[Gasification] r.e. Woodgas to Methanol converter

[Mark & Elena Gallmeier]

Dear Jan & Darryl,

> Does anyone have information on a reactor that will produce methanol from
> woodgas(CO and H2) on a small scale.

A writer named Clifford Mossberg experimented with this in the early 1990s. 
See below link, start of pdf page 5.

http://www.homepower.com/files/woodgas.pdf

Mossberg writes he believes he was catalyzing methane directly to methanol 
in his copper tubing.  I on the other hand think he was catalyzing producer 
gas (CO - H2) directly, with very low rates of selectivity and low yields 
per ton of feedstock.  However, with a gasifier able to fuel a 300 hp 
engine, you should have a good supply of producer gas to experiment with.

I'd suggest the first simple small scale area to investigate are possible 
catalysts using regular producer gas at atmospheric pressure.

I have a copy of the "Proceedings of the Biomass to Methanol Specialists 
Handbook" Jeff Davis cited.  It's circa 1982.  Most of it applies to larger 
scale biomass to methanol production and the sub-components of that problem. 
There's one paper by K. Klier of Lehigh University particularly interesting.

This historical DoE document 
http://www.tpub.com/content/altfuels10/methanol/methanol0001.htm details a 
pilot biomass to methanol plant built in Hawaii.   DoE stated an expected 
yield of 186 gallons of methanol per ton of biomass.   Methanol weighs 8 
pounds/gallon, so this is (8* 186)/2000 or  74% conversion.  You'll also 
need a source of oxygen to make syngas to reach such yields.   This source 
might be an onsite oxygen plant using electricity from a biomass fueled 
engine genset.

It's my own opinion that somewhere between a 2% yield from destructive 
distillation, and 74% using 'state of the art' methods syngas-methanol 
catalysis, there is an optimum first generation yield from a simplified low 
cost small scale design that many would find acceptable.  Especially with 
gasoline prices ranging between $2.30 - $3.00 gallon and trending higher. 
This admittedly won't be as 'efficient' as a 'state of the art' methanol 
plant.  And neither are personal computers compared to mainframe computers, 
although IBM stopped sneering at this performance gap at least 15 years ago.

The DoE pamphlet talks about 'wholesale' prices of gasoline.  This 
comparison is even useful if a) you can buy gasoline at that price or plan 
to sell methanol at that price and b) you also have alternate methods to 
earn the necessary paper money to buy what's likely imported fuel.

Best Wishes,

Mark








> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 20:45:49 -0800
> From: "Jan & Darryl Hansen" <dhansen at uniserve.com>
> Subject: [Gasification] Woodgas to Methanol converter
> To: <gasification at listserv.repp.org>
> Message-ID: <20061209044532.5BD2829560 at smtpauth.easystreet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Does anyone have information on a reactor that will produce methanol from
> woodgas(CO and H2) on a small scale. I have constructed a small downdraft
> gasifier which we hope to power a 300Hp engine.  But I want to experiment
> with producing methanol.   Any usable information on small scale methanol
> production would be appreciated.