Shannow's gasifying wood burner

[Shannow]

Made this a few years ago just for ****s and giggles, being a mechanical engineer who was in a poor headspace at the time, and just wanted to do something that proved to me that I could still think properly.

Cheap stainless stock pot, a cheap stainless milkshake cup, and a cookie cutter....

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b42/akashafamily/P9170076.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b42/akashafamily/P9170078.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b42/akashafamily/P9170077.jpg

Whole thing assembled

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b42/akashafamily/P9170075.jpg

The idea is that the fuel burns in the combustion chamber incompletely, and produces syngas (CO and H2), then the gas is burned in air through the air ports at the top. The heat that's "wasted" from the stainless milkshake cup heats the combustion air and is added to the wood-gas at the top.

Can see how it works here, with the gas and air creating a flame.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2IBzp2j150


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q4EjSbX92s

Heating some water, showing how the flame plays...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cl38nYITyE

Breakfast (note heavy based cast iron pan) cooked over approximately 11 cubic inches of hardwood.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgQPzdR_JEc

[panopticon]

G'day Shannow,

Have you built a downdraft wood gasifier to run a petrol engine?

I've been looking at this for a few years and just never get the time to put one together.

There's no shortage of old cars at my place to attach one too and I've been thinking about changing the ol' Landy Series IIa I've got here (red motor) or Nissan G60 over.

There's a lot of people who have done this (particularly in Europe) and I've got the wood (200 bloody acres of it) to get us off the extra fuel costs so am just curious if you've given it a go as I've heard there can be issues with plugs, head etc.
Kind Regards, :yo:
Panopticon

[Rollo]

There you go, simple and do the job. Well done!

Rollo

[Shannow]

panopticon,
my Grandad after the depression converted people's oil heaters to wood gas using the wood gasifiers that were plentiful post depression.

The FEMA emergency manual on wood gasification gives a lot of good ideas.

http://driveonwood.com/resources/pdf-articles/fema-gasifer-plans

As an aside, a guy at work just retired, and at an old farm auction picked up a wood gas carburettor plenum.

[panopticon]

G'day Shannow,

The FEMA plans are actually the ones that peaked my interest years ago.
A good resource page for anyone who is interested is here:
http://www.allpowerlabs.org/gasification/resources/index.html

Cheers,
Pan

BTW thanks for the link to Drive on Wood (http://driveonwood.com/).
I'll have a look at the site and see what else is there!

[Bubu]

Consider the cumbersome of starting the gassifier before you can drive every time. For stationary purposes it is good. We have constructed a couple of rice husk gassifier for my brother to cook more than ten tons of avalon shells everyday. Fired almost 8 hours a day continuous.