OK people it's crunch time. I WILL have a wood gas generator built this summer which will run an electric generator, all of which will be mounted on a small trailer. The wood gas generator will be able to run a 30 horsepower gasoline engine. I could run a less powerful engine but it would be harder to do. I can run up to 160 horsepower but don't really need more than 30 horsepower to run a good size generator. What I need from the brainiacs in LHBA is: can the "wood gas" run engines made to run on LP and natual gas? When F.E.M.A. did there wood gas generator they wanted it to run "gasoline" cars, trucks, tractors, busses, generators ect. which it did in the milllions during WW2. But I can't find out if the gas produced will run a LP or natural gas engine. The (wood gas) produced in a gasifier unit cotains approximatley 20% hydrogen, 20% carbon monoxide, and small amounts of methane, all of which are combustible, plus 50 to 60% nitrogen. What you do is take away the carburator, directly connect the pipe to the engine, adjust spark plug gaps to between 0.012 and 0.015 in. and adjust ignition timing to "early". If anyone out there understands this and knows LP and natural gas please let me know.
Wood Gas Generator
Comments
LP/NG engines are really no different than a petrol engine, just the delivery system is different. In fact, I believe the lift at work is dual fuel.
Admittedly, I haven't done a lot of research on wood gasification and it's use in engines, but doesn't oxygen need to be introduced before plumbing the wood gas directly to the manifold? If I'm correct, I'd make up a device that combines in oxygen much the same way a propane torch head does, then run it to the engine's intake manifold. For that matter, I think I'd leave the carb on the engine, and tie the throttle butterfly to a simple governor to better regulate my generator's RPMs. (some sort of wastegate would need to be employed for excess gas being supplied)
My last concern would be getting wood gas clean enough for use. Gunking up the engine with tar would really not be good.
H20
Using electrolysis one could extract the Hydrogen from water (H2O) and with a simple tube leading into the carb, run most gas engines, timing would of course need to be reset because hydrogen burns so many more times hotter, and cleaner. There are kits right now that you can buy that adapts to your engine and on a smaller scale you end up burning both gas and hydrogen together, increasing fuel mileage 1/4 - 1/3 simply by mixing both (gas and hydrogen) , however, there are certain officials (oil people) who would hate to see it become a reality. We have known about this process since the 1950's but gas was so cheap then and clean water wasn't abundant. Then out of nowhere guess what?? The Gov said we needed to add fluoride to the water, (which makes using tap water for electrolysis almost impossible, the water really needs to be distilled) because they were so worried about our teeth, LOL. Check out the site below, this was on the channel 26 news station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9iWaCMbw60
Your right, 2 butterfly valves are used. One controls introduction of oxygen just before the wood gas goes into the engine. As for filtering they used a big can full of wood chips, but I was thinking about going to the junk yard and pulling the air cleaner housing from a car. As for why take off the carburator? I think it has to do with allowing the free flow of gas. Your input is encouraging. Thanks
Update: I found a generator with a gasoline engine the right size. It's a Gaurdian 17.5kw with a 992cc engine for $2,500. It has 120/240 and 12 volt DC. Can I plug the 12 volt DC outlet straight into a bank of batteries?
Udate #2: I put an ad on Craigslist for someone willing to take on this project. A guy 4 miles from my condo has the space and the equipment and will do it for beer. He likes to tinker. After I do the LHBA class on April 5th-6th we will get under way. Go to YOU TUBE and look up wood gas car, lots of cool videos.
Hey Rodney,
I've been doing some more studying on wood gas production, and I must say, I'm far more impressed than when I first heard of it. Mainly, I misunderstood the actual production process. (back in Jr. High science class, we did a woodgas experiment , but required an outside energy source. Something I wasn't pleased with) I must say, I was quite surprised to learn of it's (basically) self powered generation. So, now I want to learn more, since this looks like the ticket item for cutting one more component of oil dependence from my off grid home. A few questions to start.
What is the consumption rate of biomass to HP, BTU, or Kwh?
What is the volume of waste product? (ash)
Why is it harder to power a smaller engine? (insufficient air draw from small displacement perhaps?)
What's a good source for getting the skinny on a relatively simple build. (I already found the FEMA plans, but is this the best?)
I've been thinking about steps, such as gas cleaning and cooling, and all seems easier to deal with than first thought. I've even been trying to think of a way to use the waste heat of cooling the gas. (or whether it's enough to even make any use of)
Addition insight will be most appreciative.
Your questions in order
1) I don't know
2) Very little - very complete burn
3) Your right - after the battery powered blower (actually sucker) gets you producing "gas" the engine your running pulls the gas in (from way back were your wood burner is) and there are size specifications for the down tube (fire tube). A 30 HP/60 CI engine calls for a 6" diameter. "A fire tube with an inside diameter of less than 6" would create bridging problems with wood chips and blocks. If the engine is rated at or below 15 horsepower, use a 6" minimum fire tube diameter and create a throat restriction in the bottom of the tube corresponding to the diameter entered in the above table."
