[Gasification] water injection of producer gas fired ic engines

[Harmon Seaver]

On 7/6/06, jim mason <jimmason at whatiamupto.com> wrote:
(snip)
>
> 1.  the relatively high emission of unburned CO is producer gas fired
> ic motors (10-20% i think) would be reduced, with a related increase
> in power.
>
    Why would there be any unburned CO? There shouldn't be any if the
engine is appropriate for woodgas; i.e., of high enough compression
and spark advanced enough. And as long a stroke as possible.



> 2. the notorisously slow flame front of producer gas would be
> generally increased as the CO would complete its combusion faster.
> higher rpms would be possible.  but also for the same reason, the
> engine would be limited to lower compression ratios.

   Bad move, that. You want at least 16:1 compression. More is better.


>
> for a slow speed genset, all this is likley not helpful, as the slow
> rpm tends to give enough time for full combustion to happen.  for a
> mobile application where momentary higher power is needed, this seems
> very important and potentially very helpful.

    For the vehicle applications, diesels are the best bet -- that way
you not only have the appropriate compression, but the injection pump
will automagically add more fuel when needed. So you can have
essentially almost full rated hp when accelerating or hillclimbing,
but then run most of the time just on woodgas.



-- 
Harmon Seaver