[Gasification] Regarding Combustion Quality of Producer gas

[Greg Manning]

Dear Ken, Tom, and all.

Ken, I have always been a fan of your work on listers, even though I strive
for larger units, the work you have done with these great slow rpm units, I
think in IMO, you have set a great ground breaking president, that it will
be hard to keep up to.

Keep up the great work !

P.S. I have a Caterpillar 3208 truck engine that is just dying to get
retrofitted...... (someday).

Greg




On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Ken Boak <ken.boak at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Tom, and Greg,
>
> Thankyou for clarifying that it is the ~50% nitrogen content in producer
> gas that gives it a high octane number, and the simple rule of thumb that
> links the octane number and the maximum compression ratio.
>
> Having read IISc literature about running converted diesel engines on wood
> gas at 17:1 CR, this inspired me to continue with the conversion project of
> the Lister type engine at All Power Labs, so that it could be run at it's
> stock compression ratio of 17:1 on wood gas.
>
> The conversion involved keeping the original diesel injector and fitting a
> spark plug through a side port, which gave direct access to the spherical
> combustion chamber.
>
> The rationale behind this conversion, was to allow the diesel engine to be
> started and run as a diesel, providing immediate thermal, pneumatic and
> mechanical energy, which could be used to start up the downdraft gasifier.
>  When the gasifier was producing good, engine grade gas, the diesel fuel
> could be shut off, the woodgas introduced to the air intake through a
> mixing valve and the engine would continue to run in spark ignition mode on
> woodgas.
>
> This approach seems to make absolute economic sense, where the engine
> would only be started and run for 5 minutes or so on diesel (or biodiesel,
> WVO) and for the remainder of the daily duty would be run on wood gas.
>
> The small team working on the Lister conversion project at the April
> weekend workshop, found that the 6hp engine and alternator was still
> capable of generating 2.5 kWe electrical power in wood gas mode at 600 rpm
> -  hardly any power derating from what it could achieve at 600 rpm in
> diesel mode.
>
> The Lister type engine is a simple durable engine, still produced,  sold
> and in common usage around the developing world. It's basic construction
> lends itself to this simple spark ignition conversion so that it can
> benefit from the much reduced running costs offered by woodgas operation.
>
>
> regards
>
>
>
> Ken Boak
>
>
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