# Gasifier



## cazetofamo (Mar 18, 2012)

I was watching rocket city ******** and they built an homest to god gasifier. I cannot figure out for the life of me ho it works. If u dont have info on this can u tell me ur ways for energy?


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Gasifiers work by partialy burning a combustible and cleaning up "particle wise" the remaining smoke to burn in another source. There are lots of other non petroleum sources of motor fuel, like alchol, and plant oils or if yone is really confused you could waste your alchol and convert plant oil to bio diesel instead of modifying the engine to burn straight plant oil. Draft animal power is a lot quieter


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## cazetofamo (Mar 18, 2012)

I was thining more schematics


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## TopTop (Nov 11, 2011)

Here are some links that will keep you busy. The first is for the plans for a simplified rig published by the US Government. It is simple to build but not as efficient as the German design. BTW, woodgas was used in the US as far back as the civil war & Germany made extensive use of the technology during WW2.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA208249

http://www.uswoodpower.com/gasifiers/

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Energy-Matters/Wood-Gas-Generator.aspx


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## cazetofamo (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks man


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Just a word of caution: this is not "easy" technology. 

The woodgas vapors are always loaded with tiny pieces of "ash" that are just as bad as sand in the engine if you do not get them filtered out. People try to use "water filters" (just like a big "oil bath" air filter) but these are hard to make work right because they are often too restrictive.

Also, there's that crazy tar: It is in the smoke, and it builds up on the intake valve stems. Engine runs great until you shut it off, and then you can't restart the next day because the intake valves are stuck open. Not fun.


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## ToddT58 (Apr 4, 2011)

LincTex is so right! I worked with a group that had hopes of making gazillions of dollars doing Fischer Tropsch, converting woodgas into diesel fuel. Simple!

They didn't concentrate enough on proper operating temperatures and filtration. As a result, they killed a brand new 20kw generator with less than 50 hours on the clock.

The tars are soft when hot but hard when they cool. The tar cooled after one run and the engine never ran again. Wouldn't develop any compression. I don't know of the valves were stuck or the rings were stuck or both.

Along these lines, I've wondered if water/methanol injection might help as a preventive maintenance measure. I've got well over 200,000 miles running on various cooking oil fuels. I'm going to add water/meth injection to my truck for cleaning purposes. Seems it would work on a gasifier as well.

Also, keep in mind that a rated output on gasoline will be cut by about 35% to 45%.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

ToddT58 said:


> Along these lines, I've wondered if water/methanol injection might help as a preventive maintenance measure.


That's a fantastic idea.... if you could switch the fuel over from woodgas to something like alcohol that would clean the valve stems off before shutdown, that might do the trick.

20 years ago when I raced circle track cars on methyl alcohol, we used to add a special top-cylinder lube to the fuel. We liked the grape scented stuff:


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

I would like to try to supplement the diesel fuel in a home gen-set with wood gas to save on diesel fuel usage.

You still need a little "spurt" of diesel injected to get the "fire" started, then the flame keeps going to consume the wood gas in the combustion chamber.

A lot of folks also do this with natural gas piped into the air intake of a diesel engine.

Here is some cool info on running a diesel on wood gas:
http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=143.0

http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=6199.0

http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=3817.45
"On one of the woodgas sites there has been a running thread about what would make the IDEAL small gasified engine. Lister CS's and ChangFA got thrown in the first three posts. The Redstone was out by the tenth post. The big singles were declared to be: Too heavy, Too unportable, Too hard to source - US EPA importation concerns. The ChangFa clones were called too "clanky". A REAL problem is these small slow speed engines will not pull an even enough suction through the cyclones to spin out the gunk. And to even create enough suction on a 6/1 Listeroid to pull the gas through the reactor/filtering train restrictions the throttling loss is making the output power unusable. Need a 3600 RPM screamer or a multi-cylinder has been the consensus. After running a gauntlet of Arrows, GM/Cummins diesel/gas conversions to Izuzu/Kubota refer units to V-twin, Onan, Briggs, Honda gas engines .... finally an Australian fellow pointed out Doug Williams was now recommending an Indian 3 cylinder factory converted gaseous 1500/1800 RPM unit:
http://www.prakash-india.com/product/biomass-genset.htm
Looking through their complete Renewable Energy section under "About Biomass" and see they will even supply a licensed gasifier to match.

