I agree, with you using a gasifer and no Nitrogen at all. But thats not what I am trying to do here. It is to reduce on the amount of Nitrogen in making more Hydrogen gas in a gasifer. This will give me a richer wood gas fuel mix with more Hydrogen with less Nitrogen. Using a wood gasifer with some modifications is a win win to me.
Think about this everyone, this could have been done before in the passed and then forgotten about after World War II. I have watched the videos of all the people, after the war ended they were happy to have the gasifers cut off of their vehicles because there was gasoline and diesel fuel available again. Getting life back to normal again, making life more easy for them.
The things that you have discovered like the bunker vaccum exhaust to remove extra moisture out of the gasifer. This is a great discovery and it can be used on any wood gasifer with small modifications to make it run more efficiently.
It is all about improvements to gasification to make a better wood gas to burn, even in the improvements of filtering the wood gas is a win win to me.
This is what makes this DOW site so great, is all of us working together from all around the world trying to make a better more effective and efficient gasifers to make wood gas to burn in different types of vehicle engines.
So I say to all of us there is more things to be discovered and rediscovered and we are doing this on DOW.
Bob
It seems to me that you are in some kind of singularity where the second law of thermodynamics does not work and your engines have an efficiency of not 25%, like mine, but all 100! Do not hammer one simple thing - water in the gasifier plays no more than a transportation role, in transferring the energy of carbon oxidation from the gas generator to the engine, because only as much energy goes into splitting water as it will release in the engine. We must not forget that water is the most heat-intensive thing on the planet and its surplus in the combustion zone does only one thing - it brings energy to the cooler. I believe that the main emphasis in our lesson should be given not to nitrogen (its exclusion from gas), but to the efficiency of using wood - not to burn it to heat an already hot atmosphere. Pay attention to the composition of the gas, since different types of gasifiers produce a gas of different composition (I am not talking about tar now), it is meant to exclude the CO2 phase from the gasification process, which will achieve the extraction of energy for this phase and switch it to the production of hydrogen and methane.
Hey All,
Accept that there are 3 and 4 different Premises, and Approaches going on here now in this topic.
Woodgas making; and wood-for-energy using is a batch dynamic process.
I have seen and experienced unexpected phase occurrences.
Many I can even for a shot time duplicate in my fully air controlled wood stove.
It is very difficult to make these unusual and unexpected to happen on a contagious basis. Heats on small systems bleeds off - lost - wasted. Char gets used up before self-replenishing
Minor side effects, and part percentage contaminants, deposits, occur scrambling the “ideal” results.
So only be concerned about proofed using results. Shaft working power.
Net results from cold starting up to going cold again shut down. ADD all of the numbers!!
My primary premise has been the same as BobMac’s. Use as much as possible the gasifier heat converted to fuel grade gasses.
Now with some of the all SS multi-layered; and highly insulated systems I have operated
yielded unexpected results. EXPENSIVE to make, and maintain these results.
Far past the majority of DIY possible.
Other responding here their Premise is to make prefect gasoline drop-in substitute fuel.
Giving the same; if not better power out of the same engines.
Here I agree with Joni . . . . good luck with that.
And now me . . . why even bother?
The Americans here, just engine up size, and be done. The stuck with small engine fellows . . . learn to love what you can get in the most direct simplest way.
Ha! 2 out of the 4 Premise reasons here we will not be in agreement.
Regards
Steve unruh
Now here is my-folly Proof of what I’ve said.
Herman Blau’s commercially made Blaugaz
He developed a near prefect engine fuel. Liquid in storage and transport. Gaseous like propane in usages.
The proven perfect Zeppelin engines fuel.
What happened to Hermans perfect fuel gas?
Zeppelins failed in world wide all weathers service. Large piston aircraft; then jet engines needed high carbons liquids fuels.
Electric lighting displaced all forms of combustion lighting.
The Dino-fuel boys started cranking out cheaper to make; and distribute, purified propane. And butane. Then LPG blends.
So dip-toe into the Big boys fuels game and you will fail. Be overwhelmed. Then safety illegitimated. Regulated out of usages.
Read technical development histories. The sticky social side of them. Or become an embittered Mr. GEET (100 MPG carburetor guy), spirit broken. Become a Felix Wankel. Just never quite . . . .no matter how many millions of $'s, kroner, marks, yen thrown at it.
One edge sealing member; just cannot ever beat out three-four-five piston rings capable of much higher pressure sealing.
S.U.
Now understand that the gasifer that is be using is 37% more efficient gasifer then most Imbert gasifer unless they are modified to use the exhaust from the engine to preheat the incoming air, by time air get through other 2 preheating systems to the nozzles the air is expanded greatly because of the high heat the air went through and out through of the nozzles. The nozzles have larger opens then most Imbert gasifer. The out come of all this is a lot of extra calories of heat to be used for gasification of carbon, and H20 to be changed into Hydrogen and Oxygen from being 37 % more efficient. These calories of heat that would normally be lost are reclaimed.
