Good to hear your smiling presence again ChrisMO.
'Bout time for another load up of your historic systems pictures.
Please. Please.
Best Regards
Steve Unruh
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Hi Steve
I know your a very busy man and any advise you would give me should cost a lot but maybe you would give me two minutes of advice. I have built three different gasifiers and they all do the same thing. Almost no gas at the outlet and lots of tar seen at the outlet. The whole system is coated with in fact droplets of tar are coming out of the outlet. Is it possible to get your email address so that I can show you a concept drawing of each gasifier?
Hello JoeJoe
You would be better served setting up a my-projects topic where best here on the DOW.
Then many could contribute help and adviceâs.
I am kinndaâ cranky anymore.
I only support raw wood chunked fed gasifiers intended to internal combustion engine run.
And only those wood fueled only from the users own sites grown woods.
Others here are not as restrictive on fuels inputs, and gasifier outputs usages.
Output tars with wood fuels means you are not getting the hearth core temperatures up hot enough, for long enough. When you start heat damaging hearth internals then you know you are temp high enough and then need to redesign so fabrication materials can endure that level of heat energy produced/release on a continuous basis.
âTarsâ are just wood sourced hydrocarbon chains waiting to be thermal-chemically converted to fuel gases. Convert them. Never filter out waste them.
Your âalmost no gas at the outletâ is a can-of-worms to address. 20 questions back and forth right there. Flow making source? Gas quality decided, how? Gas quantity decided, how? Etc, etc, etc.
Again why youâd be better served opening up to the full group.
If your intended use of your systems interest me Iâd participate there. If not me, others would.
Another less exposures avenue is to Fridays afternoons log into the DOW chat group. These get very lively and allow pictures exchanges. Questions asked and live answered. AdminChris sometimes records these.
Hey. As the video interview said - Iâm trying to woodgas retire now. Plenty of others now rowing the freedom-fuel boat just fine.
Steve Unruh
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Hey JoeJoe refer to MattR information post today 10/04/2016 on his Vulcan gasifer topic.
Your problems answered there.
S.U.
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Thank You so Very much. Your the best and I really appreciate your response.
Thank YOU
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Hi joejoe,
Welcome. there is a lot of help/helpers here, but some specifics would help immensely otherwise weâre taking educated guesses. Some pics of as much of your build as possible would be a start. A drawing with dimensions, interior shapes (hopper, burner, base etc.) and whatever else you can give us. What is your source for air, pushing air through or pulling it through the unit. Is there enough air velocity for complete combustion in the oxidation zone (where nozzles are). there are a lot of etcâs but weâll deal with them as we see more info.
Post your drawings here if you can, no one will laugh and there are no questions that are dumb, we all started there. Check out some of my early pics for crudeness, ha, ha (laughing at myself). The only way to learn is by doing. if you want, my email address is [email protected].
Pepe
My stuff is here, Go to the forum page and click on All categories on the left side of the page. Then click on Small engines. When that page opens, scroll down on the left side to âMy first small engine runâ to see my beginning stuff.
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Hi Pepe,
Thats not fair, youâr not a beginner 
I envy your building skills, as much i envy those of others here on DOW
Hi JoeJoe,
Follow their lead⌠succes guaranteed
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I am now up to four different times recently now that Iâve been asked to chime in on IC engines/fuels/compression ratios/boost-charging/wood-chargas filtering.
So any wondering why I approach loaded engine fueling, fuels using it may be helpful to read this topic again from the beginning.
Summery: I am all about practical real year around shaft power using to befit my families rural living.
We purpose grow trees for animal habitat, make tax paying money, make space heating fuel, and building materials. And all of my woodgas efforts has been to expand our OWN grow trees to make shaft power for our needs now too.
Any farming you must be very practical. And very pragmatic. There will only ever be so many hours in a day. So many non-mud days in a year. Only one short growing season annually on productive farm sized land in each and every year. Only so many productive years in a human lifetime.
We/I have used many pieces of motorized equipmentâs in my lifetime to multiply farm efforts with.
Gasoline fueled 2&4 stroke. Diesel fueled 2&4 stroke. Propane fueled 4 strokes.
