Wood Gas generator or biomass syngas generator

Great Balls of Fire,

Excellent topic and I appreciate the links.

When I studied the first link, what came immediately to mind was the Mr. Fusion device that powered the Delorian in the movie Back to the Future. I for one, will follow this thread with much interest.

I agree it does remind me of Mr Fusion. But this is a whole like bigger and a little fuel does not go a long way.

fishpipes, Anouther possible fuel source would be Kudzu, I'm not sure of the spelling but this leafy vine is used in other gasafiers built out of 250 gallon propane tanks. The plant grows so fast your supply would be self renewed. J.Conway

I think I've heard of that plant. Isn't it supposed to be a serious problem down south? It's supposed to be pretty resistant to weed killer and it grows faster then they can pull it up. I don't think if I imported it up north that I would be very popular. I agree that it would be a good source of bio-mass though. Wouldn't you have to dry it before used it? Moisture content is pretty important in these little home built Wood Gasifier's from what I've read.

I agree with everything your saying. So much heat loss in a mobile device. And of course there is the issue of where do you put all the fuel. I've seen that a lot of people put the generator and wood/bio-waste fuel in a trailer and then piped the gas up to the motor. What ever you build it sure isn't the family mini van that you fire up to drive to the store and back, unless the store is a really long ways away. I don't see generating the gas at a stationary location and then storing in on board I don't think you would get much range. I do wonder how efficient you could make the system if you were to use it for power generation. You could use the waste heat to heat your house. Or you could use the Wood Gas in your furnace. I've read that you can burn this gas in a propane furnace without any modifications. If you used the gas in your furnace you could use the waste heat for your water heater. And farm should have lots of bio waste material to use. I live in the corn belt so I know how much bio waste they have with corn. You would think a system like this would be perfect for a farm. Maybe you could power your tractor with Wood Gas, for growing corn for ethinol.

Hey what does ICE mean?

Internal Combustion Engine

Hello fishpipes, I live in sunny Florida,

Every year the citrus growers hire contractors (grove caretakers) to go through their groves and remove any sickly or deseased trees. With some deseases, like citrus greening , hundreds and even thousands of trees are ripped up and piled and burned, from single or neighboring groves. Citrus trees are relatively hardwood stock and are therefore fairly low in tar content. If enough of these trees could be chipped up and stored until dry the material could be used to provide fuel for an ICE/pump combo. to irrigate at least a portion of these groves. At least they would not be a total loss and the use as fuel for a gasifier would reduce the overall quantity of gasses released into the atmosphere that result in a total loss and waste.

TooMuchFun

Looks good to me. The All Power Labs copy I read seemed honest, in that no great claims were made. In my judgement such systems are best applied for cooking first, and heating second, and lastly for cars. If they infact supply a gas that will burn in any common gas stove like something sold at Sears, or The Home Depot it would seem there was a market among Farmers. I myself recommend that one not get too hung up on efficiencies, and go for "good enough". At any rate I thank you for sharing the links with us.

I've seen these before. Apparently you could buy conversion kits back at the turn of the century to run farm equipment off of these wood gas generators. With the post war boom, subsequent prosperity, cheap fuel and general migration from the farm to cities, this technology has generally been lost. It was pretty much dead at the time of WW2, but people were still around who actually knew how to make and operate these back then.

Most applications would be for equipment that runs for extended periods of time. Farm tractors, public transportation, electrical generators, etc. Its not the kind of thing that you could realistically use on your car if you make lots of short trips.

At one time the DNR (I think) had plans up on their web site on how to construct these. They were written in the 30's.

Hi fishpipes,

Here is a link with some interesting info on the topic which I have often found useful.

http://www.fluidynenz.250x.com/

Good luck.

Good evening all! Toomuchfun here, It is just a little too late for me to really offer my findings regarding the "gassifier technology" this evening, but I do have plans for such a gizmo and information regarding the subject that I was looking over just a couple of months back.

I'll dig it out in the am and review it over coffee and share with you anything I find worth while.

TMF

This is a subject I've been much interested in since I heard about it on "Car Talk" with the the Tappet Brothers. I started on my own project which didn't go far, being "Married with Children".

Anyway, I'll submit a couple of links you might find interesting. Or not.

http://journeytoforever.org/at_woodfire.html#woodgas

http://www.fluidynenz.250x.com/

I don't know why two of the links don't show up as blue instead of fuchsia.

Someone?

I hope you can get back to your project. And I know what you mean about being busy. I'm raising my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter, and no wife to help. So time is hard to find. I'm hoping to get started on my project in the next few weeks but I don't expect to be finished for a long time. Thanks for the web pages, oh and the reason that one was a different color is because it had already been viewed. Somone else submitted that web site.

Breaking up the hydrocarbons is an endothermic reaction, so not all the energy from burning wood in the wood burner is wasted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi7Yf8-sAxM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF_zFimqTXw&feature=related

Google coal gasification, this method of burning is more efficient. People really get confused when there's endo and exothermic reactions happening.

Hi Fishpipes,

Since the thread is still going - this is what you need.

AussieBob,

That's great. Can you supply more details about that vehicle?

The only details available I have are; http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09/everything_old_.html

There is some interesting design/build information here though http://www.gengas.nu/byggbes/index.shtml

Hope this may be useful for you and fishpipes.

Wow a motorcycle. Now your going to want to build one of those. I haven't really thought along those lines. But I suppose there is now reason it wouldn't work.

Thanks for the links and comments.

Hello all,

now that I have my puter up and running again I thought I would take a little time to review just a few of the subjects near and dear to me.

Aussie Bob has provided some nice photos of vehicles powered by wood gas. I found on Youtube a video of someone riding a mini bike, pulling a small trailer with a wood gas producer mounted on board, providing the fuel to power the setup.

I have lawn tractor that I believe would be a nice candidate for powering with a wood gas producer mounted on the back. Spare fuel could be carried on the front in a fabricated basket suited for that purpose. An extended towing connection could be fabricated at the rear that would make it possible to pull a small trailer.

Anyone owning a little Ag property could claim it as farm equipment and would not need to license it to go down the local streets. just get a versatile triangle tag issued for that purpose.

Can't wait for the weather to cool down enough to get this project underway.

TMF

Hey a guy in Nebraska has a truck that runs on wood a 1990 F-250 fuel injected.. How did you miss his website? www.woodgas.net

Hello Guest,

There are several vehicles around the country running on woodgas. Thousands of vehicles and tractors in Europe during the First World War were powered by woodgas. There are hundreds of small community power plants throughout the third world that are powered by woodgas. The basic technology is far from new. What is happening is that people like those at Victory Gasworks are refining the equipment to make it far more efficient.

TMF