Now I know this can not be done on a light weight gasifer with no metal mass turn down ratio built in that is absorbing all this heat and storing it. If it can be done I will have a shot of that Vodka with you. Brost. All I am try to do is not waste this heat and put it into making more Hydrogen which in turn will make Oxygen and more CO and methane.
If we can change the burning speed of the woodgas and make it a faster burn time. This will be better for burning in a conventional engine and not loose horse power. The 25 to 30 percent lost in a 4 cylinder engine is a lot, when trying to drive on a road that 70 mph or 113 kmh. Or going up a long hill climb .
Bob
The problem:
To get enough heat in the system to crack the steam. But steam expands like crazy and this is an endothermic reaction. This is what lead me down the rabbit hole with a boosted fluid bed gasifire. Compressing the inlet air and steam in order to increase efficiency and temperatures. The whole point was to harness that waste heat not just from the engine but the gas itself. There is a magnitude of efficiency increase there if this can be done.
The more efficiently we can recycle heat the more steam we can crack. The more effectively we recover heat the more we expand out our inlet air/steam mix… Somehow this is a problem that can be cracked, and when it is you will see the need for gas cooling systems compliment heat recovery systems. We won’t waste heat anymore, we will make more fuel out of it.
Rob:
Torrify some wood. your goal is not to drive off the volatile compounds, your goal is to cook as much of the water out as you can. Then watch you outlet temperature and gas composition change. You might even hit a point where you are making dry gas in one shot. ( there still is more water locked up in the wood we can not cook out ), you might add some dry charcoal and see a point where the system demands water to keep the temperatures in check. All a long our goal here is to make that perfect fuel that is nothing but Co and H2 with lesser amounts of hydrocarbons formed in the process. The more effectively we do this the less Nitrogen will be pumped through this system.
The nitrogen is a drag on the system as Matt eludes to. It carries away out heat, it forces us to use a larger reactor and pump more gas ( by gas I mean air ) into the system for no good reason other than we can not separate it from what we really want, which is just the oxygen…
The only place Nitrogen appears to help us is one of those cross over points when we are making H2 at a ratio to Co that is high enough that our fuel has a comparative octane rating under 90 and out flame speed is faster than gasoline. No one has got there yet and posted about but I believe there is a minimum amount of nitrogen required.
Based just on just some cocktail napkin math and educated guess work I think if we can salvage enough heat to get our steam/air mixture into the hearth at 200 - 300 c without expanding all to hell and making the system unworkable we could in theory get our gas water shift to push nitrogen composition down to 25%. with the right combination off timing and compression ratio, and if the gas produce behaves enough like moderately high octane gasoline we could get full rated power from a naturally aspirated engine.
The benefits would also include very low N2 emissions and insignificant other smog pollution producing compounds
Joni, lets just agree to disagree. I stand firmly behind the goal to make richer gas, wich can only be done by eliminating some nitrogen. You can fidle around different ratios of CO, H2 and CH4 but in the end its the inert gases that kill the power.
There shuld be near 0% CO2 in a well designed and operated gasifier runing at the right temperature.
Yeah you can change the chemistry and results. We are not trying to break the laws of thermodynamics here. We are trying to improve performance and efficiency. The water shift is not taking away it is adding in energy and this can be improved. This is BOTH a thermal and chemical process not just thermal absorption. If we are using heat wisely by not letting it go and reclaiming we are putting it back into process adding efficiency. Im sure there is a limit how much water you can crack with so much charcoal. However none of us have reached that level not even close.
Ahhh. Yes. The Nitrogen is the power problem Premise.
O.K. Sherlocks.
Go put as much intake drag restriction on your gasoline or diesel engines as you do pulling a gasifier and filter train.
What! Yes. You will have the nearly the same “woodgas” power loss.
The guy who finally does a variable speed electric driven gasifer system blower will be the one sinking this Premise.
Now IF you were talking just heating gas energy that’d be different.
And woodgases combustion speed can be taken care of with timings and compression changes.
There again the same. Fuel a gasoline set up engine on propane, or methane . . . .less shaft power.
Now reset up that IC engine optimized in all ways for propane; for methane . . . the same power. Increased fuel usage by weight to get that same-same power.
These engines exist. Industrial. Those engine companies know well how to do this.
Read their data.
Now if you have the Premise of releasing free oxygen from the internal H2O with Heat and HOT wood char. THAT works. Until you exceed the excessive heat capacity of the system.
Then you will drag your self thermal chemically down.
And always remenber our engine loads on our system vary considerably. Engine demand loading for the gasifer IS heat making.
So joni is correct.
