Nozzles for Charcoal gasifiers, part 2

Small Engines Charcoal Gasification
#581

Koen just sayd in one post what l have tryed to preach for years. He is a much better comunicator thain l am.

You want maximum energy in the sistem, and to prevent meltdowns and use the energy efficiantly use as much water as possible its the only way to knock down nitrogen. Now how we do that is a nother story, many possibilitys.

Also while on the subject, this is why l strongly disike EGR. Yes it cools the reaction and improoves fuel efficiancy a bit but it does absolutely nothing in improoving gas quality. Exhaust is mostly nitrogen…

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#582

Just having a really bad day here please disregard. post has been removed.

Have a great day guys Im out.

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#583

matt, much of us will miss you here…

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#584

Matt we have benefited a lot from your work, advice and feedback. I hope you will reconsider.

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#585

Im not going anywhere Im just not going to be posting as much. As there really isnt much to share anymore. Ive concluded our development and decided to basically scrap the VersiFire I was working on. It has a few issues, one is liability and its just not going to be a viable product to manufacture. Im done with wood fuel for small engines. Last year was that one last try and at the end of the year I just had enough and the smell of it, now makes me sick. Charcoal is the only way for me anyway and the 2024 CFX I think we got down pretty good I made all the changes needed to make it as viable to manufacture as possible and it works. Yeah its been one crazy long road to travel getting here and Ive come full circle. Its crazy looking back, starting with that very first machine the M-1 then to go to V8 powered units with augers and automation development and all the other crazy stuff I tried to develop.Then all the hardships I went through much of that I dont share and keep to myself. Then to end up here with the 2024 CFX. Its basically now a heavily refined version of the first machine but in charcoal form and is manufacturable. I remember wondering where things would end up long ago trying to imagine what the machines would look like. I wasnt even close and where we ended up with the actual product is better than I had imagined. Yeah especially considering charcoal technology wasnt never ever part of the plan. " Ewwwwyhh charcoal is way to much work and dirty!!! Those guys are crazy!! “” lol There were a few issues this year but we have those things fixed now. Ive put 12 years into this now and I think its time to call it good enough, the CFX I think is acceptable as a consumer product. I can not say that for much else this company has developed. Its time to move on besides my body wont be able to lift the raw steel sheets much longer or muscle those machines around like we do to assemble them.

Ive moved on to 3D print technologies and will be expanding that with commercial level printers here soon. Im starting with an RC company focused on super scale products that work with existing model formats. More specifically RC4WD and they are already onboard with me. The other company is the carbon fiber guitar I was working on. but that will be a tough market to break into versus this RC company. There is no one doing what Im doing and the market is just waiting there waiting for someone to do it.

Ill post the nozzle experiment here and will more likely do a video on the build and test run. Good excuse to add more content to the Youtube channel. Its either going to work or it wont we shall see:)

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#586

It works!!! Ill have video up later tonight!

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#587

Congrats! :slight_smile:
If it didn’t, I was going to suggest an ultrasonic atomizer system. These things create a mist similar looking to dry ice. :slight_smile:

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#588

Yup thought of those too and would like to try one sometime as well.

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#589

Well it nearly drank a 2 ltr in an hour and fifteen minutes. But now I dont see any sign that there is water flow. So Im not sure if clogged up or what. Might be just producing steam now and I cant see with the air flow. We will see I recharged it with another 2 ltrs of water and Ill drain it out at the end of the run after it cools down a bit and see whats left in there.

Edit never mind I had a thought to put a stick down in the tank and then mark off the level. Then when I looked again I could see water spitting out. Yeah it works just as I thought it would, it perkulates so you do get some water that comes out with the steam. But it also atomizes so all is good with that.

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#590

Are you running it on a drip control or just using surface tension of the vent hole?

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#591

At first I had the needle valve partially open started with a 1/2 then 1 full turn and worked my way up as I learned. Its now full bore all the way open.