3rd generation here, and impossible to pay the taxes and Cesare obligations on just farm income. So each generation someone of us, has to pay-work off the farms to earn for society obligations.
Me. Learning to first to grease-monkey. Then Auto electrician. Then master Auto-Tech.
As a very practical, pragmatic, productive fellow from 12 years old in the picking fields . . . 14 years and on in the Daries; I always go for the simplest most direct, least maintenanceâs required solutions to anything and everything.
No. Really. Needs-must is a hammer to the head when possible Iâve done this versus using a loud scare the whole farm (woman folk and critters) bullet.
So internal combustion engines:
Every type and design was made optimally for a range of purposes. No one-size-fits-all can; or would ever; ever work for all needs. Iâll use all types, brands depending on what I need, and is widely locally available, affordable to maintain.
So woo-woo someday engines: hot-rod and racing engines leave me cold. I do not care. Wastes time. Is mental masturbations.
As I write this most here are deep winter sub-freezing cold. You want engines that will work for you, -44 to 120F in all humidities. From Death Valley elevations; to 10,000 road feet.
In these ranges boost-charging is not needed except under very special applications like getting enough oxygen to a too dense of carbons heavily loaded diesel fuel engines.
Turbo charging gasoline and gaseous fuels propane for the normal annual conditions I work in is wasting money/maintenance.
Yes. Yes. I have turbo factory owners in the circle of family and friends. And worked on these as a paid-for tech/mech. Fully synthetic oils if you wan then to live!!
Boost chargeing does come into its own for these fuels in light aircraft. The air gets too thin.
Compression ratios need to match the fuel used to the loading ranges (mechanical and temperatures) the engine will be worked at.
Remember for true all year use worked practical this means the severe 4th seasonâs extremes too. Not just the jolly times of the year.
Hot-rod cold intake garage queens are never used in sub-zero. like all racing/beauty queens not very damn practical.
All practical to use, available IC engine fuels are some combination of hydrogen and carbons.
Spec engineered/blended gasoline as having the best -44 to 120F capability. No need for additional boosting for O2 from a complete combustion standpoint⌠No need for extra added hydrogenâs or carbons. NEEDS in cylinder head/combustion chamber molecule ripping pressure/turbulence. Designs have improved in the last 130 years. Gasoline become wickedly dangerous pushed past a particle mist in to a true vapor. Very unstable unpredictable combustion pressure rise then. You only want vaporization to occur within the combustion chamber - in a controlled manner. The Prince of pump fuels.
Propane is carbons short, hydrogen rich, and can benefit from more carbons. Think not? Add a little acetylene and watch your engine power perk up. Motor power blends have as much carbons richer gasses as the base sock can supply. Suppler engineers tell me that there is actually 3-4 grades of supplied propane - depending.
An easy to completely combust in the engine combustion chamber as motor fuel over all as there is.
Terrible freezing weather motor fuel. YOU Must heat the fuel reservoir. Lower energy density of fuel&container combo so range use suffers. The Queen of pump fuels.
Diesel fuel has far to many carbons for the hydrogenâs. Why extremes in-head/combustion chamber designs had to be evolved to heat&turbulence rip apart those strong carbons chains bonds. Why the evolved higher and higher pressure injection systems able to finer, finer particlized the fuel.
You betchaâ Diesel fueled engine benefit for MORE forced in oxygenâs to combine with the too many carbons. Diesel fueled engines benefit form MORE hydrogens being introduced to help out the CtoH balance more towards gasoline.
And below 50F you need cold combustion starting/heating assistance.
All of these add complexity, and maintenance expenses. The King of pump fuels.
I do still own two diesel engines. No special systems. Pump spec grade fuels. Use these only as needed for 2 1/2 seasons of the years. MUCH cheaper that way. The money/time not spent forcing these into year around use, I put to other uses.
Woodgas? Like gasoline. Use as is year around.
Chargas? I have no direct loaded working engine using experience.
I, defer to KoenVL, Khistijan, Gary-in-PA and a few others who are actually Doing . . engine running doing.
From what they are experiencing, and telling, seems to need supplementary systems. Engine EGR/steam hydrogen blending/cooling. Supplementary systems needing then year around work use like propane or diesel.
