I made a pyrolysis daisy chain or a pyrolysis industrial gas human centpede the other day. I think it works pretty good.
Two things are important*
You dont need a wood burning gasifier now *You get an in line gas heater that works at 20 cfm. Thats lots of torque. The compressor and the heater take 1kwh. Temperature is 0F - 1000F .75" x 5"
A pyrolysis machine is just an inline gas heater or a heat gun or a hair dryer. The electric allows for more precise environment controls . This machine is a flame free flame thrower.
20 cfm is the size of a large refrigerator. Thats good kiln size. I think you can maintain lots of these kilns at the same time.
Using nitrogen alone allows for unique heat transfer options. The pyrolysis chamber doesnt allow for oxygen but N2 is OK. If you substitute N2 for 02 you can make internal air blasts, air jets, and hot air resevoirs.
The dry pyrolysis yields acetate and its conjugate acetic acid. Acetate has market value as a renewable plastic Acetate is microbe food A1. You can grow methane bacteria or electro bacteria.
Microbes grow in batches. You need to mix an agar smoothie and infuse an active culture then keep warm. There is a cycle it starts slow then grows then stops and you mix again.
He is basically performing Pyrolysis without an oxidation process. Substituting the oxydation process with electric generated heat and using nitrogen as heat carrier.
Rather than using nitrogen, would it not be better to recirculate some of the produced gas back into the reactor? This way you get rid of the nitrogen making the gas stronger. If there is no oxygen intake then the gas can not burn or oxidize and could take the place of the nitrogen.
Hi Im not making syngas I gave up. Im purposely doing dry or destructive distilation because it makes product. If I make sygas I just get syngas. If I make wood distillate I get methanol and acetate etc. This gas heater makes lots of heat enough to heat 19 55 gallon drums for four hours at $.75 I think Ill get 100 gallons of fuel. Thats a good return while there is more distilling to do admitedly.
Yeah I spent 12 years chasing this. Charcoal only for me Its the only way for small stationary engines and I am done with my development. I have moved on to other companies I have in development now.
My best advice is to put all your inovation into the charcoal process or make charcoal as a by product of what ever process you are trying to create. Sounds like you are. When you combine that process and can incorporate it into an energy that is useful it beats wood gasifaction hands downl,
I’m trying to follow this. You’re using 75 cents worth of electricity in 4 hours, about 2 kilowatts if your power is inexpensive. Roughly a big heat gun applied to nineteen barrels of wood. It doesn’t seem like 4 hours will do much. How long do you expect it to take for the 100 gallons of fuel?
Yeah Im trying to wrap my head around it too. I thought I understood.
So you are using electric to creat process heat > to create pyrolysis gas > then burning it off for heat?
Im actually doing something something simalar but without using any electric input. I built a stove that is based on the retort development I was working on this year. It uses its own pyrolysis gas for its own process heat. This tiny stove will run for six hours, produces very little smoke and runs very stable.
I’m with you Matt. This only makes sense if the goal is super dense engine grade gas. For a heat process there is no point in avoiding nitrogen dilution, heat is heat. And oxygen isn’t necessarily bad in gasification. It leads to more carbon monoxide which is a fine fuel and heat from the partial oxidation of the fuel helps drive the reaction.
Anyhow for engine gas… it’s just not worth it. You’ll get at best 25% of fuel gas’s energy back as electricity, only to use some or all of it to… cook more fuel? I can’t see the energy balance being favorable. And in any case… gasification throws off plenty of heat. At a minimum you should be pre-heating wood fuel with that or engine exhaust. And if that’s not enough… use some of the fuel gas for direct heating. Electricity is too valuable for resistance heating.
The dry distillation vessel would need to be made out of something amazing to withstand the heat and acidity of the distillation products AND convey huge amounts of heat into solid fuels with low thermal conductivity. I promise it wouldn’t be worth it.
The closest thing that exists to this are “Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle” power plants. They pulverize the coal and heat/gasify it in a fluidized bed to avoid the lousy thermal conductivity of bulk fuel. They still use oxygen to gasify. Also it’s pretty bleeding edge even at commercial scale.
Its the only way for small stationary engines and I am done with my development. I have moved on to other companies I have in development now.