[Stoves] CHAR-gasification for IC engine operations --- was Re: [biochar] Julien Winter: a soil scientist in name but not in practice.

[Tom Miles]

Paul,

Charcoal gasifiers were developed in WWII but most of the WWII gasifiers
were run on wood, not charcoal. Hitler took his initial design from the
French inventor Jacques Imbert. His aim was to counter the Anglo-American
dominance of petroleum. See 
Egon Glesinger's 1942 monograph, Nazis In The Woodpile: Hitler's Plot For
Essential Raw Material. 

Charcoal gasifiers have been built with the assistance of participants on
the gasification list over the years. There are designs for 5 kWe units
available.  

At a larger scale I understand that  Phil Marsh, British Columbia Biocarbon
Ltd., Prince George, will be demonstrating their biochar gasifier and genset
at the 2014 International Bioenergy Conference and Exhibition in Prince
George, BC June 11-13.  
http://www.bioenergyconference.org/ Phil is makes biochar in an updraft
gasifier he uses a charcoal gasifier to reform the gas and burn it in an IC
engine. Gas quality is very good and consistent. A small amount of charcoal
is consumed since most of the energy comes from the gas. So you make biochar
and power.

A few years ago Rogerio Miranda and I looked at options for using pyrolysis
gas from charcoal kilns to generate power. They were all pretty expensive
and you needed about 16 kilns to guarantee a consistent quality of gas.
Phil's option looks good. We'll see how it performs in June. They have been
running a 50 kWe demo and may have something larger.

Tom 

T R Miles Technical Consultants Inc.
Portland, OR
tmiles at trmiles.com
www.trmiles.com
www.gasifiers.bioenergylists.org
www.stove.bioenergylists.org
www.biochar.bioenergylists.org




       



-----Original Message-----
From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of
Paul Anderson
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2014 8:02 AM
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves; Gary Gilmore - char gasification;
Bruce Southerland - NH; biochar at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Stoves] CHAR-gasification for IC engine operations --- was Re:
[biochar] Julien Winter: a soil scientist in name but not in practice.

Crispin and all,

(First statement is well known by you and others, but sets the stage for the
next comments.) Char-gasification gives quite clean gases and is different
from biomass gasification in which pyrolysis gases are also produced and
must be be dealt with (removed or converted to cleaner combustibles.)

Most of the 1 to 2 million "gasifier vehicles" during 1930 to 1945 were 
with CHAR-gasification.   But the forests were being depleted by the 
char-making, so interest shifted to gasifiers of raw biomass (mainly 
wood, resulting in "woodgas").   When WW II ended, petroleum took over.

So, you are correct that CHAR-gasification can give the energy for internal
combustion engines.

NOTE:  With more sophisticated equipment (and costing more money), raw
biomass can and is being used to give gaseous fuel (often called syngas or
producer gas) to IC engines, as is done by All Power Labs and by much larger
gasifier systems, but that is a very different topic and is the focus of the
Gasification Listserv (which has almost no discussions about TLUD
gasification or stoves).

Two main things have changed since 1945 concerning the topic of
CHAR-gasification for engine operations:

1.  Vast improvements in engine technology (although focused on fossil
fuels, not on CHAR-gas.)

2.  The advent of the TLUD technology has placed char-production as a
by-product or co-product of household cooking with biomass (plus the
advantages of better health from cleaner cooking when the TLUD stoves are
made and operated correctly).

There is still some activity about CHAR-gasification for engine power.   
The focal person in the USA is Gary Gilmore, a forester in western 
Pennsylvania.   Gary leads a small group with a listserv about this 
topic.   I request that Gary (who is receiving a copy of this message 
and is on the Biochar Listserv -- but not on the Stoves Listserv) send us a
summary/introductory statement and website addresses, etc., and 
help us all get up to speed on this important topic.   I have met Gary 
and affirm that he is innovative, solid with the technology, generously
helpful, and an actual user of char-gasifiers in several functional devices.

Comment:  As Crispin points out, this is ANOTHER possible use/destination of
char from char-producing stoves and larger devices.  
The use are:

a.  Burn the char in appropriately designed charcoal-burning stoves.
b.  Place the char into soils, as biochar.
c.  Consume the char in char-gasifiers to produce combustible gases for IC
engines for generating electricity or motive power.
d.  Waste the char (by letting it smolder away uselessly or by dumping it in
useless places).

Note that both b. and d. (the dumping part) above result in carbon removal
from the atmosphere, and are therefore favored by some.

Paul

Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
Skype: paultlud      Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website:  www.drtlud.com

On 5/9/2014 2:49 AM, ajheggie at gmail.com wrote:
> [Default] On Fri, 9 May 2014 08:07:13 +0700,Crispin Pemberton-Pigott 
> <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>
>> I just saw a small internal combustion engine which runs on gas produced
by a charcoal gasifier.
>>
>> The gasifier is about the size of a large domestic stove and holds 7 kg
of charcoal or so. From what I understand so far it is a) very simple to
make and operate, b) has none of the problems which make pyrolysis gas
difficult to clean for use in an engine and c) will operate an engine using
about 3.5 kg per hour. I will get photos.
>>
>> Indonesia has more than 10,000 occupied islands. Some of them have a lot
of waste biomass, or just lots, or agricultural products including sawdust.
Many only have diesel powered electricity.
>   
>> If the char from a stove was suitably sized by planning the system as an
integrated unit, then water pumping, oil pressing and electricity generation
could be performed by very simple equipment. Candle nut shells are a good
candidate for this as Nurhuda has already demonstrated making good quality
char from a stove.
> We had this discussion in the late 90s before biochar emerged as a use 
> for small sizes of charcoal.
>
> I remember discussing the Kalle gasifier, this was a WW2 device that 
> was basically a tin can with a central inlet which could be agitated 
> 11RC.
>
> As the charcoal would tend to an equilibrium temperature over 1000C 
> there was a thermostatically controlled feedback path from the engine 
> exhaust to the inlet to keep this temperature lower as the up to 15% 
> of the recycled CO2 would react with the hot char and be reduced 
> endothermically to CO.
>
> The resulting producer gas was chiefly CO and Nitrogen. As it largely 
> lacked the hydrogen of woodgas flame speeds and calorific  value were 
> lower, substantially reducing engine power and speed.
>
> As you say this char could be bought from small producers and power a 
> simple genset or pump, displacing some diesel. Whilst it would be 
> naturally cleaner of tars than woodgas I suspect it would still need 
> more oil changes and maintenance than refined diesel.
>
>
>
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