Filtering woodgas or chargas?
I am controversial there. My in-system-use observed now opinion is the carbon monoxide fuel gas component is very fragile. On the edge of unstable. A million little set spring mouse traps ready to snap back to released at the meerist touch or jolt.
So my opinion now is cyclone âcleaningâ internal shear edge tumbling of the woodgas is causing reversion to carbon soot chains and carbon dioxide.
Engine mixers rough handling the wood gas will do the same. Internal rough piping edges doing the same.
A woodgas with 15-20 CO that has just 1/10 portion of that portion rip-turbulence reversed would result in a lot of light fluffy soots accumulating. And you barely if at all notice the slight fuel energy loss of that small amount of CO to CO2 reversion. The resulting CO2 might even EGR-like cool a heavily loaded IC engine for a smoother pressure rise pulse delivery.
So you all trying to improve on WayneKâs work using performances note he does not cyclone rip his woodgas and gently leads it into his throttle body mixer.
Sigh. I tired now. Need a senior nap.
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Hi Steve,
interesting point and observation about the fragile CO.
I have no practical experiences about this, but I can try to bring all the bits and pieces of written experience of other together.
I always thought so far that mainly the cracking and decomposition of the wood-tars in the gasifier hearth caused the soot formation. Some of it is very fine, so it is hard to filter it out 100%.
But if the moist gas is suddenly getting cooler, condensation happens and thus also some soot settles with the water drops. This can be seen especially at the thottle, as the pressure drop cools the gas.
How to proove it?
Well Vesa Mikkonen from Finland has a very good gas filtration and very few deposits at his throttle according to his book. I donât have it at the hand at the moment, but I think he warms his gas a little up befire the throttle, so it could be just the avoided condensation that keeps his inlet clean.
Then, char gas might be a proove. First, char gas is normally not sooty, but has a high CO content. A question to the active char-gassers: Do you have soot at your throttle? And you are quite sure that is not because of limited gas filtering?
Third, according to the Swiss book, the CO is quite stable at lower temps. But it is beneficial to cool the gas soon after it leaves the heath zone to avoid decomposition.
But, as I said, just second hand observations and may conclusions.
Hope that more people with first hand experience may give their point of view.
Regards,
Til
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I have had black dust after my throttle plate but in the last two years I have not bothered to take the carb off to have a look.
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From a bit of reading, I gather that CO has an auto ignition temperature point of 609°C. It is said that the chemical bond is quite strong. This leads me to doubt if CO is spontaneously degrading due to turbulence.
But might shock waves be meeting the energy / temperature needed for degradation?
@k_vanlooken is our resident chemistry expert on such matters, perhaps he can say something definitive about the stability of CO. While on the topic how about stored syngas?
I envision an experiment - store syngas, then pass it repeatedly through a venturi, or some violent turbulence, to see whether there is any degradation/ soot production.
In running systems, my suspicion is as Jeff suggested, that the fine soot is just very hard to separate from the gas stream. And then it deposits where there is turbulence and a pressure drop precipitating moisture.
But it would be good to pin down the fundamental principles better for the group discussion.
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Exactly, because this is important to improve certain design features of handling the gas.
Volume-filters, filled with steel-wool, wood shavings, hay or whatever have difficulties of filtering the very fine dust out. So there are deposits later. I think this is the cause.
A totally different question is if this does any harm the the engine. The long term experience of Wayne shows that most likely not, expect from cleaning the inlet manifold from time to time.
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Yes Gary Tait when I reported my making soots observations to others much better read and even university educated than me, they insisted that made, cooled stabilized CO gas could not revert back without an energy input to convert it. They kept thinking in terms of heat energy.
Failed to appreciate that sonic making levels of shear edge flow turbulence past a throttle plate edge IS an energy input too!!
Pressure drops and edge shear sonic is how all of the really good liquid gasoline carburetor designers did their best works using just the descending piston to work to lowering pressure drops to drive the whole system.
Look 'Ma no turbo charger turbulence or in passage way âturbulatorâ needed.
Not being university educated I am able to just accept what I see and observe without always having to know why in mathâs and physics terms.
