Wood Gasification

[eothand]

Long time lurker ... first time poster

Could not agree more! I would love to turn my 53 MF TO-30 tractor with broken steering box into a stationary wood Gasser! So many great PTO attachments besides gensets.

I am very interested in all things renewable energy but I currently own a simple ICE in an otherwise unusable tractor, lots of dead trees, few neighbors and access to a fully staffed fabrication shop (beer can buy a LOT of labor).

The only issue that has stopped me to this point is the filtration, I hope this thread lives again so I can get back to lurking!

[evolvingape]

I agree with what you said. I am not trying to push you in a certain direction, just offering information that may help you make choices right for you. I have to admit my first love is turbines and most of my work is based around that so it tends to be the angle I approach things from, although I am also looking at the ICE as a possible application for a stationary genset in my garage.

For the little gensets I have been working on filtering systems and I am currently looking at a particular application for stationary gensets which may work. The idea is to use water as the filtering medium. The low pressure supplied by the water company feeds the filter housing with a horizontal flow, and the gas is bubbled through. Using the two different densities of water and gas the particulates should be suspended in the water and carried away in the flow, the gas should rise and float away out the top and be pulled into the engine under vacuum. The other added advantage is that the hot unfiltered gas and the cold water from the tap are very far apart on the temperature range scale and so should act as a very efficient Carnot Cycle heat exchanger cooling the gas for injection into the engine. The longer the gas is in contact with the water the more heat exchanged so the time component (ie volume) of the water flow filter will predominantly determine the output temperature of the gas, and input temperature to the engine manifold. This should remove the need for a separate heat exchanger and build it into the filter. The particulate matter we do not want can be filtered out and disposed of without introducing it into the water supply. It's a very interesting option to me as it simplifies the filter and cooler into one simple structure, and no pump required because you get probably about 1 bar (14psi) ish pressure from the tap. Not going to work for tractors, but for a little power plant in the garage it may work perfectly!

The organic Rankine cycle option is already being explored for 1kW turbine systems and the technology should be cross compatible eventually, which is great!

Ken was injured in a lab explosion last year and is still recovering, get well soon Ken.

Phoenix Solar Turbogen FAQ, steam disc turbine, ORC turbine generator, organic rankine, pressurized gas turbogenerator, Tesla turbines, PNGinc

DIY Steam & ORC Tesla Turbogenerator, hobby, steam turbine, pressurized gas turbine generator, solar thermal power, closed-loop, Tesla, Phoenix Turbine Builders Club

If I can help any of you, let me know, and I will if I can.

RM

[kcarring]

I difinitely wish I was game for building a turbine.. but truth be told, I attempted a Mother Earth News turbine design 7 years ago, and I will say this, that was the most dangerous thing I ever did in my life LOL. And that includes 12 years of helicopter logging in the Rockies lol. MY unit blew a piece of steel out a sidewall, through a wooden / drywall 2x6 wall and about 100 yards into the forest. All the while, my pressure relief valve sat there unscathed and still shut. That was the end of that. A man has to know his limitations.

[evolvingape]

Everyman Wet Carbon Scrubber Heat Exchanger

Interesting turbine story. Gotta be careful but it's a whole new level of fun! I have done some preliminary work on a miniature I0toMax, this is what I am talking about:

I0toMax

It's powered by a hand drill or a dremel with the drive shaft mounted through the bottom of the sump, with a viton seal. The disk stack is 316L laser cut to fit perfectly in a 4” BSP pipe, so discs about 100mm diameter +/- 1mm depending on your pipe internal bore dimension. The coils are wound at the outer edge between the two end plates, with full bridge rectifiers to produce DC. The neodymium magnets are mounted around the outside of the casing. Alternatively you can go with disc coil generators. The only differences really being that DCG's are more complex to build and operate on fluid pressure to spin, The other method I just described is powered by the rotary moment of the motor.

What you now have is a cross between an alternator and a Tesla boundary layer pump, A mini HHO pump!

Anyway, that's not the reason I am posting, just got distracted chatting

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a picture. This is the design I was talking about a few days ago, The Everyman Gasifier Wet Carbon Scrubber and Heat Exchanger. Phew, what a mouthful.

The water inlet is from your mains house supply at approximately 1 bar of pressure. The inlet is controlled by a timer switch, that opens and closes a solenoid actuator valve (flow control valve). The water flows in and fills the chamber to the fill line marked on the diagram. The water drain outlet is also controlled by a solenoid valve. Now you have control over filling and draining cycles.

The hot gas from your gasifier flows in under it's own low pressure and forces the water down at the first scrubber, the gas then wants to flow along the chamber to the highest point, the cold gas outlet. The heavy particulate matter in the smoke has sunk to the bottom of the sump, the light particulate matter floats on the surface, scrubbing the gas as it passes up through it.

