***Miniature Wood Gasifier*** Chit Chat Discuss ***Miniature Wood Gasifier*** in the General forums; shuboyje waste oil gasifier you mean like a used cooking oil/motor oil /diesel kinda thing ??...

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

shuboyje

waste oil gasifier

you mean like a used cooking oil/motor oil /diesel kinda thing ??

[shuboyje]

WVO, waste vegetable oil. The idea is to try and gasify it so it can be used as an energy dense biomass fuel for gas engines. I've pyrolyzed it in a retort so I could see the characteristics of the "char" it produces and found it has some interesting properties.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Waste vegetable oil ?? Like used fryer oil ?? Sounds cool..

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Check out the pic the VW is powered completely by woodgas...

[shuboyje]

Yup, fryer oil, just like they run in Diesel engines and make into bio diesel. There are a few problems with wood as a fuel. First it has to be prepared properly to avoid "bridging" in the gasifier, which takes energy. On top of that wood is not very energy dense to begin with, and it takes about 20 lbs. of wood gasified to equal a gallon of gas. Finally, you either need a giant hopper, a screw feed of some sort, or the gasifier is gonna be a batch load. Fine for short commutes, but it is not uncommon for me to drive 80+ miles one way to work. WVO on the other hand is energy dense, having about 130,000 btu's per gallon. Gas only has about 125,000. So you would actually need less WVO the gas for the same commute.

[Archena]

Interesting. Would it go into the vehicle as a gas or a liquid? I assume gas much like vehicles run on LP or methane.

[shuboyje]

It would go in as liquid and be gasified on the fly in the car. The suction of the intake stroke of the engine is actually the driving force of most vehicle gasifiers. Without that the gasifier would need a blower which would again cost energy. Plus to store enough as gas you would need to compress it which leads to safety issues, as well as then needing a compressor(using energy).

[Archena]

Thanks. I knew gas was vaporized on intake. Never been sure how methane was handled getting into the cylinder - my brain fried during the explanation - but I knew it was more complex and had issues w/ compression. I have issues with compressed gas as well (not that kind! )-there's a reason propane tanks ride in the trunk - having one permanently on board kinda gives me the willies.

[MetalHead]

Wood Burning Truck Travels Coast to Coast | InventorSpot

This is a guy working with Auburn University.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

great site, thanks metalhead....