http://www.spaco.org/JXQ10A.htm

http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=1278.0


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## TopTop (Nov 11, 2011)

LincTex said:


> I would like to try to supplement the diesel fuel in a home gen-set with wood gas to save on diesel fuel usage.
> 
> .0[/url]


Probably easier to use waste oil. Have you checked out running a diesel on waste veggie oil? You start & shut down on diesel, run on preheated veggie oil. You can buy everything you need, from a fuel heater using engine coolant, fuel lines & filters with 12 volt heaters, change over valves with stepper motors. Here's a secret, well the worst kept secret in history, waste petroleum oil works too. At least on mechanical diesels. Never tried it with a common rail. A word of caution, common rail diesels run fuel pressures up around 30,000 psi. A slight leak can easily sever your fingers quicker than a scalpel.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

TopTop said:


> 1) Have you checked out running a diesel on waste veggie oil?
> 2) waste petroleum oil works too. At least on mechanical diesels. Never tried it with a common rail.


1) All used veggie oil around here is already spoken for. The demand is very high, and oil theft is highly publicized. A couple local guys made the newspapers for stealing used fryer oil from the grease tank behind a restaurant at 4 AM. The attorneys from the company that had the contract to pick up the used oil really made examples of them. It's sad, too.... because this area lost close to a million dollars worth of air conditioner units to copper thieves, and I never hear about them in the papers!!!!!

2) Indirect engines run pretty well on it. Some guys are running 7.3 liter International engines on 100% used transmission fluid. They also have their supply guarded VERY tightly!!!!

3) Used motor oil sucks. I can run up to 10% in my Cummins if it is pretty clean, but not really any more than that before I feel the power go down and blue smoke level go up a LOT.

Some guys have had their engines ruined from burning it as a fuel:
http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?board=23.0


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## TopTop (Nov 11, 2011)

Wow, a federal case over waste oil. Kinda like the big sting operation we had here. A couple guys were taking a garden tractor & wagon to the landfill & stealing trash. A bunch of state troopers & other county employees staked the place out for several weeks. Cost a bundle in overtime, but they got their man. Of course the guy that shot me in the back is still unknown along with the three guys that kidnapped robbed & raped my friends wife & the guys that broke into another friends house while he was gone for the weekend, but hey the trash is safe.

10% is the accepted mix. Large trucking companies used to do that before the EPA prohibited it. I think the problem with waste oil is most people do not run far enough at a time to make it work nor is the engine working hard the whole time. I have made plenty of offshore fishing trips on waste oil. Run five hours or more each way to the fishing grounds, warming up & shutting down on diesel. No smoke & the engines actually make more power on the heavier oil. Running on it cold or not switching over to fuel every hundred gallons or so will cause problems inside the cylinders, like carbon deposits on the injector tips messing up the pattern, stuck rings, etc. A local guy tried to run his PS diesel (same as the International) on it for local trips. It wasn't long before he had problems. He caught it early & $20 worth of additives & clean fuel fixed it. This is just been my experience with my engines. Every engine & every person are different & you may do serious damage to your engine.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

TopTop said:


> A couple guys were taking a garden tractor & wagon to the landfill & stealing trash.


My friends and I used to sneak into the landfill after hours and come out with bicycles, lawnmowers, weedeaters, chainsaws.... we made a MINT fixing up and selling stuff that other people just threw away. We all owned real motorcycles by the time we were 14! (mine was a 2-year old Yamaha XJ550 Maxim)



TopTop said:


> I have made plenty of offshore fishing trips on waste oil. Run five hours or more each way to the fishing grounds, warming up & shutting down on diesel.


Was it a Detroit diesel? I hear they will run on straight used motor oil.


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## TopTop (Nov 11, 2011)

No not DD, it had four stroke marine diesels. I don't want to give particulars, it was a long time ago & laws have changed along with the engines. I had several older Cat, DD, & Cummins in long haul trucks & would sometimes run a heavy duty wrecker for a friend that owned a shop, not full time, just when he needed some help. Any of those old girls would do fine on straight 30W for a short time. If someone ran out of fuel it was easier to just dump in a few gallons of oil to get them in somewhere than go get fuel or tow them. Often guys would run out when the crossover line froze. They had plenty of fuel it was just in the wrong tank. If I were driving I would just remove the line & beat it on the ground until the ice fell out. People would nearly wreck when they see you alongside the road beating a six foot long snake to death in single digit temps. lol


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