Vulcan Gasifier

Made one of the collector plates today so I could get visual of how big it will be. Nothing to reference in the CAD world to get perspective. So I cut one of the collector plates today, my intention is to make this cell as big as possible as Im not expecting it to have an efficient energy density. This is fine if we have to we will make them very big if need be.

I also splurged today and bought a number of different materials for experimentation.

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Interesting project,please keep us posted,good skill with the experiment, if the membrance are cheap and last long enough,it could be feasible energy source.

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This is my ultimate vision for this technology. The fuel cell will run completely quiet, no moving parts, they are more efficient, no pollutants etc.

This wont be a PEM cell, Im not sure how much an issue I will have with contamination. I am planning on using a good output shop vac to supply the gas to it. Im going to use the filter inside the vac in line with our filtering. If we can replace the ICE and generator head then we will have tons of room for more filtering and refining systems.

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Sounds like you may be on too a newer one of kind design,dont post too much till you patent if possible ,good luck I mean skill.

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yes there is lots more to this picture. it goes way beyond the cell. The development we will be working on later will be a big part of this. Cleaner gas, much higher efficiency levels and boosted H2 yields. The machines will produce almost zero char later on. Ok shutting up now haha

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I know I’m interested… I pretty much get dust out of my small systems.

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Got some materials in today, these will create our electrolyte and also the gasketing. The flat piece I was planning to make the gaskets out of, its called Aerogel and is very expensive stuff. The smaller roll of material you see there, may work just as good for gasketing, so I may go that route.

The two rolls are both ceramic with different densities. Now what I need to figure out, is how to do the math on calculating the density via compression. Anyone have an idea?

I did some test the thinner stuff is 1/8" and I can smash it down to 25 thou and the thicker stuff is 1/4" and I can smash that down to 50 thou. This is just by hand, so big plates with lots of bolts crushing these plates down will get it down to a very thin layer.

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Here is the cell I hope to build this week, Im waiting on some additional things to arrive yet. This will be a single cell stack for initial testing. I plan to test all three materials as electrolyte. The black square represents the graphene nano coating, both side of the plate will get this coating applied.

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Hey Matt, I know I’m not that smart, but I"M not following what you are trying to do here. Are you putting wood gas in these cells looking to get electricity out?

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You got it! The cells input H2, CO, and CH4 in this type of cell all of these gases will work. Current fuel cell technology is over 50% efficient this blows away any ICE driven generator system currently available.

I was told I couldn’t do it, so challenge accepted.

You can read up on this here Solid oxide fuel cell - Wikipedia

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Okay, you have my curiosity up. Although I don’t understand it, I’m excited to see what you come up with.
Matt, as always I appreciate your sharing on this site for us. You are always pushing forward.
You were told it wouldn’t work. We’re you given a reason? Will you try wood gas and charcoal?
Do you ever sleep? You brain must go 100 miles a minute.

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Haha thats my brother, yeah apparently this tech is only for universities and high tech companies. That maybe so, there is some science I dont fully understand along with other things to how these cells work. I understand the reactions and can see this in the drawings. But some of this is at a micro level, not going to be easy to do without the knowledge and understanding of the structures at this level outside of a lab. This is why Im using the chosen electrolytes I at least stand a chance as I can control density and permeability via the compression of the materials. You never know unless you try.

Yeah Ive never multi tasked like I do today before starting my own company its insane what I try to keep track of. Im a victim of my own demise sometimes, I try to write stuff down but forget to that too. lol

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Hi Matt,

I finally received the gasifier today. had trouble with the shipping company, Chad said he won’t use them anymore. It was well packaged and arrived without damage.

After unwrapping but before removal from pallet

You can see the custom cut brackets Matt made for bolting it to the pallet.

Pallets awaiting their fate.

I’ll be able to flare it off tonight after work. I’ll post some more pictures and information. Need to grab a battery for the genset.

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Sweet!! Thats a good sign it arrived in one piece haha. Thats been an issue, we quit building full crates and now we get less damage go figure.

I have some updated code for you and also I am working on a mod to slow governor response time down. This should help make the machine even more stable.

Cant wait to see more pics!!!

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Looks like we need to add a center stud to the pallet. I see they smashed the outer 2x4 loose. We’ve had machines arrive at destinations that looked like they were drug behind the truck instead of inside.

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Ran a pallet worth of wood last night. I have to say that this machine is very well put together. Matt, you did good my friend.

Matt also sent a nice poker that I missed until I went to setup.

One hopper worth of condensate from pallet wood.

Feel a little initiated into the club now.

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Chris was super cool and helped me get these videos of the flare up for your viewing pleasure :grin:

Thanks again Chris!

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Yeah I dont know, not enough tar on ur hands yet. Hopefully you never will with this machine.

One thing after you do an engine run take off the cap on gas dryer at the back of the machine where the shut off valve is. Wear some gloves, and note what comes out of here if it just water, clear, black, purple or any other color you are good to go. But if there is tar here get the generator running on gasoline for a while. You will know if there is tar if its there is will separate from the water/condensate. This is not always an indicator that you made a lot of tar, it could have been an episode during warm up and may have all cleared out during your run. But once its there it dont go away so for precaution you should run on gas to be safe. Prolly a good idea to do in the beginning any ways.

That flare is beautiful!!! Show us some pictures of your fuel, you must have some good dry stuff.

The slow mo mode is cool haha :fire:

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@Chris can I share this on our FB page?

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Sure! Share it wherever you like.

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