Hi Koen, Let me take a stab at this comment you made;
Exhaust gasses and we call it a “carbon dioxide killer”
Water and we can call it “running on water”
Here is how I see it. Exhaust gasses contain carbon dioxide and water vapor. Both can serve as fuel and do double duty by regulating the oxidation zone temperature. In excess, both gasses can be “killers”. The secret is to put enough of these gasses in your charcoal generator to keep the temperature around 800C. Much below that and the water/gas reaction drops off.
Until later,
Gary
Hi Gary,
I agree with your statement that both can serve as fuel and both regulate the temperature in the oxidation zone.
The temperature i have in mind is between 1000 and 1200°C, just before the slagging start.
There still remains , of course, the correct feedstock to take in account.
At these temperatures >1000°C the conversion is in the beginning state of being optimum.
There are even study’s that say’s to do it in a pressured environment and obtain about 60% more energy from the same amount charcoal.
but we can not reach that
Anyhow, i try to combine your simple-fire style with old knowledge and have the fun of a lifetime…
Next testing preparing now, i did the first test with the car-generator - converter to run it on gasoline and that worked good.
Now stripping the carb of and connect the gasifier.
i am adding a little fine filter above the oil-dust tank, to check how much particles i suck into the engine.
I might use rice-husk as a filter media in a drum as well.
Today i added 2 “gismo’s”
1= a washable filter with possibility’s to ad filter pads in a transparant canister.
I was a little worried about the filter capability and now i can see if it needs adjustments.
Same time i am on the safe side with the washable filter ( pricing: 7$ for the complete set)
2= a check valve in the filter tank to compensate the push-pull effect from a small engine ( thanks for the tip David)
I used a water check valve but removed the spring inside.
If i wanted to fitt it horizontal, i wil modify the spring
Started a disc cutter 2200 watts, with a lott of difficulties of course, but i did run…
Simultaneous small disc cutter and blower, 720 watts + 550 watts, no problems
needed to do a lot of adjustments, but the set did run…
Used the carb as governor, and the piping was only 3/4" instead off previous 1" straight
Pic 1 the genset , original
The briggs and stratton was 156ccm
The clone honda 160ccm
This gen set was 220ccm
Tomorrow the Honda is 200ccm
The Honda getts a bigger poully for lower rpm continue
can be fittet with either a HP piston pump, a centrifugal pump or a car generator + inverter
quick changed the pump for test tomorrow…
i will test flow and pressure in simulation to height.
still have to strip carb and replace with piping, not sure if i take 1" or 3/4"
My guts say to stick with the 1" and forget about carburators. and ad the exhaust gasses for the future…
Engine has 5" pouly
Pump has 2,5"
so if engine revs at 1600 rpm, the pump will run at 3200 rpm ( also perfect for the car alternator )
This one is from the water pump above, testing how much is the fuel consumption on gasoline.
Run with 1 liter gasoline, 67 minutes, pumping at 2,5 bar 80Liters/minute = 5360 Liters water pumped.
Tomorrow doing the same but on green waste charcoal…
i did this run with water spraying, it helped with the start up of the engine very well. but after that, the reactions of the governor masked the effect.
i study’t a little and did found something for the hydrogen lovers…
a small engine, as i use, needs about 6000 liters of gas at 3000 rpm
1 kg of charcoal needs about 1,25 kgs of air for gas, charcoal sublimates into gaseous condition at a rate from 5000 Liters to 1 Kg Charcoal ( give or take )
Now: water expands at a rate : 1 liter water at 1200°C becomes almost 7000 Liters
Since we only can replace a % of air ( alternating steam - air ) lets say 50/50 then we could spray the max of 500 Liter steam/Kg charcoal = 0,071 Liters water to turn into vapor. ( at temperature 1200° C)
How much of that charcoal is getting burned up to turn the water into steam? Assuming one had an input of exactly 100C liquid water, it takes 2,270 kJ to convert 1kg (or 1L) of that water into steam. With your number of 0.071L/kg charcoal that should be 161kJ to convert 100C water to steam.
Let’s say your starting water is at ambient for a nice sunny day, 30C. Now we need to heat that water by 70C before we can evaporate it. By my math, it says it takes only 293kJ to raise 1L of water by 70C… That doesn’t quite seem right in comparison to the water-to-steam conversion energy above. I may have read this wrong… http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-thermal-properties-d_162.html
Anyways, it takes a lot of energy to heat water to 100C and another boost of energy to convert 100C water to steam. One might want to include that in one’s calculations.
