuld be to send some beercans back in time and all the money they wuld be worth :smile:

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Help me with your thoughts. What are the problems you see with using a double ended aluminum nozzle with water drip/flow set for a car engine under load? Would this open ended approach avoid “killing the charbed” during idle? Would adding a solonoid valve on the water line with a simple on-off switch at the throttle be helpful to keep the excess steam from overwhelming the charbed at idle?

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With a double open end l see no problem except maybee a few drops might overflow from the end at lower gas demand (idle).
My nozzle was designed to always hold a bit of water on the bottom to aid cooling and ad steam.
Imagine a 4" pipe welded on each end, with a 1/2" plumbing nipple welded in one end.
Like l sayd, great for engine under load, bad for trafficlights.

I think your valve idea shuld work great.

An eaven simpler idea was presented to me by Max, to use a small carburator with throtleplates removed to precisely meter water in relation of airflow in the gasifier.

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I have tried a carburettor on my system to see if I could get a way of demand amounts of water into my charcoal , it was a small carb off a generator , for some reason I could not get the velocity right to get the water spray , was a case of too much or too little and did not have time to mess too much in the end , shame because I can see it would be a good way of metering water into the system , will have to give it another try one day .

Bruce is there a reason why you want to carry on trying out the aluminium pipe ,
wouldn’t a mild steel or stainless pipe now be best to try on your system ?

Dave

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Hi Bob ,
Sorry I must have missed your question about using a larger pipe , I’m pretty sure that having the bottom half of the pipe sealed so as to trap some of the water so it puddles would work ok if used on a moving vehicle .
I think that once Bruce can put some hours on his system we will find that with a straight through open ended pipe nozzle, and once the build up of slag around his holes will workout just fine to protect the material , and that cooling the tube with extra water wont be needed , just enough water to add a boost and not so much that condensation becomes a problem .

Still it will be fun trying out all manners of ways to improve so lets keep on playing and inventing .
Dave

Hi, Charcoal glowers!

It seems like a “dogma”, that charcoal nozzles

have to be put into the white-glowing char.

In essence, you only need to put a strong beam

of air into the white-glowing char.

Every time this is put forward, it comes a flood of denials
grounded on old studies without any alternatives compared.

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Hi Max, that’s what I am trying to do with my Charcoal Gasifier, the nozzle with in a nozzle will NOT be touching the char at all. Just started working on it again after being side tracked on the WK side of Gasification.
Bob

Hi Bob!
23. of November 2016

Remember, that a furious air blast has a furious sucking from the sides and behind.
This “filles up” with return char all up to the nozzle-tip, and there you are!

The only orientation avoiding this “fill up” is the vertical down-blast, from an “artificial” cavity, as the gravity stops it to be filled; the fill-up is going on, but the blast beam sucks it down like an “ant-lion” burning it out below.

The “fill-up” cannot build up uphill, as the “ground” for it is continuously remowed downhill, by the sucking blast.

As a side phenomenon, the airbeam also sucks lots of ready made gas and uses it in the process again and again.

(Like a circulation distillery!)

You cannot get rid of the backstream; use it to your benefit!

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I have my nozzles reset back into a fire brick hole about 2". The charcoal is going to be kept away by 60* slope all around the nozzle area at 3 to 4" away form the bottom of the fire brick. I was hoping the cross draft vacuum would help keep the char moving in that direction.
The char feed will not come from above but in from the sides at 60* slope. There are side walls that will keep the char away from the fire brick hole. But can see your point of the backstream from the nozzle blast. I would love to have a viewing port to look into a see what is going on. Thanks again for you input on this.
Bob

Hi Max,

No Dogma at all :grin:

The only “doubtful” would be the gas sucked out this cavity,(bell), as per your suggestion, not passing thru a layer of glowing charcoal.

Using a “blast” effect, to keep the glowing charcoal touching the nozzle tip is , per se, a good idea, but is it feasible ?

