Yes I believe that is correct and only the weight of the 16 gallons can be applied. So three quarters down leaves 4 gallons = 33 lbs or so.
But its still a good idea considering I want to use the barrels. The 16 gallon drum weighs around 12 or 14 lbs. 16 gallons of water however, weighs 133 lbs
If I go to the 30 gallon drum for the inside drum then thats 250 lbs. But I would not have the full capacity if submerged into the 55 gallon drum
Thats a clever way to get a lot gas inside the vessel with out a blower? Get the gasifier up and running then lift that baby up and it will suck in the gas by lifting it right?
That is way over my head lol. But I gather I am somewhat correct that having the height will apply more pressure. But not weight, that is where my logic is probably messed up. There are two different things going on.
If we filled up a balloon inside there then we would be working with the pressure forces instead of the buoyancy weight correct?
This from Linde’s material data safety sheet for 99% pure compressed carbon monoxide.
Note the compressed gas is stable. It decomposes at 752°
If you are worried about flash back, use Humphrey screens in your feed line.
I like this topic. I have done this in the past. I have a tank of co here somewhere that I labelled with soapstone, but I think it washed off in the rain, so…IDK. The idea was to see if soot came out.
This needs some practical experimentation. Does the pumping losses (in terms of wood) make storing the gas in cylinders, prohibitive versus the low pressure gasometer.
Or was it a case of safety? Riveted tanks seem scary although so does a big hat in a swimming pool.
For me its both, and probably more on the energy losses when using high compression storage. But Ive also blown up a lot of stuff using HHO and know this gas will kill you in a heartbeat. If there is any risk at all Im out and not messing with it. Shoot a container into the sky Im not so worried about and I think for my application a low pressure storage like this will be plenty sufficient.
The idea of displacing the water instead of using the inner vessel to move the gas is to make it safer. So instead of shooting this vessel into the air you simply blow the water out of the lower container.
Hmm … Matt, compressing gas at high pressure (200bar) and storing it as CNG for use has been a challenge for me for some time. True, a lot of energy needs to be invested here for compression, but if the right approach is used in use, this energy is not lost, even more, you have a lot of clean potential energy in the cylinder that you can easily use to drive an air engine before gas ignite. https://youtu.be/2PCVPoe47xg
The most practical use, however, would be to dose the gas into the otto engine just before the piston reaches the top dead position, or before the ignition occurs. Thus, at the same time, we would get the compression energy returned and the full amount of clean air for mixing and combustion with gas … in short, a lot of engine power …
So, I can see a scuba tank compressor taking the gas up to 1100 psi.
In theory, releasing it into a crappy old engine whose compression pressure is between 125-75 psi.
Do you need an accompanying stream of injected air? Or is this going to run like a diesel with air only being drawn in through the intake.
This would be a good place to show a graph of the increase in pressure due to the increase in “n” (PV=nRT).
The obvious injector apparatus would be some sort of logic controlled solenoid…do you know of any? This could also be used if you wanted a steam engine.
Search term: gaseous fuel injector
I dont plan to run an engine with this. This will used to create charcoal and provide gas to replace LP / NG for running the gas appliances. The charcoal rendered will be for the generator for electric power.
I could very easily automate an on demand gasometer / gasifier system to do this and the gasifier would not need to produce very clean gas. So the gasifier could be made very simple possibly a FEMA or a simplified Imbert.
When gas is needed to recharge the gasometers. Ill use some of the left over gas to light the unit. The blower will turn on and the machine will try to ignite the flare until it lights. Once the controls see a lit flare, the blower motor and flare valve shuts off and the hoist motor will activate and lift the accumulator of the gasometer up sucking in the gas. So very low power requirement. Lighting with the Amteck blowers I expect a 30 second start up time and then the barrel hoist lift will be a few minutes and then a settling time.
So there will be two gasometers that will flip back fourth in this process. One will supply while the other accumulates and settles the gas.
The supply out however will have a small air compressor pump and a small accumulator tank. This is to better maintain a constant presure but it will only need to sustain less than 10 psi. So again very low electrical input.
This will run my Hot water heater, my refrigerator, stove, LP Furnace and cloths dryer. All these appliances can be ran on gas versus electric and would be direct energy conversion from energy waste reclaim of the charcoal process for the charcoal gasifier.
This will help balance the scale as most of the weight the electrical system carried = more wood for process. So with the gas appliances we shift that weight away to a more efficient method. Your wood process efforts are now for the gasometer for energy to run the gas appliances. What you get in charcoal for the electrical power is the bonus. So now your electrical requirement is cut in half if not more so less charcoal is needed. This should actually produce a surplus and that would be great for EV adoption or a CV (Charcoal Vehicle) 
Here is very good example. Note his “gasifier” is actually a closed retort and he is injecting the pyrolysis gas directly into the gasometer and it is clean as can be. Using a compressor with woodgas I cant see working for long duration. The tar will eventually destroy the pump and air will get in at some point. The Pump I will use will be after gas scrubbing and will be small along with a very small volume accumulator. A gasometer if it blows it just shoots out the water and would shoot the accumulator out the water. The hoist will stop it from becoming a rocket. Ive experienced at least 20 catastrophic flash back events in my development history. If any of these events were inside a closed sealed vessel I would be dead!! Never ever put this gas in large quantities in a sealed closed vessel ever especially under presure.
If you are going to run an engine on compressed woodgas. Wouldnt it be easier to just get an LP conversion kit and modify it for woodgas?
Matt, adding some lime to the water will also scrubb out any CO2 from the gas.
Ive been thinking about this. So I would assume the C02 is heavier than the other gases in the mix? Just wondering if this is how the CO2 is reacting with the water solution?
It is hevyer but its not how this all works in solution/gas mix. Salt is hevyer thain water too yet a jar of seawater will not get saltyer on the bottom if left sit. Keep in mind gas molecules actualy travel around about at the speed of sound at room temp so there is plenty of mixing involved.
CO2 chemicly reacts with lime to form a precipitate, chalk, wich is unsoluble and will collect at the bottom. This will also neutralise any acids produced in the gasification process and extend the life of steel.
This is very interesting Kristijan. There are ways to make a gas scrubber. But how big would it need to be to affective.
Bob
Not that big realy. I think just bubbling it trugh a foot or two of solution shuld do the trick.
I remember an experiment from elementery school, blowing air trugh lime and it reacts quite fast.
No miracles are expected here, as woodgas only contains 10% CO2 at most but hey, if there is gasometer with water alredy in there, it only costs a few cents to enrichen the gas a bit…
Oh, and althugh lime is cheap and a pound will theoreticly bond about 40 gallons of CO2, its totaly possible to regenerate. Throw it in the charcoal kiln and scoop it out together with the ash, redy for a nother go.
Running the gases through a pipe into the lime water solution this will take vacuum to do this. But running the gases through marbles scrubber with a lime solution pouring over the top of marbles like Matt did with just water a couple years ago might work.
I wonder if this could be used in the bottom of the hay filter with a recirculating pump in the bottom.
Bob