Yes it does take a lot off energy, but that was not part of my calculations , yet…
Therefore the testing… how much can i do before the system runs down …
But we all know that the energy should come from the heat radiation or heat losses which inevitable occur…
I talked about replacing the air with water vapor, we do not ad something extra to heat up, we replace something what should be heated up anyway…
Since water contains 2 powerful substances(Hydrogen and oxygen) which will ad power to the gas we want to obtain, i asume its worth more to heat up water above heating up nitrogen ?
I have some articles and study’s about the mixtures with hydrogen i post them if you like…
Lets say i am an adept of charcoal and hydrogen… Why ? because its easy and has more power then just wood gas. The hydrogen makes it possible to run at a higher rpm then standard wood gas as well.
Any how, i do my testing and studying and will keep you posted about the progresses or failures i make
If there is a progress or development you like to copy, be my guest, thats why we are here for…
regards
Koen
PS. Today i will test with exhaust return, without water, without governor, see if its revs up as same as the water did.
i will perrform some power tests same time ( pumping water under pressure ) to compare
Hi Koen,
You are off and running. Now for the fine tuning. I have a concern that the check valve is too much of a restriction and may be holding back enough gas flow to affect engine performance. Especially for a larger engine. Something to keep in mind. On thinking about this some more, may I suggest moving this valve in front of the air inlet valve that mixes air with your charcoal gas. In fact, I may give this a try too.
As you noticed, starting small engines on just charcoal gas can be made easier if a little hydrogen is added to the mix. This can easily be done by inserting a stick into the hot zone of the nozzle. There is hydrogen and water in the stick that will give a boost of power to your charcoal gas.
As for the filter, the black stuff should be very fine charcoal dust. With well made charcoal in your generator, there will be no issues with tar. Looks like your final filter is catching most of it. Good job.
Gary in PA
Hi Gary,
The largest engine i have is the 220cc from the Electric generator, the rest is 200cc and 160cc
The check valve is spring-less so no noticeable resistance…
Anyway, this one is a bottom check valve for water suction hose, so difficult to move it somewhere between two hoses
Today i replaced the oil in the tank with rice husk and that worked out fine, barely no more black in the test pad.
If the rice husk is saturated, i will charcoal it and use it as fuel …
Further today i used the exhaust gas return…
it does reduces the heat in the gasifier yes, even at the smallest amounts, but it decrease the power output to much for the water pump… so i had to remove the belt to drive the engine.
Running idle i did hear little difference with or without exhaust, did had to change the airmixture dough to uphold the revs (little more rich)
without exhaust i had to make more lean but both times just a tiny little bit.
Spraying water did however the useable job, revs and power up, a lot… did run the water pump with no problems.
I think i have to make a good setup to obtain a perfect balance between both.
Maybe i will install a pederson plate setup first… and the exhaust return at the minimum level possible…
I am enjoying this so much you know…
The problem i see at this point is finding the right proportion of the charcoal. it does bridge a bit from the friction of the walls ( is only 5" pipe)
tapping the outer walls does the job, but have to find something to prevent that bridging. maybe another reactor with a bit of tapered walls ?
Finding the right materials is the trick here i guess… but i keep looking for a bigger pipe…
anyway, hooked i am, goodbye dynofuel
PS. something the woodgassers not going to like ;-)…
You can not run a gasifier without charcoal
PS. something the woodgassers not going to like ;-)…
You can not run a gasifier without charcoal
Good Morning Koen
Very true statement .
This morning I have made enough charcoal to power a 7,500 pound truck almost 50 miles at highway speeds and a trip through the hay fields to check the moisture of drying hay also a trip into the cattle pasture to drop out salt blocks.
I didn’t get to see, taste , smell or wear any of the charcoal but you are correct I was making it.
If you bolt a motor to the side of the reactor with a unbalanced weight on it and run it for a few seconds every so often that would keep things moving. Using a bigger diametre would be more low tech though.
@Wayne, Good morning now ( time difference 11 Hrs ahead of you )
My god, i would like to have a V10 8.0L here now…
Hauling the pineapples from my land here in small pickups running on diesel… Raining saison almost finished now, sometimes raining all day long (Today is)
@ Gary H, finding the perfect balance is not always easy…
To the topic:
my earliar statement about the valves being 25mm straight,…
though the valves 1" are indicated DN25, whilst cleaning them out yesterday evening after the run, i did measured them and they are only 20mm… (bore in the ball)
The 3/4" indicated DN20 but were only 16mm
This could explain a little on the power drop yesterday.
i also noticed that running this small engines on the current gasifier at low rpm is not always feasible (turn down ratio not sufficient) when running under heavier loads.
I need to work on that.
i did modified the pouly (picture) of the engine into a double sized, so i can redo the testing on a higher rpm, same time as running the pump i could ad the car generator to load the battery whilst pumping water same time. ( not a bad idea )
