I was looking at the engine compartment making some arrangement on the Mercedes when a idea popped out. We say compressing woodgas is a bad idea. But is it realy? Yes in order to make a compressed woodgas system a large high pressure gas tank wuld be needed and thats neither safe, practical or economical. But, what if we install a small say 20l (5gal) gas tank and have it topped up with say 10bar of woodgas. Thats 200l of gas ready to be used in case a aditional boost in power is neaded. Or, per instance, use it to crank up in supercold weather, or in a hurry when the gasifier isnt up to temp. 200 l doesent sound like much but for my 2.3l engine, thats enough for a 6s full power boost at 3000rpm WOT runing just on compressed gas, or a much longer time if its just added to help the gasifier.
Now what realy sparked the idea is looking at my cars AC compressor. My thod was culd use it to fill the gas tank? So, when idleing along the road with 1/4 throtle (or even going downhill, maku use of the wasted potential energy!), hit a swich and start the AC compressor. It fills the woodgas tank and when strong acceleration is neaded, it shuts down and woodgas from the tank can help the gasifier.
This requires minimal work, and materials to do, the AC compressor is wired on a manual swich anyway. Only a tank, a pressure regulator and a EM valve are neaded to make this work.
Downside is you loose AC ability but l never use it anyway.
its actual a good idea…
just install a second AC compressor, that will do the trick…
and… when the tank is full, make the bypass feeding the extra gas , ignited, into the airintake of the gasifier… recirculating
so to speak, the gas not used for driving… your gas will get more potent to accelerate and leans out in normal driving mode.
The pump never stops pumping …
So much joy in reading your posted idea’s. knowing that you have many more spooking around in your mind…
Hi Lewis, when we cool the hot charcoal gas we get condensation to drop the water out. That is good, so if we can get more water out of the gas that is is not a good thing? What I see is the engine is what turns the A/C compressor might be using up 4 to 5 hp. But on the other side going down hill or coasting, like Kristijan said it using waste hp. That is good. The tank would just half to have a drain off valve in the bottom of the tank.
Bob
I mean that not only water will condense. Any residual tar (even pure charcoal would still have traces) would, imho, end Up clogging the tank drain and / or pipes. Furthermore, condensed combustión products tend to be extremelly corrosive, as condensate mixed with carbón dioxide and, god forbid, sulphur forms carbonic ácid and sulphur acid. Tank Life would be short if not stainless.
You do have a point Lewis, about contaminates in the gas, A/C compressors are normally run with a clean gas. There are compressors that will handle dirty gases.
Bob
5 gallons wood gas what psi , or how too make sure all connections too and from wood gas producer are leak free. so all the gas being stored dont have enough ox too flash open the container, good threiry but more complicateing for safty. Hey you build , test , I watch.
Hi KristijanL,
Your energy use/reuse concepts are sound. But . . . I am with Kevin on this one; you build. You test. And I’ll watch.
I have has some varied, limited, experiences with compressing and storing wood gasses.
No matter the compressor type, always there seem to be soots produced. Then depending on the compressor types that soot clogs rings. Causes valves to not seat/seal cleanly. The higher the pressure pushed up; the greater the volumes compressed, the more this ugly problem occurs.
I have developed an idea why this happens. The Math-boys say - NO! IMPOSSIBLE!
Very chemical/math/energy possible from the compressor energy input into it!
So go ahead and try this. You said that you did not use that AC compressor anyhow. Just do not bet your future on this until a couple of full years proving.
The problem I see is lack of lubrication, a/c compressors get lubed with oil circulating in the a/c system. Now if you used an old style compressor with a crank case no problem.
Some of us have been there and done that…
Plenty of easy tricks, if needed any, to avoid the problems you describe…( if any )
Hi Bob,
It takes the same amount of energy to compress the gas as the energy present in the gas itself, but your engine will hardly consume a puff of gas more when doing it during driving, even better if you do it during decelerating …
We even can make a “wet” gas with some oil lube… that will also act as accelerant…
So many idea’s that might be possible but never been tried…
Thank god we have DOW and its members… we all learn from trying and Doing…
Kristijan,
I love the idea and will also participate in trying…
To All;
Thank God we have people who tried to make fire with other things then just 2 rocks…
Edit: ROFLMAO
i love that quote: " you build. You test. And I’ll watch." and i ad: but i don’t say " naaa, impossible… "
Thanks for all your responces. Hey, its just a idea. No one says its gonna work 100%
On compressor type, no idea. It seems wery small so l dubt it has a oil filled crankcase.
As for gas purity, thats not a problem realy. In contrast to “main gas” suply, the filter before the compressor can be tight and high quality/density. Soot produced trugh chemical degradation under pressure is a different story. But it shuld be extremely fine.
Koen, l realy apreciate your atitude and mojo. I wish we wuld live closer to each other
if the compressor don’t have its own oil it will not last long like a two stroke motor it will work but no oil not long. some of the old compressors look like a simple air compressor but for ac those ones will last.
but l never use it anyway.
