A diff. approach to the wood burning industry

[HeX0rz]

I have yet to see anywhere on this board a mention of technology making a break through in wood heating.

I understand it is out there and just now making a presence in the US. Has anyone looked into wood gasification for a furnace to heat the home?

This is something that has been on the mind for quit some time now, and I have yet to see anyone coming out with such a thing. With all the soon to be restrictive EPA regulations and not to mention all the political heat on energy, it seems like it can become a VERY VIABLE source for home heating and not to mention producing fuel for running a larger generator for off-grid electricity.

I have heard almost all of it now. Solar panels, wind mills, blah, blah, blah. BUT, these alternative energy sources are not in abundance because of conditions like weather and cost prohibitive.

It seems that these countries in europe are developing these very systems to heat the home. Gasification can be a great process that can be an advantage to us. With a reciprocating supply of biomass, we just may be able to make energy usage in this way affordable for everyone.

I can't help but think and wonder about people using this method. It not only can heat the house, provide a form of fuel to aid in electricity and power a vehicle even, but will burn CLEAN! The larger cities that burn wood, will no longer be burdened down by burn bans because of inefficient burning of wood. Nothing comes out except a clean burn!

I have started small scale now in familiarizing myself in this method, and I must say that I'm just blown away at how well it burns.

So guys, have you any input on such a subject? Anyone even hear of such a thing?

 

[kemer]

Gasification has been here for awhile.Go to ********** then to boiler room.Those boys know all about gasification.I myself have a Garn boiler.
The Garn holds 1500 gal.of water.I fire once a day get the water hot and draw off it till the next day.Any wood gasification boiler that is availble in the US is on that site.

 

[pipehead]

The problem with gasifiaction boilers is that they often do not lend thmeselves very well to a retro-fit. I had seriously looked into a gasification boiler, but it just was not going to be feasible in a home that was not designed for one in mind (ended up with a plain old wood stove). A home almost has to be designed from the start with this form of heat in mind - and one has to have some knowledge of boilers to be able to navigate their way around, lest it be quite intimidating.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

I think having a boiler or furnace takes away from one the prime reasons I got a standard wood stove. Heat without needing electricity for pumps or fans. I bought mine on day 7 or 8 of a power outage in February.

Ian

 

[duane9835]

I think having a boiler or furnace takes away from one the prime reasons I got a standard wood stove. Heat without needing electricity for pumps or fans. I bought mine on day 7 or 8 of a power outage in February.

Ian

Your right about power outages!! That is the only downside to my gasification boiler.... Other than that i love it!!! I bought mine to eliminate my $5,000 gas bill

I did rig up a hillbilly battery back up with a couple 12v deep cycle batteries though. that helps for a couple hours until i can get the generator fired up.

 

[CTYank]

I have yet to see anywhere on this board a mention of technology making a break through in wood heating.

I understand it is out there and just now making a presence in the US. Has anyone looked into wood gasification for a furnace to heat the home?

Seems to me that wood gasification is the std MO of non-catalyst EPA-approved woodstoves. They're like lousy charcoal kilns, in that they slowly burn the charcoal after making it.

There are multiple wood-fired boilers in electricity generating stations in New England.

Were you to ask me where we need to focus on development of a technology, the answer would be the Stirling engine. From prime movers to waste heat scavengers (like, w/gas-turbine generators.) Consider a Stirling engine with its hot-well being a woodstove and its cold-well being your house, generating a few kw.

 

[HeX0rz]

I do not necessarily find myself to like the boilers much. I'm in search of making a furnace that uses gasification for clean burning. If need be, making a gasifier to produce the proper gas to burn in an engine for a generator to produce the electricity for a house. Off-grid is appealing to me as thats whats required to live out in the woods without paying for a power company to come in and put it in. Then again I do not want to me dictated by a power company's rates.

Get yourself out of the boiler mindset and think about gasification itself. The gas that is being produced can serve many purposes. If you have to, having 2 of them is not that big of a deal... Considering how much can be saved in the long run for fuel and also the independance obtained from it.

