In order to compress methane produced via sinthesis you wuld probably need nitrogen free singas. So probably this means runing the gas producer on oxigen. Doing this, you will alredy gain a rich enaugh singas to be worth to compress as such. No extra steps turning it to methane, and looseing a lot of efficiancy in the way
No, gases will not separate but what Cody says is true, hydrogen does cause some structural problems with some alloys but lm sure that could be overcomed.
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Isn’t there a method to produce methane just by blowing steam through red-hot charcoal? There would be no nitrogen in this stream. I envision a retort furnace similar to the one pictured above, where you have a vertical column packed with charcoal, and steam piped through it. The column is kept at red or orange heat to keep the charcoal reactive to the steam. You also get activated charcoal when you’re done. Cody’sLab on youtube did this, and he sure did get flammable gas coming out of a charcoal-packed vessel with only steam going in. Maybe there are other gases like CO as well, especially if the temperature isn’t right.
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It’s called watergas or sometimes blue watergas because it produces a blue flame due to a high level of hydrogen.
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Dan, this proces will not produce methane but a mixture of CO and H2 no matter the temperature.
Problem is maintaining the temperature as the reaction is highly exotermic, so you need a external sorce of heat.
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Makes sense, since the H2O is going to bring in oxygen. The output would still lack nitrogen though, since the steam would have displaced all the air. Sounds like it’s not very efficient unless you have specific needs for the activated charcoal.
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They used to alternately blow air to heat the coal bed white hot, then steam and collect the gases. Still unefficient as you got to discard the gases made by injecting air, but they obtained nitrogen free gas. Well, kinda… still had about 5% nitrogen if memory serves me…
I once played with the idea to use electricity to “short circuit” the char bed in order to get it hot, and it did work. Made some incredible gas but l used steel electrodes so ofcorse it all melted. Shuld try again some day with carbon electrodes.
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Methane is very “enticing” solution as alternative energy resource. Your car could work on CNG with standardized retrofit. You could use it for cooking at home. It could be stored compressed without hazard which brings hydrogen or CO. And many other benefits.
The trouble is, that only viable production is anaerobic digestion which would require large amount of feedstock to produce relevant amount of clean gas. Actually, on weight comparison, its better than wood. But I am sure that many of you here on DOW consider wood harvesting and preparation much more feasible than growing feedstock for the biogas plant.
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This is an Acheson furnace. Very useful, and I hope to try it one day as well.
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Some steel foundries use consumable carbon electrodes to melt steel. I suppose this could be used to keep a char bed hot. Is this what you are thinking?
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Obvious, but none said it yet. If we want syngas with little nitrogen in it, couldn’t we use an oxygen concentrator, and then control the reaction temperature with steam?
I talked to an old, retired chemical engineer about this once. I asked if we could influence a gasifier to produce DME. He said yes, we would have to change the pressure. I would also guess the presence of a catalyst would reduce the required pressure. I then remember that catalysts become contaminated with sulfur. But charcoal contains very little sulfur.
Would it even make sense to add catalyst to a char bed? And then we could simply run a charcoal gasifier at some increased pressure. Pressure could be controlled by a downstream regulator.
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Exactly. It might even be possible to make your own electrodes by turning dense wood twighs to charcoal.
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Are those carbon electrodes very expensive?
it is a good thing that this topic was put quite properly in the Woodgas Science category.
So . . . now many of you talk about catalysts.
Now KristijanL. talks about making energy electrodes out of selected charcoaled wooden sticks.
Here is my personal difficulty with “science” as relationship to using site grown woods as an input . . . you cannot control, predict, or even replicate reliably results when using highly variable woods.
Wood will have where grown from the ground uptake incorporated carrying varying levels of potassium, sodiums, nitrates, zinc, selenium, and even leads, arsenic and aluminum compounds. And other organics, and metallics like iron.
Almost all of these used in purified forms as chemical reactions enhancing catalysts. In wood these will act as reactions modifiers.
So to actually “achieve (a) home product” you will have to do much trial and error experimentation.
GOOD science and Labs works must have repeatability. Have duplications confirmations able to be done independently by others.
This is achieved by eliminating down to just only, a few set, controllable, variables.
Ha! Impossible in “home” conditions. Who’s home? Mine here in PNW low elevation PNW westside? BobMac’s 150 miles away across the Cascade Mountains crest; higher altitude, and much drier? Leaving the soil much higher in available not washed down minerals! Deer grow dramatically different horn sets there east-side, versus us westside. Soil minerals available uptaken by the plants the deer eat! Directly observable once you Marcus Norman-like - Get Outside. Go Outside, and look around and wonder; at the Wonders, surrounding.
Once you have to buy out a highly refined purified catalyst; or use an outside sourced pre-refined feedstock; then it is no longer DIY home continuous doable. Useable. Worthy of efforts.
Refer to Kristijans recent “smoked” cured meats developments for some true home organic chemistry.
On raw wood gasifier turning my own, owned PNW westside woods I do push for the higher levels of in gasifier formed CH4. Big, big diffnerce for IC piston engine power getting this from near zero in a charcoal system to normal raw woodgasifier 1-4%.
Never tested but at times I am sure I must have been in different systems; at different times; under different condition been making and supplying to the IC engine higher than a 4% produced gas stream CH4. Better engine useable power. Smoother running.
Never tested for lab numbers. The engine loaded working is the ultimate home-DYI made fuel gasses tester.
Yeah. Yeah. Just cranky old fart Steve Unruh jabbering again.
The Practicalist. Only Use-Poof (the eating) has a value to a practicalist user.
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I just remembered I brought home some used electrodes for electric discharge machine (edm). I tried to burn them. They would not. This might be useful.
Thats exactly wha I was looking at!
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They may have been graphite, a different form of carbon.
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No, they are not expensive but l have no idea how long one wuld last. Shuld last a wery long time if kept in a inert athmosphere, after all this is nothing but a form of carbon arc lamp. But since it shuld be positioned in a gas stream the steam will slowly erode the electrodes, just as it does charcoal.
At this carbon arc temperatures, some crazy shit happens. Nuclear fusion has been observed even. Some hevar thain carbon elements start to form on the glass of the arc lamp… just a fun fact, irelevant to the topic.
A nother example is this
Same principle as l propose, only that this actualy takes the rods them selves as a reactant and we do not want this. We need charcoal to react with steam, not the rods.
Steve, lm not quite sure what you ment with your post about the different elements in wood? All we realy need here is a long peace of conductive charcoal to make an arc in the reactor, the catalitic part follows later when the gas is alredy cooled and cleaned.
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Are these electrodes to small to test with?
I could maybe send you some, if it’s worth the shipping?
I got about 50 of these, spare arc electrodes from a very old cinema projector. These are negative electrodes, if i remember correctly the positives are thicker? (Consumed twice as fast).
There are ofcourse electrodes available for carbon arc cutters, maybe better?
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Would it be better to heat the supplied steam rather than heat the coal bed?
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