It looks like you are right except the temperature is a little off.
“To produce calcium carbide from charcoal (which acts as the carbon source) and lime (calcium oxide), you need a very high temperature of around 2,200 degrees Celsius (3,992 degrees Fahrenheit) in an electric arc furnace; this is the standard industrial process for creating calcium carbide.”
People used to make it at home. You essentially need a forge to get up to those temperatures or oxy-acetylene/propane-oxygen I believe will as well.
Once oxygen hits it, it breaks down into acetylene which is why storing it is dangerous and one of the main issues with insurance for using it as a welding gas in the US. when it leaks, the shed it is in will explode from any spark like even clock or lightswitch.
Another possible way to use lime , protecting your charcoal gasifier/nozzle’s
Lime powder injected in the nozzle,
I do this when inject pure Oxygen testing, thus reducing the surface temperature when Oxygen burns away the carbon.
I will try to setup a test, electric reactor, oxygen inject, water inject and the rest…
I’m just still sticking to the basics. I have been experimenting with different types of combustion chambers to see how much gas I can get with the smallest amount of wood. Currently testing a secondary combustion zone
Did l understand correctly you use a fan during operation? Thats not common practise, no need. Engine will do the sucking. The fan just messes with your air/gas ratio.
The bigger engine overdrew your gasifier. It consumed the good gas from the sistem then dyed when he got the overdrawn gas. This gas is basicly just CO2 and steam, thats the water you were seeing.
Many “I think’s” in your trial’s and errors endeavour…
Give it time, listen carefully to the advice here on DOW and then those “I think’s” will be replaced by “I understand now’s”
Many little details stil to learn for you…
Compression at handstart your 5 Hp engine is low coz there is a compression release mechanics at startup. ( located at the camshaft inside the engine)
It takes speed to swing that release mechanics to no longer release the compression.
You don’t fully understand yet the notion on what your engine needs to run. ( based on what you do and what we can hear in your video clip, subsequential on your posted “I think’s” )
We see smoke coming out your gasifier tube, connected to your carb intake…
Your engine needs a mixture between good grade gas and air
Do not push air into your gasifier, it will make non useable gas…
To the looks of it, your gasifier seems to resemble a basic fema style / upside down / system / tar maker, with a lot of airleaks…
Any engine will run without load, but the points are deserved on how much work /load it can run at.
If i put a pump on mine, it will give pressure and flow, equals how much power output.
If i put a generator, then i use a dummy load to measure the electric output / rpm, so i KNOW what the output/performance is at what setting for the gasifier.
A gasifier on a small , single cylinder engine is and always will be , the most difficult to start with…
hence almost all small engines will run with charcoal type of gasifiers…
I recommend you to start with a basic Gilmore style charcoal gasifier and learn from that.
You can easily modify your system to a charcoal set, just make sure its air tight and have a suitable nozzle size intake at the bottom.
Have a small 12V air mattress blower at the suction side, use dry smoke free charcoal, well sized and start posting your success story’s.
I am proud to say; i learned most of gasifiers by successful doing what others here on DOW suggested to me.
Hi DarrenB
The advices you are now being given may seem to be abrupt and maybe even a little bit rude.
This is not the intention.
I think this because of your topic title request. Coming to a forum format this is saying Help Me in Understanding The wood gasification process.
Others who ask; help me getting my electrical generator to fuel power on wood will be answered the same, but approached from a different direction.
Beginning with how well does your engine system run on a pump spec grade of fuel??
Any working IC engine can be made to run actually powerfully on rich dense wood smoke.
Tars rich smoke will have a wide range of air ratio forgivenesses for engine starting and short term running.
Truly completely converted woodgas will be a long term engine useable fuel. But have a narrow range of needing to control air to fuel ratio. And this does get mucked up just by leaving the crankcase vent hose to the air cleaner box still hooked up. Ratio mucked up by not tape sealing the airbox/aircleaner cases. Mucked up even by leaving the original air cleaner element in place. Mucked up by any air leaking into the gaseous to engine feeding tubing.
Your forced flow and gapping feeding mean you cannot control your needed fuel to air ratio. On gasoline fuel injection systems with actual measuring air flow meters and sensors disconnect the air bellows to the engine and they will run terribly if they start at all. Same-same. Uncontrolled air to fuel ratio.
And the internal engines condition after loaded running; along with the ability to actually work loaded, are the only true measures of good engine grade of woodgas.
Flares and unlit haze are only indicators. Not proofs.
This is the truth of it.
Don’t give up. Keep striving. The longer the gasifier is operated then you will get ash problems initiated. The ash handling will be next gasifer development needed step past actually engine running.
Steve Unruh
Agree with Steve.
