Keep it up Matt, I like hearing about developments like this that are on the cutting edge of new ideas, when it comes to gasifcation for generating, home heating, or prime mover.
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Matt, all praise for your work on charcoal gasifiers, well, some of the AI (artificial intelligence) numbers are not correct. Preparing wood chips (motor fuel) from branches: if I burn in a gasifier and travel 2 km, grind 2 pm of chips, use 10 kg of wood fuel,… this amounts to less than 1% of the energy of the wood that I brought home. Preparing and transporting wood - branches is much easier and faster this way, you only need a place to dry.
Regarding the power of the engine on wood gas compared to running on charcoal,… I have already written a lot about this, … wood gas achieves diesel torque and engine power,… 
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Agreed the AI comparisons are not correct.
There is no accounting for the energy “loss” of making first the wood charcoal.
While the oft quoted 50% loss is imho too high. I personally think it is more in the range of 25-35%.
It cannot be less than 10% of the initial woods high heating value.
This making charcoal energy is well shown in the heat spalling metals of making charcoal containers. Also in the visible hot emissions of that step.
Since wood gasification had many full usage factors calculated then wood charcoal must also if this to be an actual comparison.
This AI is stupid biased. Calculating on a GIGO basis.
Steve Unruh
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Yeah it does. The VersiFier outputs a 35% yield. when the water injection reclaim factored back in it bring it back up to 75%. Is what it is saying here.
In fact if 1;1 water to charcoal ratio can be achieved the BTU value of the water is almost twice that of the charcoal. BTW the experiments Im doing with the nozzles has nothing to do with them melting I dont have that issue and never have. This is about steam injection only
Its not biased either on the flip side it favors wood systems for V8. It pretty much echoes what I percieve as the limitations and that is 1000 cc engine. Bellow this engine size and also for stationary home off grid charcoal systems win hands down. Because you can create hot water for both heating and demesitic hot water use, charcoal systems can easily self sustain and the gas with a high volume steam injection is far more powerful gas. Here is another fact I had to change the air mixer valve from a 3/4 valve to a 1 inch valve because the 3/4 valve even full bore cant enter in enough air to lean out the mixture on the new systems.
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You guys need to keep in mind we at 500cc engine scale. Wood fuel dont work for stationary at a comercial prodcuct level and the CXF’/ VersiFire is more effiecient reguardless if you want to see it or not. Im also doing this " daily " not just one in a while or a few times a year. No everyday!!! Until you can do this for a month straight sustaining I dont want to hear it.
Until you build the VersiFire and see how effiecient it is and build gasifier that can achieve what Im achieving now you will remain blind.
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Yeah wait until I start testing the VersiFire with the water heater coil. It can " theorectically " heat 200 gallons of water from 70F to 160F in its typical run time. Thats a lot of heat and is enough to supliment home heating for a tiny home or an RV plus demestic hot water. Thats also energy saved as I dont have to produce hot water with the off grid system. So you can add that back into the charcoaling loss too…
Also what is posted is only a tiny portion of the analysis. This test string is mile long and it did go through all the caculation and it did it on its own. AI does understand and likely better than any of us. You can guide the AI too, but here is the thing I didnt, the only thing I told it about my wood gas experience is I developed it activelly for the first 8 years before changing to charcoal. I never once gave it any perspective of my own. It did all that on its own. lol
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Now the question remains; is a 1:1 water to charcoal ratio possible? I have come very close to achieving this, however I did not have the technology to do this sustaining. But now I do!! So we will soon see, Ive added everything I possibly could think of into this next machines design to achieve this and If anything I think I will be pretty close if not achieving it. The 2026 CXF Si has some technology built into it none of you have seen before.
One last thing. Im not an advocate for AI I follow it and I think this is a very dangerouse technology. It will eventually become the beast. I have a pretty deep understanding of whats to come and it isnt good.
