Chad Sentman : Amongst other crimes against god and man I have worked as a ballon chaser, Here every ounce counts ! Propane is a near perfect
fuel. While
gasoline holds more potential
energy bound up in its long chain molecules, it is a little too dangerous for safe use aboard a ballon inflight, but
especially on the ground!
If you could use a gasifier to burn
wood in a retort and pyrolyze and capture all of the resulting wood gases and then meticulously clean and desiccate
/dry out* those wood gases clean
enough to Liquify, then store them in lightweight Aluminum tanks just like the propane ones that are in common use
today you would still have to burn a much larger volume of the wood gases to produce the heat energy produced by a smaller volume of propane.
As the lighter wood gases evaporated out of their tank there would be a marked cooling of the remaining gas, just like in the propane tank, however the
boiling point where propane flashes to vapor is ~40degrees below ! Much of the wood gases would never vaporize and would remain as sludge in the
bottom of their tank !
All this is a best case scenario, while a
Rocket Mass Heater RMH does pyrolyze wood producing wood gases the weight of the wood alone would probably
guarantee that even a very short hop would be impossible ! The additional weight of ANY
RMH would prevent any flight !
I hope this was clear, timely and while not a positive
answer helps ! for the Good of the Crafts ! Big AL
* Propane is manufactured from nat gas, here in the U.S. the resulting product is very clean ! Most propane sold elsewhere in Pacific rim countries needs
an inline filter with recommended yearly replacement, A filter like this would be a necessary fixture for
wood gas that could fail inflight ! A.L.
