[Gasification] Use Tar to Make More Gas

[Art Krenzel]

Andy,

Why don't you go down to NAPA and get your self a simple exhaust oxygen 
sensor and mount it in the exhaust pipe nearest the manifold to keep it hot. 
With simple signal conditioning and a cab readout, you could monitor the 
quality and/or quantity of the fuel going into the engine.  This would help 
reduce some of the wild swings between too lean and over rich.  Who knows, 
you may even get 50 mph out of the old buggy!

Isn't technology grand?

Art Krenzel


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "andy schofield" <scothebuilder at hotmail.com>
To: <gasification at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 7:14 PM
Subject: [Gasification] Use Tar to Make More Gas


>
>
> Dear Ian,
>
> Leland has it in that the gasifier must be run at the top of the range of
> turn-down.
> Today I just completed a forty-mile run driving a wood-fueled 1/2 ton
> pickup. I burned a less than 128 liters of wood-blocks.  I drained-out six
> liters of condensate from my gas cooler. Please note that NO TARS  were in
> the drain pan! During the run, the throttle was wide-open as much as 
> safley
> possible. Top speed on the flat ground was 45 mph (a new record for me).
> Others have gone much faster! Spark advance from the driver's seat is the
> next fabrication project.
>
>  There is a continuum between excess air and starved-air combustion.
> Operate your gasifiers fast enough to be near the point where your final
> combustion equipment can tolerate the tars that get out your hot-gas 
> outlet.
> Flat-head engines (good beginner's engine if you can find one) can gobble 
> a
> lot of tar before they won't run. Efficient over-head valve engines can't.
>
>  Never use a wet-scrubber. I know of a super-fund site that first began to
> be messed-up in the 1880s only just now is remidiated and finished to 
> USEPA
> specification. Charcoal (for making iron), and methanol production from 
> wood
> was practiced at this site.  Look up "Mancelona, Tar Lake". Wet scrubbers
> mix this kind of tar with water...then what do you do with it? Burn your
> tars in the gasifier to produce more gas!
>
> Go Detroit Tigers!
>
> Andy Schofield
> Great Lakes Renewable Fuels