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A firewood splitter is a wonderful thing and I spend a lot of time using one but I also drag a splitting maul around and try and do at least a couple face cords a year that way. Because? Easier usually makes a person weaker. If you don’t use it you lose it. Kids today cannot do basic math. They whip out their phone and get the calculator app. The cannot write or read cursive. I could list a lot of basic life skills that are now abandoned in favor of easy. Reliance on AI will eventually atrophy even basic analytical abilities for the majority of people. AI will explain it all but who explained it to AI?
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Once AGI is achieved it will learn exponentially. We have not seen anything yet. Once they get quantum computers figuired out AI will theoretcially be able to think and process data like the human mind. Right now classical computers require TONS of energy and compute power to achieve what it does currently. Quantum computers will cut this down drastically and allow a for massive growth. Its so complex no human on earth not even the developers fully understand what they have created.
There is a lot of good that can and will come out of this. but equally there will also be a lot of bad that will come with it. They need to put the breaks on this immediatly and start regulation on this tech until its better understood.
I started using AI in a couple of forms about a year ago reluctantly. It updates about every 2 months and you can litterally see it getting smarter as you use it. If you get bad data thats because of your input not so much the AI. The AI is still a machine and you have keep that in mind when you use it.
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You know something else just becouse someone shows a gasifiere on video running an engine for five minutes dont mean it works or is even vialbe in an off grid situation used daily. I can do that to and done it. In fact will be testing the 2026 CXF Si on chip fuel. That test in this video that gasifier actually outperfromed many of the dedicated units Ive built. You just can not run wood fuel consectutively and you will definatly want to build additional filtering. But because the way it flows is why it outperformed those small hearthed machines that were prone to bridgding and flow issues. Add all the insulation you want if you cant flow the machine its not going to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATTDJ7poR98&list=TLPQMTUwMzIwMjZsk0QPmT1VDg&index=7
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Ok made some changes to the VersiFire Burner and designed in full insulated shrouds with a massive water heat exchanger. In stand alone mode it can work as a portable camp fire and it has revisions to fit an 18 BBQ grill on top of it. Could even make a charcoal pan that hanges in the middle to use its own charcoal.
Second change is, Im going to reconfiguire the cemtrallized retort/kiln drum vent to 3) 3/4 inch pipe with double flanges on the base. This will help reduce wieght in the center plus they will be held up against the top side with straps to the side of the drum. This will make them easier to load and pack more fuel in. Sean suggested this in the bigging. lol
Third change is, I added a third stage air after burn intake. This eliminates the need for the lower 3 ball valves. When this is open this removes roughly 40% of the draft load on the lower combined two. This is about the same as throttling the valves back. The flame cut out gives the VersiFire identity. So how this works is you slide this ring damper closed this forces all the air in throu the main and second stage air vents to get the fire going and heat the retort. Once the retort start gasifying you open this vent and that allows more air in after to burn off access gases. This will help balance the heat upward with this upper level input air.
So now we have the hotter flame we are going to take access heat with a water heat exchange coil here and insululate it with 2 inch ceraic cloth that I stock with a 55 gallon cut in half for the jacket. Instead of copper Im going to use 100 foot of corrogated 1’/2 inch NG stainless steal flex hose. This is better for a number of reasons. First is its much cheaper, you can get 100 foot for around 80 bucks on Amazon. Even thought its not as conductive as copper it makes up for that because its corrogated its more like 200 feet but more focused. Because its corrogated it can expand and retract without cracking. Then its way easier to work with. This should be able to heat 220 gallons possibly more of water from 50F to 180F. This much water in mass holds roughly 146000 BTU of usable heat energy. In my situation I could place 4 to 8 drums under the RV and skirt it and it would a day plus provide dimestic hot water and its simple to add. You will have one vertical accumulator this is the drum you heat with the VersiFire; In this drum you place a second heat exchange plummded directly into your hot water circul or in place of the hot water heat as will be using. You use the same SS tubing but only need around 30 feet or so that will only lose about 5% from the Acumulator temp so 180F is really hot it will only drop that 5 degrees. You could also build an insulated box and use forced air to make a furnace. Or pump them through a radiator for forced radiant heat.
