I was intrigued by todays radio show. This is what I found online. Enjoy!
“In occupied Denmark during World War II, 95% of all mobile farm machinery, tractors, trucks, stationary engines, and fishing and ferry boats were powered by wood gas generator units. Even in neutral Sweden, 40% of all motor traffic operated on gas derived from wood or charcoal. All over Europe, Asia, and Australia, millions of gas generators were in operation between 1940f and 1946. Because of the wood gasifier’s health risks from toxic fumes, most of such units were abandoned when il again became available in 1945. Except for the technology of producing alternate fuels, such as methane or alcohol, the only solution for operating existing internal combustion engines, when oil and petroleum products are not available, has been theese simple, inexpensive gasifiers units.”
You’d said Otto’s engine was fueled by powdered coal. Actually it used Coal gas. createdby heating coal to drive off the combustable component methane gas. The wood-chips were being used in the same process.
The first time I had ever heard of this was on show called “The Colony”, on one of the science channels a couple of years ago. The people involved in this survival experiment supposedly built a wood gas converter and made a truck run with it. I was skeptical that they were actually able to make this work, but I figured the idea was valid and it must have come from somewhere. I’m suprised that Tom and Ray were unfamiliar with this.
You guys should be old enough to remember this stuff. Check out FEMA’s booklet called “Wood Gasification in the event of a petroleum Shortage” since you must have forgotten the past and gave such a Bogus answer.
I have been looking for some more modern form of all of this for a while. (although it might be tough to hook to a car/truck, I thought that perhaps a boat might be just the ticket for this as space is more available). I found this company in Vancouver Wa. ( http://victorygasifier.com/contact/#wpcf7-f1-p46-o1 ). I have not contacted them yet but it might be interesting to play with.
How about DIY http://www.woodgas.nl/GB/index.html
I was born and raised in Germany near a place where the combustion engine was developed (atto motor). For the converted engine to burn wood, it was a charcoal burner that was used to generate gas to run the engine. This was done for cars, trucks, and even a motorcycle with a side car where the side car was used to hold the charcoal/gas generator.
(snickering: You can tell the value of an MIT degree! )
OF COURSE it was done… but it probably only ran at 20MPH. …still, during wartime shortages, that’s pretty good.
It’s a STILL - the fuel derived could be piped directly in Behind the carburetor… no evaporative air chambers required for this! But I think they collected the gasses and allowed then to cool first… see below.
History channel had a documentary with a very short view of one of these running… a large (+/- 3 liter) cylindrical tank to handle the alcohol & gasses was attached vertically to the passenger side of the hood. I recall what my parents had described from their WWII experiences… and recognized it immediately.
Just think - this would be Great in Kentucky!
A recent edition of MAKE magazine featured a wood chip stove that emits gasses with charcoal as a byproduct. Similar principle… different application.
Gasification is certainly a possibility, but it could also have been using the Sterling engine which is an external combustion engine, lower efficiency that the internal combustion but can run on anything that burns.
rtjny99
My father, a WW II veteran who spent time in the Philippines and Australia during the war, talked about techniques used during that era to deal with shortages of many things especially motor vehicle fuel. The wood-chip process involved heating the wood chips, in the absence of oxygen, capturing the resultant flammable gasses so generated and plumbing it/them into the intake of the vehicle’s engine.
The process of making charcoal often uses these combustible gasses to add to the energy needed to heat the feed stock (rice hauls, wood chips, etc., etc.).
the chemistry was probablt a " mini coke plant" - the wwod chips were heated in a closed space - co (coke oven gas ) was generated with a BTU content of 550 btus /per cubic feet ( half that of natural gas) . In a coke oven the co was burne to heat the oven chamber - The mini oven may have had a double wall configeration that allowded combustion outside the “oven” – geybox
This was common in Germany during and immediately after WW II, since they didn’t have a source for oil. But Great Britain did it also, I remember seeing photos of a bus in England with a giant gas bag on top. Some European ountries did it after WW I also. A book to check is “Wartime Woodburners” by John Fuller Ryan.
Hans had it right all along. He said they were converting the wood to Carbon Oxide (CO). I think the brothers assumed he meant Carbon Dioxide (CO2) which is non-combustible. Had he said Carbon Monoxide I think they would likely have understood that CO is one O molecule short of CO2 and would therefore be combustible.
JimAtGaTech is right on the money. Wood gasifiers are not pseudoscience and are certainly a tried and true technology. I’ve only actually seen them as furnaces but the idea is the same. Gasification is an anaerobic process where cellulosic biomatter breaks down into combustible gases and tar under heat in a process called pyrolysis. In terms of efficiency, a degenerate case of this process can be seen in any open-air fire pit where the burning of the cellulose and (some) wood gas occur at the same time in an uncontrolled manner. Gasification can be thought of as a refinement of conventional wood burning as it separates wood gas production from burning. Cheers.
Below are two links on this subject. The first is to an article covering the WWII era application of woodchip cars in Europe. The second is a discussion with photographs of modern applications of the same principle.
