Small Gasifier?

[jhad1066]

Has anyone built and used a small gasifier? I have been thinking about building one as a fuel source for a generator. I was hoping someone has some experience with these...I have seen some plans on the internet but none have had the scrubbers to remove the tar from the fuel...any ideas?

Thanks

 

[~gd]

Has anyone built and used a small gasifier? I have been thinking about building one as a fuel source for a generator. I was hoping someone has some experience with these...I have seen some plans on the internet but none have had the scrubbers to remove the tar from the fuel...any ideas?

Thanks

Sorry but it is not clear what you are talking about. What fuel source has tar? I read because I though you were speaking about Methane from waste.

 

[doc_gonzo]

i think the op is talking about wood gassification, i've been pondering this same subject lately. i have access to enough "salvage" parts at work to put a decent sized one together. i've seen shows where they powered a small pick up truck with this method, i'd love to be able to run our generator in this manner. (not too sure about the "tar" though???)

doc

 

[jhad1066]

The online plans for the FEMA type wood gasifier have had feedback that the wood gas produced had a high tar content. Other plans had mentioned "scrubbers" to remove the tar and produce a higher quality wood gas, but I have yet to see a plan for the scrubber modules.

jim

 

[doc_gonzo]

or possibly creasote instead of tar?? staying away from coniferous woods (pines, cedars etc) would drasticly reduce creasote, i think well seasoned red or white oak might be ideal for such an application. i'm not too sure how one would scrub the outgoing fuel from a gassifier with out restricting the flow to the appliance that youre feeding.

doc

 

[Joel_BC]

If you guys find info about scrubbing the tar/creosote, please post what you're finding about this (wood gassification energy) here.

 

[Joel_BC]

Have you guys seen this video? The guy is quite a ways through building his scrubber. Not sure if he's drawing up plans... but maybe. You can send these guys who post on Youtube private messages (some of them have their accounts set up so you can email them too).

Calls himself Gas Man. (I assume this doesn't refer to some legume-heavy diet he eats.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd_LwJxuCK4

This video is concerned with the scrubber, not the rest of his set-up. About 1:30 into the vid, he begins to discuss (in detail) the water scrubber he's made. As one component he appears to be using a moisture filter of the type we use on compressors to subtract the moisture for air tools, sandblaster, etc. For use as fuel, seems ideal to have very little moisture in it. He explains lots of other parts too. He's going to update his developments on Youtube.

Here's another one. This guy (RockinCrawler) shows the overall design in a much shorter video... less detail. Again, possibly he will draw up plans and make them available, I don't know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt8-G5hva4U&feature=related

 

[doc_gonzo]

wow interesting videos, the one guy did mention using pine though. i'm confused about the "tar" is this what i know as creasote? all the vids i've seen were of a gassifier and right into whatever engine they were running. so the whole concept of a scrubber was new to me. i couldnt tell from the vids if they were recirculating systems or a constant in-put of fresh water either way there is some volume of toxic water that needs to be disposed of. and the one guy is planning on using lava rock, although its porus it will clog eventually. how would that be either regenerated or disposed of? i'm not trying to be debbie downer here, but my intial understanding of the system was eligant in it's simplicity. gassify, run a motor.... if it's necessary to scrub the gas; you're using X amount of potable water, and creating 2 different toxic byproducts that have to be "disposed of" in some manner. i guess i need to do a lot more reading before i comit a $500 generator to an experiment of this nature. i thought i might have found a way to ease away from petro to top off battery banks in the event of low sun or wind, but there seems to be a down side that i didn't anticipate. appreciate all the links joel, i'll keep reading and watching links to try and work this out.

doc

 

[Joel_BC]

i'm not trying to be debbie downer here, but my intial understanding of the system was eligant in it's simplicity. gassify, run a motor.... if it's necessary to scrub the gas; you're using X amount of potable water, and creating 2 different toxic byproducts that have to be "disposed of" in some manner. i guess i need to do a lot more reading before i comit a $500 generator to an experiment of this nature. i thought i might have found a way to ease away from petro to top off battery banks in the event of low sun or wind, but there seems to be a down side that i didn't anticipate. appreciate all the links joel, i'll keep reading and watching links to try and work this out.

Hey, doc. Well, it sure does make the wood gas thing seem much more like something for stationary engines & power plants. (Which I take it is what you've been interested in, anyway.) But I mean, I've seen a lot of pictures of pickup trucks outfitted with gasifiers in the bed... tho what happens to the engine's intake system, valves, rings, sparkplugs, and even exhaust system due to the tar or creosote? And if you put a scrubber unit into a truck, think of all the extra room that takes up in the bed.

 

[Joel_BC]

Has anyone built and used a small gasifier? I have been thinking about building one as a fuel source for a generator. I was hoping someone has some experience with these...I have seen some plans on the internet but none have had the scrubbers to remove the tar from the fuel...any ideas?

Hi, Jim. I noticed you were logged-in here.

Do you think you will experiment with a gasifier? Seems like the guys posting the vids are at the tinkering stage, rather than having experience using the gasifier over a period of months. Their vids explain the principles and show the componentry. They're not exactly plans, though.