During it's journey the gas has exchanged it's high temperature with the ground supply cold water and comes out of the cold gas outlet at the top of the system for injection under vacuum into the engine manifold. This is your simple Carnot cycle.

When the water in the sump has raised it's temperature too high it ceases to be an as efficient heat exchanger, so, the solenoid valve actuators open and the water level drops as the hot water goes out the drain, and new clean fresh water replaces it. The bouyant carbon ash then floats to the surface to begin scrubbing the next cycles gas. After a while you should have a nice thick layer on the surface that refuses to sink.

If the floating carbon does not work very well you still use woodchips as your filter medium and simply have a cap on the top of each gas tube, hang the woodchips in a basket vertically inside, out of the water. When the filters need changing just pull them and drop in new ones. Clean the sump out every so often so the drain functions without blocking, and use the wood ash and a crate of beer as fertiliser on your tomatoes!

Sustainable Fertilizer: Urine And Wood Ash Produce Large Harvest

I designed this system as part of the Everyman series based around British Standard Pipe (BSP) fittings, but you do not have to use this material, other things will work too. I have not got all the bits together yet to build my BSP Gasifier, or a genset, or a blower, or the other things I need to get this project finished. It's going to be a while, so if you want to go ahead and try this system out on your own setup, be my guest! Be nice to find out if it works the way I have designed it too.

RM

[kcarring]

@evolvingpage

Looks interesting, will be cool to see how it all pans out for you From what I have read, most water based scrubbing for woodgas works, but is REALLY messy during cleanout - I plan on doing some more research and making a decision whether to go wet, or dry... my unit is supposed to be ready on Friday! Just got an email. As purchased mine is the main Imbert Chamber, a cyclonic filter, a cooler / condensor and venturri stack + fan/blower. And then I purchased the additional hopper. Quite portable. So there is no dry media filter or wet bubbler. I have an old girl Dyna genset, an 8 HP Briggs and Stratton. Initally I will run it on wood pellets to get a base evaluation - before I change too much up. I guess it was spec'd at 350,000 BTU/h. I like the idea of this engine (bottom of page) but 2 grand is a bit out of my price range!

[evolvingape]

Most interesting, thankyou for the links!

I plan to use a steam pressure washer to clean the wet scrubber out so I am not to worried about the mess, it works for engines so should work for the scrubber. The bonus with the BSP design is that I can build a parallel scrubber and simply switch between the two with a Y valve. This in theory will allow continuous operation for my turbine system, although I will not be doing that, it is much cheaper to go the single route, especially as some downtime will be helpful for boiler refills. Simply flash off the pressure from the boiler and the pressure equalises to atmospheric, open the water fill valve from the cold tank above and gravity fill the boiler, or use a float switch. I don't forsee the need for continuous running so this gets around the issue of using a steam injector for boiler refills, and gives you time to wash the scrubber out while the boiler is coming back up to temperature. That's a long way off at the minute though.

I did a quick cross analysis from the generator chart at the bottom of that page. The alternator I have is this one:

Wind Blue Motor Hydro Permanent Magnet Alternator

So if I wanted to charge a 24V battery bank with this alternator I would need say 30V (keep it simple) to achieve over voltage charging pressure. This would give me 125 Amps and a requirement of 3000 RPM. So 30V x 125 A = 3750 Watts (or 3750 Joules/Sec)

Your twin cylinder steam engine should do the same at 800 RPM, 3.6KwH, 30V 120A (roughly). The key point is that this requires 5.35 HP.

The 2” BSP Gasifier should run a 5 HP ICE engine according to the FEMA document, so this is what I have been aiming for, as the little Briggs and Strattons etc are about 5HP ish. Which matches well with the desired performance required from my alternator.

The steam turbine route now get's interesting for me, because I have designed the turbine to run at 12000RPM, probably going to be 6” or 8” in diameter (to use a BSP fitting as the housing). If I want more power because the small turbines are not man enough for the job I can easily add a second turbine to the same shaft using this system so the torque available becomes a controlled modular variable. The turbine has high RPM but low torque, so I plan to construct a pulley gear reduction system with a 4:1 ratio. This will convert the 12000 RPM of the turbine into higher torque at 3000RPM. If that torque moment equates to the equivalent of 5HP then I am in business!

The alternator is mounted on a hinge controlled by a wingnut. The turbine is spun up to speed, and then the alternator is wound down on the hinge until it begins to engage the drive belt. The drive belt on the pulleys acts as a dry slip friction clutch to load the turbine gradually and avoid stalling it. It will then just be a matter of throttling the steam flow control valve as you load the alternator.