4) The F.E.M.A plans are the simplest I've found, plus they use a none air tight feeder. Meaning you don't have to open a port hole ( and get a face full of smoke and gas) in order to add wood. If it's not raining out you don't even need a cover, your engine is sucking air down through the wood to the burning area.
One thing I plan on doing different is the filter. Rather than trying to build an airtight can full of wood chips that have to be changed out, I'll go to pick a part and get an air filter housing out of an auto and change the filter when needed.
The FEMA unit is designed as an emergency gassification system. This unit can easly produce a lot of tar and will ruin a motor. I know that those plans are the most readly available, but unless you need to put one together in a hurry, I would consider the imbert design. The imbert has a fixed oxidization zone and a fixed reduction zone. With some minor adaptations to the basic design you can have the best of both worlds. A simple ball valve to shut off the air to the nozzles and a check valve in the hopper lid will allow you to refuel an imbert while the unit is running. The check valve in the lid allows the unit to change from a imbert design to a straified down draft, this happens when the air to the nozzles is shut off with the ball valve. When this happens the lid can be opened with out the unit updrafting, a commom problem with an imbert.
Check out my website www.woodgas.net
Jonathan
I don't know if it is worth it to anyone, and I have no idea about these people, let alone any vested interest in their business... but I ran across this add on seattle CL http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/mat/810971562.html. They mention this sitehttp://victorygasworks.ning.com/
the site says it is 1/10 the cost of solar. May be. Solar ain't cheap.
Enjoy,
Peter
Rodney, I'm building a couple of FEMA generators. The 1905 woodgas book from Lindsay publications says that the downdraft style produces very little tar. If you don't have any space limitations, you can just add more filtering. It's difficult to power a generator because they need to run at constant RPM to get clean 60 cycle power. If the generator has a fly-ball govenor, you probably need to leave the carb on. Otherwise, the rpm will be all over the place when you load and unload the genset. The Raven by Blackbird outputs 120 VAC at 60 cycle independent of rpm.
It's an exception. The FEMA gen seems to have more problem with dust rather than tar. You could even run the gas through an old oil-bath filter from a big truck.
BTW, I built a log house in central Oregon. I'm looking to build another one in western Oregon. I still have my sawmill and boom truck.
Dan
Follow the link and click on the video on the left.
He leaves out a lot on this link, but the new syn
gas generator (which makes the gas that runs the
Honda EU2000i) was the size of three barrels. Now
it's the size of a pop can and uses off-the-shelf parts.
http://www.ush2.com/gasification.htm
-Rick
Yes, we stay in Bend once in awhile, and land prices are getting as bad as here in California (I guess many---if not most---of the residents came up from CA). We will be building in Wheeler County, about 100 miles east of Bend. We own our land, and we have plenty of Doug fir and Ponderosa Pine within a mile of our building site. Hope you are able to find some good property in Washington.
Hi. I took the class this weekend and looking for land on this side of the mountain. (Springfield) Let me know if you need help when you start your home. I've got a friend who has close ties to the Forest Service on the Mckenzie Ranger District to get trees. So we'll how that goes. If you know of any one on the East side of the mountain that can get logs, let me know.
I took some old maytag parts from a washer and a gasifier kit to build one so glad i got it done before the winter, been saving quite a bit lately on heating the house up with the generator.
How do you heat the home with the generator?
You're kidding right? LOL
There's a new show on tv, "a survival show called COLONY, it comes on the Discovery channel" this week they built a woodgas generator using a pressure washer as the engine, and a car generator to produce an electrical current, that in turn feeds into their battery bank.
Very simple build, at first it didn't work, they wasn't getting the wood chips hot enough to produce gas. They made an adjustment and bam it worked. Very cool.
been saving quite a bit lately on heating the house up with the generator.
I watched the gasifier episode intently. it was a batch unit, with incredibly poor efficiency, but it DID work. I was very impressed.
It looked like they just ported the woodgas directly into the air intake of the carb. this allowed them to keep using regular gas too. I imagine it took some fiddling to get the oxygen ratio right, as the carb wouldn't do that for you--you'd have to adjust the woodgas pipe so that it was a way away from the intake, so that oxygen could be mixed too...
There is more than one way to skin the kitten, and the sizes range from 2 hp lawnmowers to really BIG stuff.
Look into the group at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WoodGas/
Their files include more than just the Imbert style, and generaters going back to the early 1800's. It is all about design and application to what you are doing, but it does work!
There are folks in this group that have recently done trips over 2000 miles, on pallet wood and worse, and are still running the same engines.
Great use of log home building scraps.......
Ralph Callaway
--The goal is: at the end of the trail, look the Man in the eye and ask for a repeat ride, without shame or excuses! (This ride has been good!)
Joined: 2008-03-03