Now I added a riser craddle that the upper kiln stage sits on so that it can vent out here rather than thru the center to fire box like before. This makes it simpler to build. So here you put in your green wood and as you batch run; you will drive all the moisture out with properly seasoned wood. It may even toriffy a portion. This makes just a small fire in the fire box shift the retort more directly to a gasifying state. Then with the added third air stage vent and added insulation it will hopefully self sustain with out adding much if any more fuel into the fire box. Pine feul is also the best fuel you can use in the VersiFire as it burns fast and hot and that is exactly what you want to get the retort gasifying.
Ok now the shroud drums with the water coil configuiration I changed to the shorter 20 gallon drums to make them more managable plus maintian the hieght for the lower for when in BBQ mode the water heat exchanger stage can be left installed. Plus in this mode you are still only removing the two shrouds but will be more managabale with added insulation and the outer 55 gal jacket added.
It also has an emergency shut off. You just simply put the larger lid for the top shroud on just watch for the back draft down bellow.
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Ok Built and fired it up. I added flanges to the ring damper so its adjustable.
It was a little well done lol .
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Ok ran the first charcoal batch of the year. So far the top vents seem to have been one of the missing pieces of the VersiFire recipe. Earlier itterations of this, when the retort is gasifying it can over produce and make a bit of smoke. Its the first run so fuel is fresh Im harvesting fuel from slat wood that is available and its pretty green. Im running pine branches from a dead tree we took down last year in the VersiFire’s fire box plus the bark from the hard wood. This run took 4 hours to complete. It never made smoke beyond what little bit it makes when you put fresh fuel in the fire box. Its not very much when it does the smoke quickly dispates as soon as it leaves the stack. Otherwise its pretty much smokeless even when gasifying at least for this run, (this could change once I start running dryer fuel I dont know). But this is a change; as before they typically make some smoke at this stage. It also ran more stable, it never shifted into a violent inferno mode and seemed to move slower when transitioning into different states of the process. The retort Pyrolysis stage was much slower and controlled than I remember from the last time I ran this system. You can tell when the retort is gasifying; as the intervals you need to feed the system prolongs 2X or longer. The tree bark worked perfectly here as a fuel to just keep the process sustainable. Once I add the insulation it wont need as much fuel to assist the process. I think a lot of the stablization is because those third stage vents raise up combustion from the added retort gases. This stage air / gas mix, burns higher up on the retort so the heat is applied more even with the process. (Hot bellow heating the bottom first; then heating upward heating the sides of the retort once gasifying).
I was hopeing I might be able to eliminate the top stage air damper. But I think its needed at least at this point. On this run when I had it closed with fresh fuel in the burn box, it would heat up a lot faster then with it open. But once all the fuel got good and going, you open that up and it just takes off especially once the retort is ready to make gas. It also runs cooler than before but thats a good thing its still plenty hot.
I got an idea for a simple crane for this thing. Im going to take a Harbor Frieght dolly cart and put larger wheels on it and then put out riggers that mount to the lift plate underneath it. Then an extention with adjustable arm and pulley / crank system that will bolt to the dolly cart chassis.
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I got some wieghts on the yeild, kild dried fuel and then the gross wieght of the kiln with a new load of fuel. I didnt get any wieghts on the drums this first run. But I can use these wieghts to estimate yield verses losses.
Gross of the Kiln stage 57 lbs
Dried wieght: 37 lbs
Char Yeild: 11.5 lbs
Ok the starting wieght here is not 57 lbs this wieght reduction is from heat reclaim and is the kiln stage. In a wood fuel scenario you would dry this fuel another way. Air drying, solar kiln etc. So in either case air drying is a free process for both and this space is available here so requardless of the fuel MC we can take advantage of this heat that is available. In the case of the VersiFire the point of the kiln is an added process to reclaim heat energy loss.
Our starting wieght for the retort is 37 lbs and the yeild is 11.5 or roughly 31% by wieght. Now this is where I think some get lost. This does not mean there is a 69% loss. The energy value of the charcoal yield verses the wood BTU value is roughly a 48% yeild. Once you are pushing 30% and higher wieght yeild; you are pushing the 50/50 BTU ratio. Now theroetically if we can crack 1:1 ratio water to charcoal by wieght, we are basically putting that 50% loss back in the mix. The realistic loss after the water gas cycle is factored back in is only a 5% loss. So even if I dont achieve that 1:1 ratio I bet will get close and even a 20% total loss after everything is factored in Id be perfectly fine with; this still outperforms even the best wood fueled systems but cleaner, less complexity, little to no maintenance far better self sustaining, less labor in fuel processing etc.
