updated wood gas tech kit

[jed turtle]

http://www.gekgasifier.com/

[Bob]

Thanks, Jed. They are doing probably the best work of anybody. Here is a good forum thread, including some questions I asked (I'm "dacroz")

http://www.gekgasifier.com/forums/showt ... 5#post1645

Bottom line, the whole topic turns out to be vastly more complicated than I (and, from much of the naive stuff I find on the internet, many others) had realized. After spending half a day with Andy Soria, wood chemistry professor at UAF, I've put my biochar producing, modified barrel-stove project on hold.

Acccording to Andy, what makes biochar isn't just charcoal per se, but it's chemical composition which depends a lot on feedstock, temperature, pressure and residence time. You can't have a system optimized to produce both fuel gas and terra preta.

[jed turtle]

many years ago i had purchased the Mother Earth News plans for making a wood burner gasifier (ostensibly to run a truck) but never had the money or technology to get it built. and of course, people do build them, and use them, but i don't know for how long. during WWII, those who used them in europe talked about not only just changing the filters every day but also tearing down the engine every 1000 miles to clean it.

this was the most advanced unit that i had found that came out of the war years. designed to run on charcoal and apparently produced minimum tars
http://www.hotel.ymex.net/~s-20222/geng ... .html#fig6

[jed turtle]

just wanted to update this category.
a friend recently sent this link to a new, modern wood gasifier. looks very nice.

http://victorygasifier.com/the-hotwatt/

[Bob]

Looks pretty nice, Jed,

Thanks for the pointer...