 

[laynes69]

While our woodfurnace isn't a gassifier, its a non-cat secondary combustion wood furnace. It a forced air furnace thats EPA certified and burns very cleanly. After loading the furnace, within 20-30 minutes I close the damper and the furnace will produce no smoke for hours while producing good amounts of heat on little wood. Which a normal woodfurnace when in idle would produce a good amount of smoke and creosote. Hopefully more manufacturers move in this direction.

 

[sawkiller]

I do not necessarily find myself to like the boilers much. I'm in search of making a furnace that uses gasification for clean burning. If need be, making a gasifier to produce the proper gas to burn in an engine for a generator to produce the electricity for a house. Off-grid is appealing to me as thats whats required to live out in the woods without paying for a power company to come in and put it in. Then again I do not want to me dictated by a power company's rates.

Get yourself out of the boiler mindset and think about gasification itself. The gas that is being produced can serve many purposes. If you have to, having 2 of them is not that big of a deal... Considering how much can be saved in the long run for fuel and also the independance obtained from it.

Has anyone actually used the gases from the pyrolisis of wood in an engine? I didn't see any thing searching but i seen one in back to the future that would run on garbage!

 

[HeX0rz]

I'd like to push towards developing an actual gasification furnace. Technically all burning is the process of pyrolysis. Using it effectively and for a purpose other than when something is being burnt is more of the objective I have.

Back in WWII they were using imbert designed gasifiers to run tractors and vehicles. Today, there is one guy who comes to mind who is developing advanced gasifiers for many uses. One use to mind that he has is running a 20kw generator. Here is a video for your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jbU150ulSQ&feature=player_embedded

I wish to build one, but not so sophisticated and expensive.

 

[dingeryote]

Whatever happened to the Russian designer/engineer we had here with his downdraft system?

That thing was very innovative and looked to be very efficient.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[Marc]

I'd like to push towards developing an actual gasification furnace. Technically all burning is the process of pyrolysis. Using it effectively and for a purpose other than when something is being burnt is more of the objective I have.

Pyrolysis is actually an umbrella term to describe the several endothermic decomposition reactions of a solid phase fuel into gaseous volatiles. In burning solid phase fuels, the exothermic combustion of the gaseous volatiles provides the heat to drive the endothermic pyrolysis.

I'm not trying to sound like a know it all, but this is one of very, very few areas where I do have documented expertise

 

[sawkiller]

I'd like to push towards developing an actual gasification furnace. Technically all burning is the process of pyrolysis. Using it effectively and for a purpose other than when something is being burnt is more of the objective I have.

Back in WWII they were using imbert designed gasifiers to run tractors and vehicles. Today, there is one guy who comes to mind who is developing advanced gasifiers for many uses. One use to mind that he has is running a 20kw generator. Here is a video for your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jbU150ulSQ&feature=player_embedded

I wish to build one, but not so sophisticated and expensive.

Now that was definetely worth watching! I don't think it is in my budget plans yet but it is a great concept. At 20k to 60k per household the payoff just isn't paletable yet. Not to mention you would be pretty dedicated to a chunking operation that required 15% moisture at a max for efficiency. Also you would need some kind of double filter setup so you could just switch from one filter to the other and never shut down to run 24/7.

 

[jags]

Its been around for a long time. This site does a pretty good job of explaining it.
http://www.gengas.nu/byggbes/contents.shtml

 

[HeX0rz]

Marc, no problem, lol. I'm still pretty ignorant in the whole thing and 'am self-educating myself about it all.

Sawkiller, He sells his gasifiers at about 5-8k a pop, IIRC. The generator could be obtained from home depot for example at about 5k. It would produce 20kw as well. The generac which is at home depot uses a SMALL onda engine to run it. It would not need a very large gasifier at all to run it. If you had a larger one, half of the gas could be routed to heating and the other half for electricity.

As for fuel, buying in bulk from a bark yard or from a wood mill would be most cost effective. You could buy a chip truck load from the mill or a couple tons at a time from a bark yard, etc.

What I find most appealing is contacting local tree company's and telling them they can dump at your place for FREE. You could get free wood chips as fuel!

 

[trailmaker]

I have yet to see anywhere on this board a mention of technology making a break through in wood heating.