This is not factoring in the hot water production from the VersiFire. An electric hot water heater uses about 5 kW a day. So this at minimum what just this alone is putting back into the off grid system. But the VersiFire in a 2 to 3 hour batch run should be able to heat 6 times this amount of water per batch run. So thats not only demestic hot water, this is reclaimed heat that can be put into a water heat battery made with drums for suplimental heating or even your primary. In my case with the RV and If stored in the shop it should be able to sustain all my heat daily on top of hot water plus keep pipes from freezing. That is coming soon Im likely going to move the RV into the shop in the next coming months.
So anyways I started a log. The numbers arel likely going to oscilate as this run took 4 hours to convert to charcoal so the top kiln had 4 hours of drying time. Now this will be the retort next and it will not require more than 2 to 3 hours to convert. So the kiln stage on this next batch will be wetter. then it will take longer and then that kiln batch will be dryer and so forth until things balance out. The wood fuel in the VersiFire is waste so I dont count it as input energy this wood is pine and its pretty much worthless. This fuel however works great in the VersiFire becuase it runs hot so it burns very clean.
Edit: To be fair that BTU calculation was based on the 37# Oak wood fuel to be perfectly dry. Unfortunatly I cant find my MC tester. But by the looks of that fuel; I think it still had 20% mc in it yet. That actuallly changes the numbers drastically to only a 40% loss. If I use 10% MC then its about a 47% loss. The better these number the easier it is to put those losses back with " water gas " steam reforming processes. So yeah the MC is a very important part of the equation. Ill have to find my meter 
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Did a quick vid when the VersiFire was in full retort mode.
https://youtu.be/_99KYDCh4a8?list=TLPQMzEwMzIwMjZQLXmb6iWAUQ
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looks like it is progressing along quite well!
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Nice Weekend to run a gasifier!!
Ok so this is last years model with this new water / steam loop update. However this version dont have the ceramic insulation. But it is a larger size so its should have more natural insulation but I sure its not as good as the 2 inch Ceramic Cloth Im using.
Ok so this is workiing as expected except it did not resolve the pump presure switch instability. Oh well there is a fix I found last year, using a solid state adjustable on/'off relay. This allows you to pulse the pump with a higher adjustment on the control valve. So Ill add this control and integrate it into the pump housing where the water tank used to be. I sort of expected this but not like how its actually working. So I ordered one of those relays and for now; Im using a mechanical relay. When its working it does allow a bit more water in. The relay is now the issue as it hangs once in a while but its still fairly stable. So what its doing is once you get the flow really stable it puculates and the steam atmozises this water sort like a fast pulse!. Its pretty cool as long as its glowing in the nozzle; the flow is good.
Just got the new chargeverter replacement and this is actually the first time using it. I have not even ran this on the engine running on gasoline. So I dont know what the gasoline peak watts are. This is a two pole generator and Im learning it requires more torque I think than a four pole at this lower RPM. 500 cc DuroMax at around 2000 rpm. Belt drive 3600 rpm NorthStar.
So far Im sustaining 1350 watts charging. I tried 30 amps it would not sustain it. So I was able to bump rpms and the charger will still engage at 25 amps and its just pulling away. Its not about how many watts it will sustain its about how long it will sustain it.
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Check this out, it actually works better than its supposed too! That expansion is a really good thing.
AI Inquiry; (continued)
Ok I just ran the CXF Si for the first time. The steam injector there is atomized water coming out with the steam. what Im wonding is if this water is flashing to steam once its out of the nozzle and presure change, plus the heat from the oxidation of the charcoal at the end of the nozzle?
AI; Responce:
Yes, the atomized water is almost certainly flashing to steam due to the combination of the pressure drop and the intense heat from the charcoal bed.