Yes us Europeans do tend to seem rude, but its far from the truth. Rude is not the right term, l dont even know it. Frank? At least in my case, l senserely want everyone to sucseed. I have been gifted help from experts here at the begining of my journey, wich eliminated years of trial and error and led me to the path of being good at understanding the process. I only want to spread that knolidge gifted, because some are not with us anymore. Shoutout to Arvid who was the first to help me here
This would be your choice of course.
A forum format is a poor place to Blog. The forum expectation is for interchanging learnings.
Here. We all for engine running exclusively use the engine suction to pull flows through the gasifer system.
This way the gasifiers output production will be engine demand mostly proportionally controlled. Great help in the maintaining of the 1 to1 +/- ~10% wood/char gaseous, fuels to air ratio needed for a complete within the engine combustion.
The second most important to understand reason is for heaths safety.
A gasifer is producing large whole numbers percentages of the fuel gas carbon monoxide. This IS to all air breathers extremely toxic poisonous in under a % of a %; Parts per Million levels.
A sucked system with any leakages will just air leaked in dilute the fuel gas strength.
A blown pressurized system with any leakage will expel CO; sickening and killing.
The engine operated gas rich cannot combust up all of the high percentage of carbon monoxide. So it will be passed out of the engine exhaust unchanged as still killer carbon monoxide.
So see? Any ethical person knowing; just must speak up.
A very few sickened, and cumulating deaths from woodgas and we will all be regulated out of DIY making our fuels very quickly.
Regards
Steve Unruh
If a first time poster comes with a such contentious statement, then i think it’s likely that argumentations will follow.
The science with gasification is not open for debate.
We can discuss our findings, observations…
We can agree or disagree in our opinions, fact remains can you build and showcase what you’ve learned about gasification, without being contentious…
This year it will be 51 years ago that i build my first coal gasifier… been involved with gasification ever since. Been working on automotive engines same…
Got my degrees…
Still: i learn from others, i admire that what others build, the solutions they come up with, i share their passion…
At the end, its doing the same, might it be in a slight different way…
This DOW forum is meaningful for those who want to learn from others…
Yes, my words might seem rude, but similar as the core of a reduction zone… hot for a purpose…
a gasifier is unforgiven… If misunderstood a gasifier… is lethal …
Darren,
Just give yourself some time to process your wood-gas learning so far. You have made a lot of progress, and you are a builder-do-er. The reply-ers on the forum are just trying to give you the benefit of their hard-earned knowledge and experience. The Carbon Monoxide danger is real, and must not be ignored. These folks have a lot of time using wood gas for heat, power, doing work. Sometimes we come off as know-it-alls, that is not intended.
I started working with wood gas at the beginning of the corona period, Kristjan gave me the first basic information, and I got a lot of it later on this forum, many times when I write something, I ask for criticism, because if there is only praise or agreement, I don’t learn anything new. In the process of gasifying wood, there are many factors that are good to consider and make a compromise between them (intensity of condensation, fresh air preheating, size of the hot zone, size and number of nozzles, size of the storage tank, heating of the storage tank, shape of the grate,…)
There is a saying in our country:
“Don’t throw a gun into the corn”
and “Slowly goes the long way”
My goal is not to build a gasifier like the typical downdraft, FEMA, imbert… I want to try a different approach. And I am sharing my results. It’s not finished. It’s not even filtered yet. That’s why I’m running old engines that have no use. But the gas is pretty clean and dry. Currently it’s just passing through some screen layers in the 30 gallon barrel. It also can condense there. My gas temperature output during that test run was about 85° f. Yes it’s a little dirty but I have not filtered it yet.
Been there, done that. Trying to invent hot water. Its a trap that most beginers in the woodgas fall in, including me at the time. This is why l love this group so much, we tend to keep ours and each others feet on the ground. No dubt that the technology of gasification can be upgraded, but its a marathon not a sprint at this point.
KISS is a exelent acronim for the world of gasification. Do keep in mind, gasification was the last resort for powering engines for a realy long time, specialy during war time. And in war time no budget is too big for a thing as important as that. So yes, preety much all that works has been done alredy in the world of gasification. Unfortunaly all our inventing sooner or later leads us to an old ww2 study that shows its all been done almost a century earlyer.
I dont remember the exact story, but its somewhat in this frame.
An old monk came to Buda and sayd “l have prayed and medirated for all my life, and now l can walk across the river.” To wich Buda sayd “ok, but the ferry only costs a penny”
kristijan you are right, most things were just invented in older times, maybee except tones wood gasifier, but all is built up on older knowledge…also the rocket fuel was just invented in this times i have read in some papers what göran posted here…
but sometimes someone re-invent things just invented, only not knowing that this has been done …
in the forum i found always great help and support, otherwise i would not be on the point to run gasifiers successfull and also make a lot of repair on my old engines by myself…
thanks to all here with this spirit to help and share knowledge…
