Got it. Thanks for helping me wrap my mind around all of your very clever work. Your results are amazing. Also thanks for the tip about the Greenhill Forge videos. I’m watching as we write back and forth.
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One quick thing. Where ever your nozzle jet is: Thats also where all your heat is. So thats where you put your heat exchange loop. Easiest way is simply wrap the nozzle and make coil. I think on next units Im going to double coil the nozzle. I think there is more heat here to make use of the hose
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If we run out of water or the pump dies will the gasifier go critical and melt the nozzle openings and or the flex pipe?
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Dont let it run out of water!!! lol I have no idea. However that should not ever happen because if you lose water the gas energy density will change and the engine will stall out before that can happen.
The nice thing about the pumps is you can see if they are working or not. You can see the rollers spin and see the water flow through the hose adapters. Not sure what we will do in winter though. Might need to run it dry to keep it from freezing.
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Thank you for taking time to patiently answer my questions. Hopefully this will help others who are considering this new frontier for charcoal gasification.
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Thats why I share here. Everything I do is more or less open source. However the CXF Si is getting provisionals filed its already being worked on. It is patentable.
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Maybe add a little alcohol at shut down in the winter? Blessings to you for sharing!
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So on your gasifier: is it just open to the bottom and Im assuming you have that grate laying down there? If its open here you have plenty of room to line this area with ceramic. Spend the money and do it. You only need 10 inch diameter from the nozzle to the grate. If you watch the vide Greenhill did you will see you like have a bit of wasted space you can use to insulate. Capture every BTU you possible can and keep it from getting wasted with this. You can line a center tube with your water coil and fill the gap to the outer wall with insulation. Then keep going and coil the nozzle. Then feed that to your engines exhaust and coil that too. The heat we keep and can also harvest from the engine and put back into the this thing the more water you can crack. As long as there is carbon, steam and heat to sustain there is no limit. The limit is when you run out of heat to sustain the process.
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The VersiFire is another part I really hope others copy it and start improving it. I will be building a shop heater this year that will fit two of the tall ammo boxes. Im learning to control the retort out gassing now and I think I can get it to self sustain without need to keep adding to the lower fire box. I also think waste oil will be the ultimate fuel for the VersiFire charcoal making. And these little pumps maybe the thing that can really improve that technology.
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Matt I’ve also been thinking of using waste oil for my retort. I have a neighbor with an ibc tote full of veg oil who has offered to give it to me, and I’ve got a 55 gallon drum full of engine oil and transmission fluid, and maybe some coolant or rainwater. I wouldn’t want to make black diesel out of it for sure.
I haven’t really used the retort since I never built a firebox to go underneath it, I usually do the flame cap method slowly filling an open top drum and letting it burn. It’s like a hookway 55 gallon drum retort with a water heater inner chimney and the gas relief is drilled down at the base of the chimney to send more heat back up.
I wish the dunnage wood I get from work was hardwood, this Korean red pine is very resinous.
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matt, as you wrote your gas is bone dry, i will ask if your filter medium is also bone dry?
my personal experience with my filter medium is , that a slightly humid filter medium helps a lot with filtering, in way it can bind the dust to the filter…i use horse hair from tail and neck of them for filter medium, of course exotic material and generally not available…you use this kind of kitchen pads for cleaning , right?
have you some pictures from your filters ?
really great work and development you do with the steam addition in this amount, very interesting for electric generators, because they must not be so oversized when using chargas, with a normal generator one can get approximately the power of gasoline, especially for welding without so much power drop…
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I dump a cup of 30 or 40 wieght oil on them. It works very well as it creates a cake on the first filter layer. When it cake up you just remove it break the cake off and put it back in.
This is the filter media here: 3M Scotch-Brite General Purpose 7447 Hand Pad, Very Fine Grade, 6 in x 9 in, Pack of 20, Aluminum Oxide, Surface Preparation, Scuffing, Blending, Cleaning, Maroon: Power Polisher And Buffer Pads: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
This is the is the filter box. Amazon.com: Fortress 50 Caliber Metal Ammo Can, 50 Cal : Toys & Games
I cut those pads down on one end to fit and layer from back to front. So you can just peel off the front pad and presto you got a new filter. Yes the oil is key otherwise that dust will go deep into it.
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This here is the Versifire Kiln. It will heat my RV this winter and produce my hot water. In fact its so insulated the water heat exchanger on it is the media to bring the heat into the room. Im sure it will be warm but not like a typical stove.
This can produce about 50 gallons day as you heat. This uses two tall ammo boxes and the kiln has two oven compartments that have an out gas interface in the back. You simply load the boxes and through em in the oven and they will contribute to most of the heat output. You will stagger them so one is always gasifying. Yeah it will have around $400 bucks just in ceramic insulation. It will be double walled on all walls with this insulation in the wall pockets.
The ammo boxes can fit standard 14 inch cut and split firewood. No need to size it or anything special. You will make more charcoal than you will know what to do with all from heatijng your house. Its basically free fuel. This is carbon capture device so now I two Patents Im working on now.
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matt, thanks for sharing infos! ciao giorgio
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Oh yeah this also has a water gas generator built inside 
Yeah you guys doing wood fuel for off grid power are silly lol You can’t beat this!
Its really simple too. This will have an SS loop wrapped around the sides and back with an accumulator tank. LIkely another tall ammo box. if the water boils or steam is injected from the water loop heat exchanger we need to vent it anyways. So the simple solution is rather than vent that to atsmophere. We simply inject it under the grate unde the coals. If it by passes somehow well then it just ventst out to atmosphere like you would otherwise. Then under the unit will be a stand housing a heavy duty transmision cooler with a DC radiator fan for forced air. A simple AC to DC speed controller work great at controlling these fans as well. Then inside this accumulator is another ( you guessed it ) SS heat exhang coil that is direct piped into the hot water lines of the home for demestic hot water. It will need an expansion device but those are pretty standard on market anyways for RV’s
The only caveat is you must use distilled water in the heat exchange loop on the VersiFire. I bought that mr distiller some years ago and never unboxed it. So now I have a use for it. The hot water line is not an issue as the water is never going to go to full boil in that circuit.
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