# Hubby is Playing With Gasifiers....



## Horse Fork Farm (Jan 3, 2006)

Anyone here made one or used one? He hasn't made it yet, just in the planning/reading stage. It's an interesting idea...


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

There is a Yahoo group that I subscribe to that has just about EVERYTHING you want to know about them. The group is "Woodgas" Go to Yahoo, go to the bottom of the page and look for the "groups" link.


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## wind power (Sep 29, 2010)

FEMA, When they were worth something put out a" how to build" manual back in the 80's on gasifiers....fairly detailed too

Try to google it, it is a PDF


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
Some links to gasifier plans here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/BioFuel/biofuels.htm#WoodGas

The one titled "some interesting wood gas generator..." by all power labs is very active. If you sign up for their news letter you will get regular updates on what they are up to.

Gary


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## Ray (Dec 5, 2002)

been into gasifiers since the 70's, when mother earth news first put out the order for plans then sent back letter saying sorry but those plans wont work. anyway get an foxlingo or google translate, and go to sweeden google and do a search for wood gasifier or wood gas generator, there are a couple old boys, young, over there that have made some that are fine. even over here i seen a tv show where a couple guys decided to see if they could build one in 24 hours and they kinda did it, but they cheated. I will say this, instead of using all of the filters like they did in the WW I and WWII time period, make cyclones on your gasifer instead of hog hair filters and such, 1st and second stage filters, Cyclone & No filters is much easier faster and works better. throttle is where the sweeden guys can help and will, just email them, and they are great, great fun and you can drive coast to coast on less than a cord of wood, near zero emissions too, you loose 40% power but so what who's in a race, back in the day these were used on ocean going ships, and i mean big Giant ships, tractor trailers, farm tractors, trains, anything you can think of that needed to move that couldn't get gas, or diesel, ran on, wood coal smoke, best wishes, ray


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## ryanthomas (Dec 10, 2009)

Coast to coast on a cord of wood...never would have guessed that. I looked into the links on Gary's site. There is a ton of information at the one he recommends. Even complete plans for what seems to be a really well designed and pretty much perfected gasifier. If I ever build one, that will probably be what I'll use.


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## Sparticle (Nov 1, 2004)

We're just now looking into these things. Can they be used to make electricity? We're off grid here, have tons of wood, and would love to charge our batteries with wood. Is it possible?


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

If you can run a truck engine I don't see why you can't run a generator engine.

I think you can get free plans from the DoD too. My cousin was talking about building portable generators that would burn wood to take to emergencies.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Sparticle said:


> We're just now looking into these things. Can they be used to make electricity? We're off grid here, have tons of wood, and would love to charge our batteries with wood. Is it possible?


Sure. The only issue is that in a car or truck, the fuel gets jounced around, which breaks up the wood being burned. In a fixed setup, you may need a shaker or poker to prevent "bridging" of the wood.


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## adamtheha (Mar 14, 2007)

You will burn about twice as much wood by weight as you would with fuel (gas). I think if you ran a strap from the ash grate to the generator frame, you could probably get enough vibration to shake the fuel down.
The problem with running a generator for electricity is that you will wear it out in 2 years, and the money you spend replacing them would buy a lot of solar panels. We use a generator for electricity, and I've got 3 corpses and one functional generator. I could have bought 2500 watts of panels with what I've spent so far!


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2010)

Here is a link to tons of info on what you want

http://www.ps-survival.com/PS/Gasifiers/index.htm


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

adamtheha said:


> You will burn about twice as much wood by weight as you would with fuel (gas). I think if you ran a strap from the ash grate to the generator frame, you could probably get enough vibration to shake the fuel down.
> The problem with running a generator for electricity is that you will wear it out in 2 years, and the money you spend replacing them would buy a lot of solar panels. We use a generator for electricity, and I've got 3 corpses and one functional generator. I could have bought 2500 watts of panels with what I've spent so far!


depends on the gen set, life expectancy wise. those 3600 rpm emergency generators are not really made for long extended runs, but if you had a 4 cylinder auto engine and kept it maintained and used it to turn a st style generator head, 1800 rpm very well could have that setup for a very long time. 

I'm not real sure on just using a cyclone and no filter either at least in a engine application. I would run it through a cyclone and filter medium both.

part of the loss in power also comes from gas density, when you are piping relatively hot gas directly to the engine it is not as dense,heat expands.
if that gas is cooled it becomes more dense concentrating the energy in the gas being delivered.

different feed stocks different potential energy, dung vs soft wood vs hard wood vs coal. as well as moisture content.


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## ryanthomas (Dec 10, 2009)

adamtheha said:


> You will burn about twice as much wood by weight as you would with fuel (gas). I think if you ran a strap from the ash grate to the generator frame, you could probably get enough vibration to shake the fuel down.
> The problem with running a generator for electricity is that you will wear it out in 2 years, and the money you spend replacing them would buy a lot of solar panels. We use a generator for electricity, and I've got 3 corpses and one functional generator. I could have bought 2500 watts of panels with what I've spent so far!


