Solar pyrolysis woodgas generator

[maz]

Using a solar trough and a feed mechanism it should be possible to pyrolyze biomass saving the energy required by a normal woodgas generator to heat and pyrolyze the biomass.  I have found a site: http://www.solarpaces.org/ that has researched just that idea.  I have been kicking this idea around in my head for a while, but it seems that someone else is doing commercial research into it, so it would be a great do-it-yourself project since it probably isn't patentable.  The possibilities are endless, the wood/biomass can be converted to carbon using solar energy to raise it's temperature to about 500 deg farenheit, i think, just to drive off the volatiles--i.e. create charcoal.  The carbon  residue can then be superheated in the absense of oxygen and steam introduced to produce CO and H2, in addition to other light organics, possibly.  The volatiles from the initial distillation and the pyrolysis products should be able to be used in OTTO cycle engines to produce electricity.  I have no idea how efficient this is as i skipped Thermo in my physics program and took stat-mech instead.  The idea, though, is to produce an efficient, cost effective way to generate hydrogen or electricity that doesn't require high energies to produce--i.e. solar cells. Take a look at my diagram: http://zeits.com/energy/solar_pyrolyzer.png and tell me what you think.

[nothing to lose]

Sounds about the same as making charcoal, bake wood, save gas for other uses, best charcoal for many uses. I think  I started a Diary on that.

For now I'll be using a wood and garbage fire to produce the heat to bake the wood. Get rid of the burnable trash at the same time I am making charcoal and get a use from the heat too. The diary is basics, fire, barrel, pipe, burning gas comming out of pipe. Took about 20 minutes to build it that day I think.

I plan to add many things as I build the big unit, use all the waste heat I can, either run a gennie direct or save the gas for latter use after it's cleaned and cooled. If you can tell in the pictures I posted, the pit I had it sitting in does face the sun on the open end. That was for a reason I never mentioned yet

You may be able to geuss what I will be trying in the hot summer, instead of wood heat

I'll need alot of charcoal so at this time I don't have much interest in doing anything with it except making it for my forge and foundry setup I am also building.

[skravlinge]

That you are up to will work just fine.  A ottomotor will work at a minor less power than oil. During the WW2 then Sweden was surrounded and we could not get petrol, they burnt the wood on a trolly behind the car, with small access for air, the gas went straight to the engine and the car was moving quite OK.

[bob g]

i think your system is superior to the more common and easier one that some folks are working with, that is:

by heating the wood, and driving out the moisture, and getting to the volatile gasses to recoup, cool and clean to be burnt there is left the charcoal.

from what i have read that is only half of the possible production,

by injecting steam into the charcoal bed, whereas the charcoal is starved for oxygen, its afinity for the needed oxygen causes it to scavenge the needed oxygen from the steam, and leaves the H2 as a biproduct along with the now formed CO.

has anyone on the board taken the extra step by injecting the steam into the hot charcoal

would be interesting to see someone doing this

bob g

[skravlinge]

Try with a very hot coalfire witout flames in a  flask. Put some water, not too much  so it cools on it, and you will see flames.

The gasification will need 800 centigrades to work well. There are catalysist system to improve. Not proper done some  bad emmissions can be produced, especially if biomass and not pure coal  is used. The gas is very toxic.

It has been done experiment with steamturbins fired by coal, to use the return steam through the coalbedd to  shift the water coal to H2 and CO in this way improve the production.

[skravlinge]

Here is a  drawing of the way  a car can be running on wood.

[skravlinge]

Forgott the link about how to build it

http://www.gengas.nu/byggbes/index.shtml

[nothing to lose]

I can see in theory how that would work, I may give it a whirl in the future and see what I can do.

Since I mostly WANT the charcoal, with the system I am building everything that is NOT charcoal would otherwise be a waste product to me. That is why I plan to try to do as much as posible with the heat and gasses as I can and have pure charcoal left over. Or the other way to think of it is heat my home and get free gasses and charcoal at the same time.