I have made some interesting progress with my turbine designs such as hollow shafting, with a custom keyway just on the ends for the disc carrier hub. The main shaft remains solid for strength, but I then plan to drill spiral porting to act as the turbine exhaust, just like on a paintball barrel. The beauty of this is that the exhaust steam now vents only through the hollow shaft, through the centre of the bearings, which is a much better design. I am mounting the bearings in BSP Reduction Sockets so the housing is sealed and the only vent is through the hollow shaft which should keep the pressure in the housing nicely, some viton seals with a grease pack to keep the steam out, and 4 bearings (2 per side) for stability.

In addition the shafting I have chosen is from the karting industry and so is heavy duty and will take the load. An added bonus is that disc hubs are already available for this shaft designed to carry brake discs so they are fit for purpose. Here are some links if your interested:

30mm Hollow Axle (Custom)

Kart Components - Axles - Copper Axles - Hollow Pocket Key Axles

30mm Circular Type Disc Carrier (Heavy Duty)

Kart Components - Kart Axle Equipment - Disc Carriers - Sprocket Carriers - Split Hubs

This is the manufacturer of the components (took me a long time to find that out), you can get the bits from resellers and on ebay, but if you want a custom shaft like me then you need to go to the source. Very nice chap when I went to see him and he was helpful and offered a good price, good service, but he did look at me a bit odd when I explained what I wanted and why I wanted it!

RM

[kcarring]

"The 2” BSP Gasifier should run a 5 HP ICE engine according to the FEMA document, so this is what I have been aiming for, as the little Briggs and Strattons etc are about 5HP ish. Which matches well with the desired performance required from my alternator."

Have you looked at Handbook Of Biomass Downdraft Gasifier Engine Systems? Most of the builders have migrated somewhat away from the FEMA plans, having been disappointed with the quality of gas, (Vulcan Gasifiers included - according to Matt - who first built the FEMA), not able to get the FEMA really performing. You can see the basic difference by referring to the page 13 diagram in the FEMA plans, vs. The Imbert Design - I think (not entirely sure) the main difference is in the flate-plate vs. v-hearth.

Cheers.

[evolvingape]

That's really interesting, I was not aware of this document!

The hearth design is not finalised yet, I have considered using a reduction cone like this:

Stainless Steel 316L Concentric Reducer 2" to 1" | eBay

1" - 1 1/2" Stainless Steel 316L Concentric Reducer New | eBay

This would just be dropped into a reducing socket, should do the job, and cheap enough to try anyway, it is a common exhaust part.

It's hard to know what is going to work best for my particular design because nobody has built it before, once I have the parts though a little trial and error should give me the 5 HP I am looking for, If I cannot achieve that then 2 1/2 HP would also be good because that should give me 15V and I then have a 12V system. My goal in all this is to charge a battery, once I have achieved that, I will look at improving the efficiency of the system.

RM

[eothand]

Great Info!

Have you looked at Handbook Of Biomass Downdraft Gasifier Engine Systems? Most of the builders have migrated somewhat away from the FEMA plans, having been disappointed with the quality of gas, (Vulcan Gasifiers included - according to Matt - who first built the FEMA), not able to get the FEMA really performing. You can see the basic difference by referring to the page 13 diagram in the FEMA plans, vs. The Imbert Design - I think (not entirely sure) the main difference is in the flate-plate vs. v-hearth.

Cheers.

Thanks for the document! A year ago I jumped in head first with the FEMA design before I learned of its limitations and more recent improvements.
The whole project has been idle since. I am really looking forward to getting this back on track as it has the potential of providing multiple needed commodities; heat, fuel, shaft power, maybe even some evaporative cooling?!.

As a side note.... Since members here seem to be on the same "track" as me I would like some input....
I posted on Energy Creator's thread that I "acquired" eight large neodymium magnets from a friend, and can probably get quite a few more. The only information I have on them is they are 46x30x30mm and are said to lift 300+ lbs each.
I post here because I don't know what the best use for them would be (I also have a VAWT project going and considering generators). They are much larger and more powerful than I was envisioning but since the price is right....
I really would like to get them put to work as soon as possible! Maybe I should just post it as a general question to the forum........

Thanks again to all for all the great info
J

[evolvingape]

Here is one thing you could do with your big magnets, build a HHO pump.

This is what I was talking about before, I only developed the design recently so nobody has built it yet. Nobody knew about it until a few days ago, so it's cutting edge stuff!

It is based around the alternator concept but the rotor is the coil and the coil is hard wired to the plates and generates an AC electric field when spun within the stationary stator magnets fixed around the outside. You rectify this to DC with the full bridge (diode array) You will not have to spin it fast to generate a current, and only 2V is needed for HHO production. EnergyCreator might be able to help you as he is into this sort of stuff, and if you are interested in turbines this is a simple way to go because the low speed and small size means it will not be any more dangerous than using a food mixer attachment. (probably only 2" to 4" stainless 316 discs, I might even use washers)

The water should recirculate up from the bottom close to the shaft and get flung out through the discs to the side wall of the housing, which create a restriction so the device will self pressurise.