What type of generators are you running? Also, are you talking the engine going out or the generator itself? Or both? I know of quite a few gen-sets that have been running reliably for many years with only routine maintenance. Do you run them all the time, or to charge batteries?


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## wind power (Sep 29, 2010)

adamtheha said:


> You will burn about twice as much wood by weight as you would with fuel (gas). I think if you ran a strap from the ash grate to the generator frame, you could probably get enough vibration to shake the fuel down.
> The problem with running a generator for electricity is that you will wear it out in 2 years, and the money you spend replacing them would buy a lot of solar panels. We use a generator for electricity, and I've got 3 corpses and one functional generator. I could have bought 2500 watts of panels with what I've spent so far!


Good point Adam,
Solar panels are rated for about 25-30 years, now if they are grid tied, no expensive batteries need to be maintained, however battery cost is a lot!
Likewise, so are generators.
Many folks thought Lister engines especially those India clones were going to last 100,000 hours and more... then a few folks were sadly dissapointed that the engines needed major overhauls after only 5000 hours.... 
Sorry OP not trying to hijack your thread over generators.... did you find any information on the FEMA gasifier?


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2010)

Wind Power,,, the FEMA information is in the link of info I gave above. One of several listed


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## wind power (Sep 29, 2010)

DLM,
Thanks, I did not even hit tht link previously, a lot of gasifier info there!


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## cbcansurvive (Jan 29, 2009)

I don't know about using it for power (doesn't seem like it would be terribly reliable) but gasification for heat coupled with lots of storage is the best central wood heating you can buy. When we build new I'm hoping to get a Garn with at least 2000 gallons of storage. That should allow me to only need to run the boiler every three days or so.


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## catahoula (Dec 14, 2005)

||Downhome|| said:


> part of the loss in power also comes from gas density, when you are piping relatively hot gas directly to the engine it is not as dense,heat expands.
> if that gas is cooled it becomes more dense concentrating the energy in the gas being delivered.


So a person needs to develop an intercooler like some turbo charged sports cars have.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

catahoula said:


> So a person needs to develop an intercooler like some turbo charged sports cars have.


a radiator is all you need, you can make it complex or simple.

first I would run it through a bath kinda like a water bong then cyclone filter, most ash and creosote and moisture should settle out there, then through a few filters. filters being canisters filled with filter material, hot gas I would use coarsely chopped corn cob or wood chips and cool gas hay, I'm sure you could use other things but these are readily available and don't cost much if anything. then through a suitable radiator, could be a length of pipe, in a number of configurations, car radiator or combination of auto radiators,old cast iron steam radiator. I seen boxes built from steel that are more or less duct work but made heavier. if you can work sheet metal I would imagine you could do similar, would not last as long.

if all your doing is heating or cooking would not need to do all that but wood gas that is not cleaned up before it hits a engine is a maintenance issue or a failure waiting to happen. 

but if all I was doing was cooking or heating there's other wood fired options that I think more suited.

heres a sweet set up might give you guys some ideas.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXgtDyp9GsE[/ame]

what I foresee though is waste wood going the way of waste veggie oil, there was a time when you could hit up just about any restaurant and get all the waste now company's buy it.


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## seanbo (Jan 1, 2011)

downhome
Thanks for the vid link. I am soo inspired.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

NP lots of stuff out there on this anymore, if you liked that check out the rest of Pauls youtube vids then you can check out his page at http://www.woodgas.net/ look to the list to the left for Paul Halvorson. by all means check out the whole site.

some of the build is detailed in this link.

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,11938.0.html


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## Ray (Dec 5, 2002)

I see all kinds of suggestions, and, some people are right on the spot, yet I believe a one or two of the folks just don't understand what an wood gassifier is. It is called a "producer gas generator", which uses filtered wood smoke as a fuel in an ordinary automobile or diesel engine, replacing the liquid gas or diesel. By burning the wood and processing the smoke through a filter system to remove the sap, and particulates, etc to deliver a pure burnable gas in a gaseous state instead of liquid gas, like Gas. 
as i mentioned if you get a browser translator and go to Sweden, Norway, Finland, area these countries have lots of young experimenters that have free plans of working units that are in operation along with viral videos, but to watch the vids you need to go to a video site that is of their nationality like youtube Finnland, or youtube Sweden, you can get the links easily with a search, although some are not in english and some are. These engine work exceptionally well in situations where the throttle setting remains fixed. But with a proper throttle they are just as well on a vehicle, and free fuel is everywhere. literally. best wishes, ray


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## catahoula (Dec 14, 2005)

Okay, that is what I was thinking. The generator produces the fuel, and the loss of horse power is do to a hot gas and air mixture. So an inter-cooled turbo charged engine should run pretty efficiently on a wood gas generator. The inter-cooler cools down the air and unburned fuel before it hits the turbo, cooler air is denser therefore the turbo can slam more air/fuel into the cylinder. The only modification is in the fuel source itself, that is quite interesting. 