The physics behind this process, known as flash-boiling atomization, works through two main mechanisms:
- The Pressure Drop (Adiabatic Flashing)
When the pressurized water/steam mixture exits the injector nozzle into the lower-pressure environment of the CXF Si, it undergoes a rapid drop in pressure.
- Energy Excess: Under pressure, water can exist as a liquid at temperatures well above
[image]
(
[image]
). When the pressure drops, that liquid suddenly contains more energy (sensible heat) than it can hold as a liquid at the lower pressure.
- Phase Change: To shed this excess energy, a portion of the water immediately “flashes” into steam. This expansion happens internally within the droplets, often causing them to shatter into even finer particles, which further accelerates evaporation.
- Heat from the Charcoal Bed (Oxidation Zone)
The charcoal bed acts as a massive thermal heat sink and an active reaction zone.
- Radiant and Convective Heat: The “oxidation of the charcoal” at the end of the nozzle creates a localized high-temperature zone. This provides the latent heat of vaporization required to turn the remaining atomized liquid droplets into gas almost instantly.
- Steam Reforming Potential: In systems like the CXF Si, this steam isn’t just a byproduct; at these high temperatures, the steam can react with the hot carbon (charcoal) in a thermochemical process to produce syngas (
[image]
and
[image]
), which is likely the goal of your setup.
Visualization of the Flashing Process
The following graph illustrates the relationship between the percentage of water that flashes to steam based on the initial pressure of the water (assuming it is at saturation temperature) when it is released to atmospheric pressure.
[image]
Summary
- Pressure effect: Immediately converts a portion (~3-13% depending on your psi) of the liquid to steam.
- Heat effect: The charcoal bed provides the massive energy boost needed to vaporize the remaining “wet” atomized mist.
Answer
The atomized water is indeed flashing to steam due to the rapid pressure drop at the nozzle and the extreme heat provided by the charcoal oxidation zone.
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So far this has ran for 3 hours and 10 minutes and it stalled. Usually I shake it so fuel from the back moves to the front. I cant do that with how its up by the shed. So I had to open the hopper and just move it. So I know its not spent and this is typically the end of a full hopper before. Average run time I think was 2.5 hours and I never hit 3 until I started pushing the steam more. If it goes to 4 hours thats a pretty significant change.
Edit: it ran four hours and I think it consumed around 5 to 6 liters. If its spent it likely around 14 lbs of fuel, pretty typical. So that was a 5.4 kW net per hopper about 2.5 lbs per KW.
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Ok after more testing Ive found the 2025 updated version likes 2 liters per hopper load. That would be if it were set it and forget it. However I can get more if I let it warm up but this machine cant sustain higher steam output and I figured as much. Its why the new one is designed the way it is.
So Ill be moving this testing over to the new and first build my 2026 CXF Si demo unit. That unit has a twin and Ill be building a belt drive generator for it using the DuroMax 714 or what ever it is VTwin. So Ill be in final stages of that build over the next few weeks.
So this new unit went together like a dream!!. Much faster and easier to build.
Ok so what Im expecting. This unit will have slightly less " usable capacity " However I think it will still have comparable run time on the same amount of fuel. Its 4 inches narrower but it has 6 inch more depth. Becuase the walls are tighter like I found on the earlier 10 inch machines they consume more of the available fuel. Where the larger ones they just create a cone in the center. So if it runs the same amount of time of un interupted run time. It doesnt matter if it holds more fuel. You still have to open the hopper. So just put more fuel in it versus adjusting un used fuel. Id rather put more fuel in than dig inside a hot hopper anyways. The water evap loop Im expecting it to work much better. The loop is tighter and closer to the hot zones; simply because the of size, It should run a bit hotter simply because its smaller and then I had enough length of the SS line to wrap a coil around the nozzle and that is at the end of the evap loop before the stream exits. This area at the nozle shiould be the hottest zone. Then the added insulation so it should retain a lot more heat than the old ones. So hopefully Ill hit the 1ltr to 1 kg or get close. I at least hope to exceed 500 ml to 1 kg.
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