Just a thought...

RM

[evolvingape]

Here is some more information that might help you:

2 x 316 1mm Stainless Washers 50mm OD x 25.5mm ID | eBay

Custom 316 washers available on ebay, this one is 2" = 50mm which will fit very nicely inside a 2" BSP Barrel Nipple:

BSP 150 LB Barrel Nipple | 2.00" BSPT 150LB B/NIPPLE 316 | stainless steel

and because barrel nipples are cut from Schedule 40 Pipe they have an internal dimension of 52.51mm which will give you a clearance between the washer edge and nipple bore of about 1.25mm, perfect

Stainless Steel Pipe (Seamless) | 2.00" S40S PIPE SMS 316L | stainless steel

and if we want a non conducting housing instead of a stainless steel one we go polypropylene:

Nipple BSP Threaded

(Check the internal bore size on this before you order the washers as these are still on my parts to purchase list so have not checked the tolerances myself personally, however the thread being 2" BSP will be interchangeable with the stainless parts.

Now all you gotta do is either wind a coil by hand to the right dimensions, or salvage one from an old fan etc and wire that into your disc stack with the 4 diode full bridge rectifer to convert AC to DC. Sandwich it between two of your discs, run some electrical tape around the edges, and pour in some fast cast resin like this:

Polyurethane Fast Cast Resin

and maybe some glass bubbles as a filler to waterproof it:

3m Glass Bubbles : Microspheres

a pololu mounting hub with a 6mm bore, use 3 of the tapped holes to mount the rotor in compression (drill them straight through and bolt), and the other 3 holes as the pump inlet for the water:

Pololu Mounting Hub 6mm

2off plastic bearing hub:

Igus EFSM-06 4-Hole Flange Bearing 6mm Bore

and some nylon washers for spacers:

Nuts, Bolts, Washers and Fasterners from Nylon Alloys Ltd online shop

Now your well on your way to a HHO pump! Just keep the speeds real low and see what kind of reaction you get, have fun observing, and playing with different coils windings etc.

RM

[evolvingape]

I grabbed a few videos off youtube on how to make a full wave rectifier with 4 identical diodes in case anyone was wondering.

Rectifiers Part 2: Full wave rectifiers - YouTube

how to make a bridge (full wave) rectifier with 4 diodes - YouTube

RM

[Energy Creator]

EnergyCreator might be able to help you as he is into this sort of stuff

RM

hello evolvingape

love to help!



Brian

[evolvingape]

Design upgrade for HHO Pump:

SinkScience #01 -Tesla CD Turbine: Fun Science Learning Tool - YouTube

Magnetic coupler! No need for seals and a hole in the bottom of the container. Much more elegant!!

I should ask the thread owner Fuzzy if he minds me posting this stuff here in a gasifier thread. I just happened to be here when the finished concept popped into my mind so I posted it, no deliberate attempt to sidetrack. I am not interested in opening a new thread on this pump, I am done with that business now, if someone else wants to run a thread on this if Fuzzy does not want it here that's cool with me.

Hey Brian, thanks a lot man, with your knowledge of alternators could you suggest a good way to either salvage a fan from a type of device, or suggest a good coil winding like wire gauge and number of turns etc and type of coil ? That would be cool thanks, it's not a strong area of mine.

As an added note my other stuff that I am rewriting for seabirdadventure has been delayed because when I found out about electrode boilers it basically turned my turbine designs into a 100% efficient steam pump, so I have been trying to analyze the potential and dangers but that is coming along nicely. The HHO Pump will also be a steam pump (just leave the full bridge rectifier out of the build, simpler), do not at this stage attempt to pressurize it because I have concerns that this configuration will produce minute amounts of HHO and primary explosive in a steam boiler under pressure is a BAD IDEA!

RM

[evolvingape]

You are all going to love this!

I just had an ear to ear smile idea!

The HHO pump makes HHO when running DC, and it makes steam when running AC (with possibly a small amount of HHO).

You can run the tesla turbine stack off the tap just like in the video, use a magnetic coupler to spin your HHO or steam pump.

The beauty of it is... I bet the majority of you are not on a smart meter that measures how much water you use, you pay one flat rate, don't you ? I do!

So all I have to do is hook this bad boy up to my tap, and use the energy supplied by the water corporation to produce HHO or Steam 24/7 365 FOR FREE!

Obviously there is an energy cost, but it will cost you not a $... just be careful not to show your neighbours how you can boil the kettle from the cold tap, without a kettle... or they will do it too... and pinch all your water pressure... haha...



RM