Why can't a traditional air filter be used to filter the hot wood gas before it reaches the inter-cooler? Wouldn't cylinder compression as well as turbo boost be enough to suck the gas through the filter? 

It seems this would work pretty well for turbo charged high compression diesels as in farm equipment. I'm not sure I like the idea of a fire box on a combine in a bone dry wheat field.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

catahoula said:


> Okay, that is what I was thinking. The generator produces the fuel, and the loss of horse power is do to a hot gas and air mixture. So an inter-cooled turbo charged engine should run pretty efficiently on a wood gas generator. The inter-cooler cools down the air and unburned fuel before it hits the turbo, cooler air is denser therefore the turbo can slam more air/fuel into the cylinder. The only modification is in the fuel source itself, that is quite interesting.
> 
> Why can't a traditional air filter be used to filter the hot wood gas before it reaches the inter-cooler? Wouldn't cylinder compression as well as turbo boost be enough to suck the gas through the filter?
> 
> It seems this would work pretty well for turbo charged high compression diesels as in farm equipment. I'm not sure I like the idea of a fire box on a combine in a bone dry wheat field.


 inter-coolers are expensive, all you have to do is cool it and there are less costly alternatives. you could use just a air filter but look at it this way,
cigarettes have a pretty dense filter but they still don't filter out all the tar.
the nature of the gassifier produces a good bit of creosote/tars, along with the combustible gas. you don't want to send that the engine. and with out proper filtering I see a intercooler getting clogged beyond use. 

as far as having a unit on a tractor, I don't think you have much to worry about with a well designed downdraft unit. the burn area is contained and many times insulated in a larger container, and long enough to hold a good bit of fuel, many incorporate air jets to the reduction zone.you basically only have a bed of coals going. not like you would have to worry bout a spark jumping out.

from http://www.woodgas.net/










"Woodgas in a usable form must be pulled off the combusting wood before it gets more oxygen. The gas is then filtered, to remove ash and soot and cooled to remove any water that has formed during the combustion cycle. Cooling the gas also increases the BTU content, the gas is denser and the non combustible water has been removed."

its not rocket science and its old tech, those old movies where the guy puts his head in the oven to kill himself, are from when towns where supplied with "town gas" in other words "syn gas" produced from coal in a gassifier same as wood gas though I think you get a few more btus. one of the main constituents in wood gas is carbon monoxide (which is combustible) hence the suicide thing. what I'm saying is don't over think it, you will take out all the fun. 

little off topic 
I was poking around in a old book and come across a advertisement for "union carbide" and it was something I never considered but calcium carbide and water produce acetylene. but it was a advertisement for them and how a farmer with a few handy barrels of readily available "union carbide" could light his lamps and cook for a year or better. wich got me looking in that direction and good old M.E.N already covered that.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1980-03-01/I-Run-My-Car-on-Acetylene.aspx

just mentioned it cause i find it interesting, and in a shtf situation could be a handy thing system to have. I know theres a few folks on here with gas 
lights installed in there places,but if you could cook and run a vehicle too.

interesting stuff.


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## Horse Fork Farm (Jan 3, 2006)

Wow, I thought people had quit posting on this thread...oops! I need to get hubby to come read the new stuff on here. Interesting stuff!


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## catahoula (Dec 14, 2005)

Down home thanks for the response, the only reason I seized on the inter-cooler idea was because a friend of mine has a Mitsubishi VR4, twin inter-cooled twin turbo six cylinder rocket car. He is the same guy I do farm work for, I brought up gasifiers to him yesterday. I thought it would be interesting to have a combine that ran on the straw it produced while harvesting grain.

What is the ignition source for a diesel running on wood gas? 
found a GEK gasification forum that answered my question, you replace injectors with spark plugs, some guys are using glow plugs already in place but not all deisels have those. 

Horsepower really is an issue with these old combines they pretty much need all they can get.

This really is an interesting idea the guys on the forum I looked at are converting 1600cc VW diesels to burn wood gas. I think you can bolt the gasoline top end to the diesel block. 

Too much to think about I fear my head may explode.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

I'm not really up on the diesel on wood gas but it is possible, if I remember correct it takes a little modification.

I liked diesel cause they can run a variety of "fuels" same with I.C. engines. though both different types. 

here you go this explains it better then I could. I read through it kinda fast but it looked to be on the ball.

http://wiki.gekgasifier.com/w/page/24508452/Run-an-Engine-with-the-GEK


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