Now, on the other hand

I have to heat my home in the winter, I might be making more charcoal then than I will need all summer. It might be nice to try this and if I can get Hydrogen from baking charcoal and injecting steam, then I could make as much charcoal as I can to provide everything else in the winter as the waste product, THEN durrng summer us the extra charcoal to re-bake more charcoal which is injected with steam, then run a gennie off that Hydrogen.

I would probably burn out barrels too fast this way though.

So a thought here, could I make a small oven out of plate steel, fill with charcoal, seal it, heat the bottom red hot with a charcoal and forced air fire (like blacksmithing or metal casting) then spray water onto the red hot steel bottom to make the steam??

 Should that work?

Will the charcoal get the oxygen from the steamed water and burn, or will the red hot steel be effected by the oxygen like try to rust? I am thinking it will be so hot the water will have no effect on the steel. Hot enough steel and fine enough spray, the water may even steam away before hitting the steel anyway. I may actually try this later.

Also thanks for the Gasifier info, I think that's what it's often called. I am working on one of those also. I have many ideas for it, glad to hear they were also pulled on trailers sometimes, most of what I have heard of them they were normally mounted on the car in other places I think. I have plans (ideas of my own) to build a trailer unit, run the feed pipe to the towing vehicle through the trailer toung and connect securly with a good flexable hose to an exhaust pipe under the vehicle running to the forward engine. This will make the unit easy to connect to different vehicles as needed instead of building of unit for each. Of course I still have to make each vehicle work off it. But I figure if I actually like it and use it all the time, then two trailers, one for wife, one for me, will run unlimited vehicles. That will end all our normal gasoline needs in this family and save tons of money for us as well as being better for the enviroment, and scrap wood is very cheap right now for me, even free from a couple places, all I want.

 I might still need gasoline for over a 100 mile trip, but that would be using a different vehicle too.

 My plan is also to make it just look like a normal trailer, maybe like enclosed with airconditioning except instead of actually being an airconditioner that would be part of the gas cooling system and ventalation. Kinda like always towing a small popup camper trailer or larger race car trailer everywhere I go, and just just people wonder why

[skravlinge]

If you want the coal you are doing right as you work. But for people want to make gas of all the wood, the gasgenerator is better. If you first take out the gas making coal, you must dry the wood, get the gas, then you must use energy to produce the H2 and CO. In the gasgenerator you get all in one step. It is the amount of water present in the wood, some of ot  are split to hydrogen and carbonmonooxide (CO is a fuel too burning to CO2). So you get better away with a gasgenerator if you not need the coal. You do not have to store it.  In a otto-motor the changing of the motor is not so much that you can not use petrol, in  time you not have access to wood. Put it on a trolley have the advantages you can run a car and a tractor on the same  generator,(Using the tractor take the trolly on the front lift).

[tecker]

  Yeah that's a down draft unit It is the best over all to get usable gas from wood chips .I 'm adding a wood gas setup to my barrel stove . fist to rercycle the smoke from the flue and then a filter to run a gen set . the idea is to load the stove up and keep th fire close to the door and a sterling to run a air injector . Recirculating the smoke back into the fire box looks very promising.The next phase is to filter and compress the gas to have a regulated generation time.

[nothing to lose]

Yes, I thought about that for just heat and a gennie also.

The gennie will suck the air through the system as it runs on the gas produced. Heat is the unwanted by-product when charging batteries or what ever with the gennie. I figure use it to heat water for the house, or maybe oil in tank for storage.

I thought about adding something to my barrel wood burner I use for heating the house now also but decided against it for now and building other stuff.

I was planning to build a nice large log home someday, but the more I think about it maybe I should go concrete and rocks insteads. Concrete and rocks are basically fire proof, logs are not

 Looks like I will have my place surrounded by fire inside and out!!

[skravlinge]

http://www.solarpaces.org/PYROLISIS.HTM

This link have a proposual using concentrated solar rays to in fraction of a second pyrolysis wood to biooil and gas.