What you could do in an industrial closely controlled setting will be near impossible to do small system, DIY.
DIY usages you must do averages. And YOU must pay the price of system heating up to stability. Energy loss of hot shut down systems bleeding away.
Not just steady-state, ideals.
S.U.
[quote=“SteveUnruh, post:49, topic:5670”]
The guy who finally does a variable speed electric driven gasifer system blower will be the one sinking this Premise.
Im already doing it Steve. Ive only just started with it and only had a few runs. I hate say I was successful though, need to test again and again to make sure things are repeating. However I will say that gasifier run was the first time Ive ever been able crank my Miller 220 volt more than half way up and run it on wood on that specific generator size. Just to try and verify that outcome I turned the blower off and went back in a it did pull the same output but then after a bit it was not able too. I think it was because the gasifier was stoked up from the blower and as it cooled down is when I started to lose some power. It was also at the end of the hopper too. So Im not sure, I need to try again. Working on a new supercharger now and will be out again maybe the weekend after this. Its supposed to be above freezing nest week so T shirt weather is coming!!
However if we increase the gas energy density per volume by removing some of the inert gases than we should get an increase in power. Does not seem reasonable? Just like a turbo or super charger, you cramming more air fuel mix into the cylinder, eliminating the nitrogen should leave room for more air fuel mixture. I don’t think we really need to remove all even a 25% reduction would be huge.
Steve,
Are you thinking to run the reaction zone at above ambient pressure? Or perhaps an electric blower downstream the filter?
I would suggest an engine driven, axial fan type blower and pressure regulator, to supply consistent fuel pressure.
What would your electric blower achieve?
Rindert
I did this and it made a mess!! It pushed the upper gases out the hopper.
Matt it is an endothermic chemical process…
We burn as much fuel in the hopper as needed to convert the wood to gas.
If we supply and external heat source its much conversion of the fuel wood to gas PLUS what ever extra energy we can convert from super heated steam for example to water gas.
So in theory we could make more gas fuel and get more fuel out of the thing than we put in. But this still obeys the laws of thermo dynamics because we are putting more energy into the system through combination of wood and heat than we get out.
Sounds like your diving down that rabbit hole now too…
If you can manage 15 PSI of boost with an ambient temperature of 70F expect the compressed air to be heated to somewhere in the 150F to 200 F.
Add the heat from a regernator, super heated steam recovered from the engine exhaust and you will make more gas, and probably develop a drinking problem working out the details like me…
Don’t say I didn’t warn you about that rabbit hole.
I just read your last post
Seal the hopper lid with valve springs from a small block chevy. and bolts as hold downs
About 10 around a 6 inch hole will keep the lid on seal with RTV silicon…
I should probably move this part of my mad ravings to a message or back to my other thread and post some pictures and detail of construction on how to build a pressurized fluid bed gasifier that does not work…
Down draft probably work with the same spring loaded cover ( pressure relief )…
Relieve the engine completely from any gasifer system suction loading. The variable speed suction blower doing this.
The variable speed suction blower sending woodgas to the engine at normal propane/ methane delivery pressures. This is just s few inches of W.C.
Why it must be feedback variable to compensate for changing gasifer system resistances.
And for changing engine needs volumes.
Yep. A whole project in and of itself. But certainly doable. The bits and pieces for this system are all out there.
Even a commercial opportunity here.
How many here would buy one?
S.U.
Im not talking about the original concept in this post. Im talking more about a typical water drip, steam injection system in our typical charcoal units and also using external sources like bottled Oxygen or an oxygen concentrator to eliminate some the inert gas in our air feeds. However all post here seem to have that one thing in common and this is too eliminate the nitrogen. This needs to be explored, this needs to be built. We will never evolve if we dont try new things.
Im more interested to see what happens. Whether or not this could be viable I dont know. A concentrator runs on a small amount of power so I think it could be implemented. Ill never know until I try it.
A-Hem, Steve…
it looks like this., never yet tested or built.
But don;t waste energy driving a blower. Recover energy from the heat of exhaust.
Exactly my point!!..
Very easy to control, I have not had issues as Im feeding the air mix into the blower first. That system runs smoooooooth!!! I will definitely be posting more about this once Im active back out there. Too cold for me out there right now brrrrrrrrr!!
Okay, seems like our goals are very similar. I would argue against electric driven because of copper losses, and DOWers don’t like electronics. I actually can’t guess where costs would come out. I think a DOW guy could even make something from scratch.
Rindert
One more thing you will discover:
As you increase your input air/steam temperatures the absolute peak temperatures in areas around the hearth will drop. Your not making so much intense heat in front of the nozels anymore because you don’t have to and slagging is reduced.
The lessons from the heated fluid bed are you average heat spread out will still gasify nicely without turning everything inside into glass or melting your internal parts