Yeah you have to get it up to temp before you can really crack it full open.

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#592

Here is couple pics of the nozzle after I welded it up.

IMG_20240708_1432223381
IMG_20240708_14322233812040×1148 1.16 MB

IMG_20240708_1432311991
IMG_20240708_14323119914080×2296 1.9 MB

IMG_20240708_1438133301
IMG_20240708_14381333012040×1148 911 KB

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#593

Ok yeah I think the flow has stopped. The water level is not going down very much if at all. So I think the wick maybe a bad idea not sure. I also think the water inlet would be better coming in from the bottom or the side instead of the top.

But that genny has been running for over 2 hours and typically that is all I get on 10 gallons of fuel. Plus I generally need to make an adjustment long before now. Its ran solid this entire run sometimes they do but most of the time they dont. But my batteries were done charging a while ago so there is not much load on it right now.

I guess Ill have to cut the nozzle apart and see whats going in there. :frowning:

But I do think we are on to something here. These machines are not just charcoal fuel gasifiers they are water fueled machines just as well.

Edit again:: I was just about to shut it down but decided to give a good wack with a hammer and wahlaahh I got flow again.

Yeah I cant make a new post. See new post bellow.

Ok finally video is uploaded.

Ok summery for today. The machine ran a total of 2 hours and 45 minutes. This is very promising as 2 hours if I remember right is about typical. or should I say; was lol. However, it drank the 2 liters within the first hour and 15 minutes. There was a good 45 minutes where it had no flow at all and then at the end after I wacked the nozzle with a hammer I had flow again but only for the remaining 45 minutes. I dont think the nozzle was actually boiling though as the wick was messed up so water was bypassing and just dripping out the vents.

Based on what I saw today I think this unit can process at least 3 ltrs of water if not 4. It ran very strong with the mixer valve at 60% open this is also more than typical. 40% is typical.

Ok so I found some numbers of how much Hydrogen 1 liter of water will produce and the BTU value. This is from the interwebs so dont roast me. But I have come up with this same number over and over again so I think its accurate. 1 liter of waters adds 14,326 BTU’s. So my goal is 4 liters per 10 gallons of fuel and for me 1 gallon is about equal to 1 lbs. So 10 gallons equals 10 lbs of charcoal fuel.

1 lb of charcoal is around 9500 BTU. So 95000 BTU per hopper load.

Total BTU combined if 4 liters of water can be achieved is 152,304 BTU gross. This is not factoring the oxygen to carbon shift. I cant wrap my head around that as the charcoal is part of that number. I bet it adds another 10,000 BTU maybe more?

I cut the nozzle back apart and rebuilt it. Yeah the wick is a no go, it is what clogged up from the rust inside the water tank. I hate saying this but if I go to this jet we will have build some things out of stainless; I really hate stainless steel. But I guess I can justify it as so far this has shown huge promise!!. I also relocated the water inlet to the side instead of on top. I flushed the water tank out and then added a small amount of motor oil. The oil should form on top and coat the walls as the water is consumed. Just dont let it fully empty as I think the oil would carbonize in the nozzle chamber. But that is the fix for the time being.

So tomorrow I will re test and hopefully I wont have any hic ups.

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#594

Lucky for us, 304 stainless water pipe and fittings are much cheaper nowadays.

This is very promising.

Edit: I think this concept of trying to hold in the water and boiling it off would also work really well with a Pederick Plate style tuyere like I’ve said above. Just have a sort of antechamber for the Plate, and drip the water into the antechamber. As long as the hole in the plate is centered you wouldn’t run the risk of drowning the reaction with plain water. Could work in a Crossdraft system just as well as an updraft. I think you’d need to be careful with the metering though so there is just enough water to boil off rapidly.

I really like the drip jacket nozzle though, because it’s focusing the water right where it needs to be to cool the nozzle.