And this IS still a rational working system of application. Use Net-Effects on systems to mange all of the incalculable variables.
No belief in magic pixie-dust needed either.
It was earlier learning well auto emissions that finally pounded into my head the reason for GMâs insistence on shear edge kidney shaped combustion chambers. The decreasing volume from the rising piston pushed the air gasoline droplets mix ripping past this edge was intended to rip the want-to-be-stable tight bound carbons chains apart.
Ha! And here Iâd thought smooth flow in and out Hemispherical combustion chambers were the best. For absolute power, yes, maybe. NOT for best fuel use efficiency with the lowest output exhaust emissions. And I found in auto service work that the non-shear edge combustion chamber designs like in Dodge/Jeep quench and hex/penta types were the ones that were carbons depositing building up, needing decarbonizations.
Heck of a lot of engineering experience goes into specific combustion chamber/valves/piston top designing between the different HC liquid/gasious fuel types.
The more advanced âbetterâ, âsuperiorâ for one specific fuel type; the less likely able to operate well on an alternative fuel.
Fortunately woodgas works well with all gasoline types IC engines. Works excellent with methane IC engine types. Propane engines are usually an unmodified gasoline-type combustion chamber.
And there actually was Chrysler/Dodge liquid Propane EFI engines made for municipalities. NOT just heat vaporized central point mixing gaseous Propane systems like warehouse forklifts.
Ha! And all of these propane system really needed parked overnight in side of warmed storage in really cold times of the year.
Regards
tree-farmer Steve Unruh
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From loaded IC engine running experiences Tilman I found that the more multi stage cleaned filtered the woodgas was the less wattage I was able to electrical system generate engine fueling with it.
A very sophisticated four stage cleaned/cooled/filtered âblue-flareâ capable system as the one of the worst for loaded IC engine power. In truth this system was designed for GTL feed stock making.
Missing an IC engine power making free-carbons (pure soots) fuel component.
On the 2-stroke engine topic you stated quite well that as many soots passed out of the core hearth area should be gotten out as having abrasive ash cores.
Past that: the fine soots passed (or my contention; downstream systems made) will be just more energy making engine fuel power once into the IC engine combustion chamber.
Ha! Getting these fueling capable into the combustion is the bug-a-boo.
Intake manifold pocket areas accumulating; eventually flows clogging.
Into the engine oils. Iâve had even extermly sipmly oiling 4-stoke engeror engine sooted oil hang up the hand cranking speed compression release mechanisms. Outch! Hurts! Solution. Dump out the oil. Flush the crankcase. Change out the oil more often.
I did for a while on easy single cylinder 4 stroke generators types making some lowest turbulence mixers. Too heavy. Too expensive to get past a one-on-one handmade stage. Mine depended on intake valve closing back pressure pulses so had no use in multicylinder engines.
And the Austrian GE/Jenbacher engine company did put up on the NET design work on an internal movable torpedo low turbulence gaseous mixer for their big 12, 16, 20 cylinder generator engines. A Canadian published link, in English.
GE/Jenbacher engine-generators were used in a Swiss woodproducts fed electrical generating plant system. The links on that works have gone away. Why? Cheap Arabian peninsula natural gas? Russian natural gas? Particulate emissions shut down? Greens tree-killers push-back?
Regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Hi Steve,
indeed it is a balance act to get output wattage vs the gas input.
and ( not but ) one of the forgotten reasons is the amount of Nitrogen ( power reduction 1 % per percentage present in the gas ) + the amount of Co2 in the gas ( 1,67 % reduction per percentage present in the gas )
the other contributing factor, the one i learned from you with the most value; the restriction in the flow created.
If any filter creates restriction, subsequently the amount of gas that can enter the combustion chamber will be reduced, hence less wattage output.
For me, i focussed on the clean fuel, easier to understand, easier to obtain, easier to make, resulting in almost no filtering needed = less vacuum = more wattage outputâŚ
To make a distinction between soot and fine charcoal dust: soot is the most fine carbon âdustâ, coming from unconverted but smoldered volatiles and contributes positive, chardust is more course and abrasive and has a very negative influence. to be avoided with filtering in same quality as a regular airfilter would do for your engine.
