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15 minutes ago, dochubert said:Should work with propane or gasoline engines. Any internal combustion engine, but not diesel. I'm thinking of connecting a 48v windmill pma to a lawnmower motor, which will run on the gasifier output. Just for charging my battery bank.
There are several people on youtube with videos of working gasifiers. Some more complicated than others.
I like this one best so far...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6e3CprVTi8
Then there is this one that requires no welding, supposedly...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvl5XxVVjDM
Since I plan to use mine quite a lot, (not just to show off on a video), I probably will do a variation on the first one. With a lot of use, tar will build up in the piping. So more cleanout points and tar drain off collectors to add. Also, the first guy used wood pellets. Will work better and cleaner, but you have to buy them! (not happening!) I want to burn my piles of bark and wood chips, getting more use out of the wood I split for my wood stove.
Collecting parts for it. I have a drum and two old propane tanks saved so far. Looking for something for the big filter box.
I've built several gasifiers and I can tell you that both of those gasifiers in the links suck. My first gasifier was like the one in the first link, a FEMA gasifier. It will work but it is very inefficient and very dirty. The tar it produces not only clogs an engine, but it is lost energy. The FEMA doesn't get hot enough to "crack" the tar and get the useable energy out. What you want is something along the lines of the restricted throat inverted V type gasifier. Checkout Flash001USA on YouTube. His gasifier is a good start. It can be improved. I based my second one on it but went heavier duty with stainless steel throat. Also look into "The Drizzler" gasifier. If I ever get the itch to start messing with gasifiers again, I might try that approach. But for now, my Flash gasifier works pretty good. It is almost entirely tar free and still works well after three years.
5 hours ago, InPhase said:my Flash gasifier works pretty good. It is almost entirely tar free and still works well after three years.
I looked at some of the video for the flash gasifier and it does look much better than the fema style from the other video. I still need to watch all his contruction process videos but it;s looking like my best choice at this point. Thanks for pointing me to it!
Now if I can just find someone local to do welding/fabrication without costing me a fortune....
In the 1940's gasifiers were sold commercially and installed on cars. Some were remarkably clean burning, but they needed very dry wood to fuel them.
I looked at some of the video for the flash gasifier and it does look much better than the fema style from the other video. I still need to watch all his contruction process videos but it;s looking like my best choice at this point. Thanks for pointing me to it!
I'm sure you can buy a cheap Amazon wire feed welder, welding helmet and gloves for less than $300 and learn to weld. The ability to melt and stick pieces of metal together is well worth the effort and it becomes so handy that you will wonder how you ever did anything without it.
"After previously demonstrating how the energy can be extracted as heat, they have now succeeded in getting the system to produce electricity, by connecting it to a thermoelectric generator. "
A TEG (think TEC or peltier device being driven the other way) is about the worst way to do this. Yes it does work but pretty terribly. If the objective was to produce electricity a gas cycle would be far more sensible (think refrigeration running in reverse). This sort of thing is already in use using lakes as a heat source with the heat transfer straddling the thermocline in the lake / pond.
In the 1940's gasifiers were sold commercially
Wish I could jump in my time machine and zip back to 1940 and buy one!
During the oil crisis of the 1980’s, the US Government produced and distributed plans for wood fuel gasifiers that could be made at home.
Although the technology is not new, Vendel has added his own improvements to create a very effective fuel product unit. On the first run, it successfully ran a 2.5 kW generator with a 1000 watt load for 2.5 hours on two 5-gallon buckets of wood scraps (the generator was a typical small gasoline utility generator. No special modifications were needed to make the generator run on wood fuel).