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#595

I’ve mulled over that idea as well. I know some Vapor Carburetor guys on YouTube attempted using those to prevent needing a heat source to vaporize gasoline.

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#596

Ok test #2

Today it ran for 2 hours and 50 minutes. Water consumption was 3.25 liters!

I made a measuering stick and found that every 2 inches is = to 1 liter. So started with 10 inches (5 liters and ended with 3.5 inches ( 1.75 liters ) But the run time was not very much longer than yesturday. However it probably used close the same as that test was not accurate.

Ok now for the observations and issues. I still encountered some issues with the flow stalling out. I think this is a combination of a number of things. One is water surface tension, the second is the water weight above the needle valve and how far I can open it and the crud build up at the needle valve. If I can open it further these issues seem to go away but then its too much water flow.

So I have a few ideas to combat these issues. I think I need to go to just one steam vent and also make it smaller. The idea here is to create some backing presure to agitate the flow at the valve and anywhere else this bottleneck is occuring. It may help with vacating the chamber too so it can heat back up and then presure releases and water poors back in and flashes to steam. When this works its actually pretting impresive the engine revs way up and there seems to be a ton of power. But that is short lived as the water over cools the nozzle and then it just drewls water in.

Ok now what was actually improved? Run time I think has improved quite a bit actually. My memory is not what it used to be, but the more I think; the last time I ran over a month ago I was only getting around 2 hours. I think there were a few times I got more but that was with some additional intervention. Versus now I dont have to do anything and getting nearly 3 hours.

Both runs seem to have shown substantial improvement in stability as well. Even though these machines generally are stable they do fluxuate during the runs. Where these two last runs there were not any times were output reduced and the inverter never dropped the load until the very end of the run.

So next step is to try and rebuild the nozzle with a single smaller vent and that should allow me to open the needle valve further open to eliminate the flow hicups and also creating some back presuere to keep things moving. I can always drill more holes; I can just drill right through the jacket into the nozzle and then plug weld the Jacket afterward. So parts are on order and Ill re test when time permits.

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#597

Do the caps for your tanks have a vent hole in them? I’m assuming they do since it would be hard to get any flow without some kind of relief.

What size of hole did you run this last time? I was thinking of a 1/8" hole or maybe a 1/16" hole if I could find a strong enough bit.

I wonder if a drip window would help. I was going to try it with an IV dripper.

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#598

I haven’t put many hours into it yet but I have all the parts cut and partially assembled for my new gasifier. Matts video gave me some concerns because my nozzle is quite a bit different and I barely know what I’m doing. we will try it anyway. Supposed to rain tomorrow and I’m working outside, so probably a no go until thursday for assembly. It’s not real complicated. First one I’ve built in over a year so pretty interested in see if it works. My inverter stick welder quit working so unless I want to hook up my buzz box I only have a flux core welder and I really don’t like working with it. Of course it doesn’t help that I have worn out eyeballs and the cheapest HF auto-darkening hood.

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#599

Tank is vented it has a 1/4 inch hole that is CNC cut in the back panel at the top. That is also in case the water boils. I did try a drip window thing but it was expensive I dont remember why I tossed that idea. There was an issue with the ones I was using.

The vents holes on this build are 1/8 inch and there are two spread 1 1/2 inches apart/ Im going to drill a single 1/16 hole in the next one. I think if I can get the vent tuned for the flow then the needle you just crank open and can forget about it.

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#600

Lets take a look as some numbers. Ok Im going to round things to make it easier.

Ok so running the generator at 2 kW output per 10 gallons / 10 lbs charcoal for 3 hours = 6 kW/hours net.

Fuel consumption per kW/hour = 1.6 lbs of charcoal per kW/hour

Thats pretty good if that is accurate. A wood gasifier I generally got 3 lbs to 4 lbs per kW/hour. So fuel process if you really think about it is pretty equal. Now if we can get this better then charcoal will actually be more efficient to produce fuel for.

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