I understand it is out there and just now making a presence in the US. Has anyone looked into wood gasification for a furnace to heat the home?

This is something that has been on the mind for quit some time now, and I have yet to see anyone coming out with such a thing. With all the soon to be restrictive EPA regulations and not to mention all the political heat on energy, it seems like it can become a VERY VIABLE source for home heating and not to mention producing fuel for running a larger generator for off-grid electricity.

I have heard almost all of it now. Solar panels, wind mills, blah, blah, blah. BUT, these alternative energy sources are not in abundance because of conditions like weather and cost prohibitive.

It seems that these countries in europe are developing these very systems to heat the home. Gasification can be a great process that can be an advantage to us. With a reciprocating supply of biomass, we just may be able to make energy usage in this way affordable for everyone.

I can't help but think and wonder about people using this method. It not only can heat the house, provide a form of fuel to aid in electricity and power a vehicle even, but will burn CLEAN! The larger cities that burn wood, will no longer be burdened down by burn bans because of inefficient burning of wood. Nothing comes out except a clean burn!

I have started small scale now in familiarizing myself in this method, and I must say that I'm just blown away at how well it burns.

So guys, have you any input on such a subject? Anyone even hear of such a thing?

I looked into wood gasification a few years ago. If I remember correctly, you need a large insulated water tank to store the heat, if you want any sort of efficiency. This adds a lot of cost and complexity, especially for a retrofit.
I like the concept of efficiency however, and would definitely plan for a gasifier and masonry heater if I were to build from scratch. I don't think masonry heaters can be used to heat water, but they definitely have the edge when it comes to simplicity and maintenance.

 

[HeX0rz]

Instead of making a boiler of any sort, why not just make heat exchangers of copper or other metals that conduct the heat? Encompassing any area where heat is radiated and routed to the ducting?

 

[sawkiller]

Marc, no problem, lol. I'm still pretty ignorant in the whole thing and 'am self-educating myself about it all.

Sawkiller, He sells his gasifiers at about 5-8k a pop, IIRC. The generator could be obtained from home depot for example at about 5k. It would produce 20kw as well. The generac which is at home depot uses a SMALL onda engine to run it. It would not need a very large gasifier at all to run it. If you had a larger one, half of the gas could be routed to heating and the other half for electricity.

A 5kw small generator will just barely run my water heater trust me I know. Also those you get at home depot won't stand up to continous operation. They are temporary power solutions!

As for fuel, buying in bulk from a bark yard or from a wood mill would be most cost effective. You could buy a chip truck load from the mill or a couple tons at a time from a bark yard, etc.

Moisture content must be 15% or less for efficiency! Also biomass needs to be of a consistent small but not to small size.

What I find most appealing is contacting local tree company's and telling them they can dump at your place for FREE. You could get free wood chips as fuel!

Most of what comes out of the chipper is far from 15% moisture although with some ingenuity and alot of storage for bulk materials such as a grain dryer and silo setup you could dry your own material if you got a bigger gasifier so you could run the dryer which in turn would need more biomass fuel. It could be done but do you see th dilemma.

 

[HeX0rz]

The Generators are out there that can run what anyone needs. Money is a diff story, yes.

Even if its not feasible, pellets can be used. The same ones used for pellet stoves. You may end up paying up to the same amount as it takes to heat and power the home as you would if you were on the grid, but to some it may not be a bad idea to be independant to the grid.

I'm not sure how much promise it will have, but the fischer-tropsch idea may hold some water.

Just because it may come from a chipper does not mean it is useable right of the bat. Storage systems would need to be devloped to dry out the substrate, but if you have enough of it, it won't cause problems.

 

[leon]

wood burning

1. You will be much better off buying an "Evergreen" brand boiler as you can burn coal and wood.

2. By filling the above boiler half full of fire brick you will be able to burn much less coal or wood and burn CLEAN as the fire brick becomes a huge heat sink which holds any heatr longer and reduces heat loss out the stack and you will have a clean burn.

I wish i had filled my boiler half full of fire brick 28 years ago as i use much less wood and coal and it burns much better and hotter.