Looking into the perspective of a piece of glowing charcoal, then the surface getting in contact with the O molecules, is way far hotter then the rest of the piece. actually it nears the 3000 degree celcius, be it short time, per molecule. The radiation heat will make the environment hot and the carbon will absorb the biggest part of it in the transition to become gas.
Carbon will stay carbon until its oxydised with O, or sublimate if its above 4000 degree’s Celcius.

I am using very high silica content materials, where as silica vitrify’s at 2800 dergree celcius or above.

looking at the clumps of molten lava inside my gasifiers, its easy to see where the blast pushes the vitrified silica.

Even having a cavity, where the nozzle is free from contact, should not change the need for the gas passing thru a layer of glowing Carbon, for the reduction, never to forget dough that the blast is created by the suction/vacuum from an engine/blower.
The vacuum point is the part where as we should avoid to get non reduced volatile matter or Co2.

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Hi guy’s,

water… endless fun, but never an obstacle.

having a"pool" of water in the lower part of the nozzle pipe is a damn good idea.
It will act self regulating, since at low gas demand the temperature will drop and less heat will make less steam.

A vacuum controlled solenoid does also work ( been there, does the job very fine )

remember only one thing: you have the knowledge, you have the skills… so you can build anything

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Hi, Koen!
23.11.2016

“The only “doubtful” would be the gas sucked out this cavity,(bell), as per your suggestion, not passing thru a layer of glowing charcoal.”

It has passed the lower parts of the glowing “blow-bottle” walls lower down before it comes slowly up outside in the passive surrounding char. That’s unavoidable, and rational.

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Max, here is a sketch of what I think you are talking about.


Hope it is clear enough for you.
Bob

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Hi, Bob!
23. of November 2016

No, that seems vertically “compressed” and tumbelling.
A well done nozzle has about 7 degrees of diversion in its blow beam.
From the center of the cavity bottom, a narrow-throated
“bottle-cavity” reaches downwards , like an oldtime limonade bottle.
Then the gases “leak” out through the walls and flow upwards.
The nozzle tip needs not to be more than 1/2 – 1" above the actual char
level under the “upside-down” funnel. To keep its “cutting sharpness”.
Below the “bottle” some grating helps cleaning the collected ash.
And, the diameter of the upside-down funnel needs not to be more
than ~8 – 10 charbits, if you do not intend to take out the gas from
under it, coaxially with the inlet tube.

The nozzle blowing is no floppy blowing, but burn-cutting.

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Max. It is after midnight here so I don’t have time tonight to draw another picture with the changes you have stated. If I don’t have to shovel snow in the morning, I would like to send another drawing. I’m not into charcoal very much — still working on the changes to my gasifier— but when ever you post information such as this, I try to make a drawing of it for my own clarification. I know how you hate for me to ask questions, so I will get a drawing off with what I understand, and you can make comments or ignore it. TomC

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Hi Max,

As long as the “to be reduced’s” are passing thru a sufficient layer glowing carbon, with sufficient dwell time/contact time/ transition time, then i don’t see any problem, hence this idea of yours even might be the best idea ever.

Max,
Thanks so much for trying again to help us see the possibility of keeping our nozzles out of the white-glowing char. My very first charcoal gasifier was a Kalle style with a coaxial gas outlet. It worked great, but he nozzle did get oxidized away quite rapidly. If I had added your funnel, the nozzle would have been protected.

If I understand this correctly, when adding a protective funnel the diameter of the nozzle needs to be matched fairly closely to the load in order to keep the air velocity high enough to carve the necessary “bottle cavity” with adequate glowing char around the bottle neck to reduce the CO2 to CO.

This conversation reminds me of your advice a few years ago to use a dog house over horizontal nozzles for the same protective effect.I assume that a horizontal nozzle with a “doghouse” would be a little more forgiving about nozzle diameter because the CO2 would always be passing through glowing char at the outer peak of the doghouse roof even when there was not enough velocity to carve out a deeper bottle shape cavity.

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Hi Tom
I greatly appreciate your drawings that interprets Max’s information.
They often help me understand.
Thanks Thierry

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Hi, Tom!
23. of November 2016

I have not made any changes; only different perceptions have come and gone!

I remember that as a “bird house” Bruce.:wink: