Troy, I think you hit the nail on the head. Holistic context. Some situations/setups (like Wayne’s) will favor wood gasifiers, others (like Koen’s) will favor charcoal/H2.
Thanks for the explanation about why biomass gasifiers aren’t great at cracking water. The addition of water in the quantities that Koen’s doing is certainly an advantage for charcoal, cause you are able to make up for some of the engine power losses common with biomass systems. In big trucks, that’s not as big of an issue, but small engines need to make the most of what they have, as they don’t really have a lot of power to spare.
1200C should be hot enough to crack lots of potential fuels, as well, like waste/raw oils.
Chris, I really wish I knew… We haven’t had it tested yet. We haven’t even completed the initial build of the v.1.0 of the OpenFire…
Most of my assumptions come from both Koen’s experiences with his unit (we are emulating his basic core design), and from the information in my books.
Based on both sources, we would be something like CO ~25%, Hydrogen ~25%, Nitrogen ~50%… There are some methods in P.L. Teed’s book, The Chemistry and Manufacture of Hydrogen," that claims Nitorgen ~1% when alternating between air blasts and steam blasts. Steam blasting onto hot carbon lowers the temperature of the oxidation zone, which requires an air blast to raise it back up to cracking temperatures.
Of course, you would have to have two gasifiers, to leverage this on-again / off-again gas production, and build some kind of contraption to switch between the two systems… Definitely beyond the scope of what I’m trying to do. Our approach would be to try to build a simple system in which the steam would auto-regulate itself based on temperatures.
Koen was seeing something like 50/50% water to carbon by weight… which is astoundingly impressive. I’d be happy with half of that
Not sure why I was double posted above… Anyone else seeing that?
I just wanted to add one thing… The gas composition would be very similar with regards to burnable and inert gasses… Right? Some may say, why go to all the trouble if the final flow is too close to matter… Fair enough.
The difference may come in how efficient the charcoal retort is… In other words, let’s assume that I have a super-efficient retort. In a perfectly insulated retort, with all things being equal, you only need about 30% of the pyrolysis gas BTU’s for a complete, self-sustained burn. The other 70% of that energy can be put to good use.
If my retort is not efficient, and I am not using that extra energy for some functional “work,” then it becomes very difficult to win the BTU argument.
Troy,
First i second the above …
I would love to be able to express myself that way…
The gas content, i reached levels of both H2 and Co hitting the 40% marker.
That was at ashmelting temperatures ( almost 1500°C) with mango wood charcoal.
using old style water vapor alternating with air and core sufficient big ( near the coil ), the steam will replace the nitrogen and supply just a little to low content of oxygen.
I think about the contest and may i suggest following… since traveling thru continents with cars driving on biomass is a bit to much expensive, i suggest that we define some rules for claims to be validated and results monitored.
Any idea’s ?
To be fair, All parties need to start with the same weight feed stock(biomass) at the same moisture.
As Arvid mentioned earlier, there should be no comparison. The charcoal team will be burning away valuable volatile’( BTU’s) before their fuel even hits the reactor.
I am not sure about that. since i collect and can use the water and tar to run and convert it in my gasifier.
lets start from fresh cut wood ? (70% moister) as if it was a real life scenario and not an optimum situation for either of the competitors
so, we all stand next to a junkyard and an oak forrest ( only fresh green tree’s available ) shall we ?
What choice would you make ?
I am working on a BTU counter…
It seems that we are doing very efficient since we don’t need to cool down our gasses ( leaving the reactor at ambient temperatures )
same time we convert an additional amount of water into useful energy , hydrogen, which makes our engine even more efficient…
this is getting an interesting topic or an hard nut to crack…
But i do admire those who run a raw wood gasifier, really
any how, wood is fun… and driving with it even more…
Raw wood gasifying in “one” step, i compare that with a charcoaling unit above an charcoal gasifier, and mostly in good configurations.
Charcoaling and charcoal gasifying is based on the same processes, be it in 2 locations in separated units,
If i would be able to put my current charcoal gasifier in direct conjunction with a charcoaling unit, i would be driving on raw wood gasifier or with an charcoal gasifier ?
I know that if i master my charcoaling unit well, it performs extremely well and very efficient.
how to connect both units without losing the performance… ?
To resume: charcoaling unit is 1/2 raw wood gasifier and the charcoal gasifier is the other half
I am positive about any findings, that they are beneficial for raw wood gasification and for charcoal gasification …
well, technically, raw wood gasification is charcoal gasification, too. The processes are all together and happening within a few inches of each other. The difference, as far as I can see, is that the volatiles and tars are used within the system for a raw wood system, and a charcoal system burns them externally (don’t contribute to the gasification output)
Hey Troy, if you have not already add Wayne’s book to your library and go premium. Many of your hydrogen cracking assertions are related to inbert based systems. The reason Wayne is achieving such good hydrogen numbers is due to his fire tube refinements that AREcracking water. Nothing else I have seen in print is the same… The competition angle is interesting but we achieve similar results with different drawbacks best to leave it at that. If you get too deep into the technicalities of it all it becomes an "how many angels on the head of a pin " kind of argument. No answers, no converts, no engines turning. Just my opinion of course
Best regards, David Baillie
Gee guys. Read your references.
Thermal Disassociation of water is very heat energy intensive. Happens at very low rates until you either increase temperatures to metals destructive levels of +2200C, and/or increase system pressures past 100 bar along with the system temperatures up to impractical. And even then only with some catalysts assistance.
WHY thermal disassociation of water IS the Last commercial choice over all others. An Energy hole pit.
What you are all stumbling over is the very real water to gases shift caused by the glowing hot woodchar.
Again read your references. Occurs at much lower temperatures using much less input energy. Handily done in woodgasifiers. WHAT your water vapor into a charcoal gasifier is being heat energy absorbing cooled by.
The hot water vapor H’s cannot any longer hold the O’s bonded against the hot energized C’s pulls.
This is Not a cracking separation process. A raping, tear away of the oxygen from the hydrogen. Leaving woosie hydrogen out alone by it’s lonesome. NO FREE OXEGEN left.
Disassociation would leave you both as free, separated.
Wrong jumps of conclusions leads to bad outcomes.
David Baillle has it correct. The more you Idealize theses process and multi-goals confuse the simple, the more this all just becomes head geeking games few will follow let alone get involved with.
Why this intent here in this topic to set woodgasifiers against charcoalgasifers?
Bored with life? Lacking sport?
Go canoeing. Burn off some of that angst.
Steve Unruh
There is nothing against wood gasifying, the opposite is true.
we just love to play with water and hot glowing charcoal to make our engines run.
for myself, i have the engines, now to build the best suitable gasifier for it.
based on Gary Gilmore his idea of the simple fire, i started to build from that and it works…
some of us cant stop playing and learning, learning by doing and sharing knowledge and experiences.
learning and sharing are the keywords next to, “dont talk, just do it”
Some of the charcoal guy’s wil stick with chsrcoal, but more likely a larger part wil go the next step and build themselves a good wood gasifier, similar as Wayne his unit.
I love to say same as my grandfather used to do, : “its easy to tell you how to copy, but then i will never learn from your intelligence”
Showing people how easy it is to gasify… and make them doing it themselves…
debating, arguing, having conversations… it sure does improve my englisch skills and i learn every day…
Having hydrogen in your mixture ,decreases the amount of co2 producing. Every btu power to the cranck shaft produced by carbon fuel will generate carbon dioxide.
bear in mind that combusting hydrogen does not produces any co2.
Today i wil release a brief abstract from my work, started with a Gilmore style, ended up with the first carbon dioxide converter, suitable to drive your car or any engine you have. The patent is filed for and pending. The rights will be distributed to a few people who care about the future and the people around.
Koen, I fear you are only looking at what you want to see.
A charcoal producer’s end result is carbon neutral. If you truly want to help the environment, come over to the woodgas side. Where we are carbon positive!
Now that is helping the enviroment.
I think i stay at the charcoal for a little while longer…
lets say, for the revelation, i can put co2 in my device at large % and the output is co and H2 if i want to…
convince me that you can do that with an wood gasifier.
if i can convince and prove others that it works and provide no nonsens data, would you come to the charcoal side?