Engine oils four stroke can be getting dirty more easy yes, but that is only mechanical pollution, can be filtered out easy.
just to be aware of certain acidity that will degrade the oil, mostly from wet wood gasification or certain species.
Indeed and i second that. see above reasons ( Co2 is never filtered out in those systems )
Playing around with some chemical exercises: extract your condensates/tar and make it boil with exhaust heat, ad a fractional device, then inject the fumes in your gas-stream and enjoy⌠( the sticky tar remains at the lowest point from the fractional device )
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By âclean fuelâ do you mean with no char dust? The soot dust is ok? How do you control the char dust or any other impurities with âalmostâ no filtering. TomC
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Thanks for confirming KoenVL.
Coarse hearth output grits removal is least energy drag done with either a long slowed down path LARGE settlement chamber/then single stage LARGE relatively coarse weave filtering media.
This is how WayneK evolved into.
This is how Ben Peterson evolved into.
I did capitalize these words as these systems have to be BIG and LARGE to work effectively with least energy inputs.
Cyclones need much energy to create the necessary centrifugal spin out and separation. This energy must be gotten from the IC engines descending pistion(S). Take engine energy here and it cannot be used to make shaft power for any purpose!!
Think not? And just how much energy to DUPLICATE an a engine effectively sucking a cyclone separator! ONE to FIVE engine horsepower. Really. 550 to 1500 watts for those insisting on confusing the point. Thatâs what your carpet vacuum cleaner needs to work well.
Cyclones and compact filters were a solution to squeezing down the system size for mobile vehicle installations. A compromise. A trading off. All usable engineering has these to move forward to usability.
Insisting on âproducer gas as clean as spec grade commercial fuels!!â is a loo-loo unpractical approach. Idealism. All idealismâs need massive input subsides to pay the price for their impractical for wide use extremes.
Back onto engines to woodgas fuel . . .
face the realities that you will anymore have to use modern scary overhead camshafts, electronic ignitions, electronic calculated and controlled spark timings.
EVEN on common small engine generators you will have to deal with emissions controls in crankcase vapor recovery and engine re-burn systems. PCV. The granddaddy of mandated emissions controls.
Deal with gasoline designed vapor recovery systems feeding back into the intake streams. ELECTRONICALLY controlled.
And all of these on vehicles in Europe, North America and most of Asia as having very sophisticated electronic monitoring and control systems.
Bypass changing these is in many places breaking the law.
Scare the pants off of you?
No worries.
Go back to Rural living, be direct, be simple, be pragmatic, be practical approaching these systems.
I want this. I need this. How can I make this system produce this.
You wan to eat lots bacon? Spend lots of money and be consumer-buy-dependnet.
Rural: you raise pigs on rough forages. Harvest time thunk it in the head, neck stick it to bleed out. Cut up butcher. Set up to cure and make bacon.
That bacon will be much more appreciated and used with love. Put you back in touch with the real of life.
Take you now aged out once-was cutting edge-tech Audi/Dodge/Citron/-> â to Volvo and thump it in the head, bleed out the no needed/non-functional, bone it down to what you do need and make it into what will produce for you and yours.
Compression ratios idealizations; combustion chamber idealizing; woo-woo hanging on exhaust turbochargers or mechanical driven super charges is no different than sports dream-team masturbating.
Grab a ball go outside and play, real with your kids. Your family, body and heart will thank you.
Just how I do things.
tree-farmer Steve Unruh
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Hi Tom,
By clean fuel i mean realy good cooked charcoal, chopped into uniform pieces, well sieved and dedusted as much as possible.
Kept dry and always perform a full refill before starting. The old charcoal dried and sieved.
Filter always cleaned and dust blown of.
Soot is avoided this way also.
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How about electrostatic separation?
The trouble with letting the fine particulate through the system is that ash particles can also be extremely fineâŚ
And the case is convincing that greater efforts at filtering / cycloning will all have significant energy penalties.
But an electrostatic system should require relatively little power given the small amount of particulate it would need to remove.
I believe this has been done on stationary systems, but I canât see why a neon light transformer and inverter canât be employed on a vehicle system.
Thoughts?
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