Hello Everyone!
I'm happy to join the online community here and excited to explore all the content. I suppose this post can serve doubly as a personal intro as well as an introduction to the project I've been working on. I hope everyone will feel free to make suggestions, criticisms, ask questions, offer support, or otherwise get involved.
Not too long ago I began work on a wood gasifier for a 30' school bus that I converted to a "skoolie". The goal of the project is to develop free and open source plans anyone may use or improve. For those of you that are new to gasification, it's an older technology that allows you to use solid biofuels like wood, forestry waste or recycled briquettes to power a gasoline internal combustion engine. People have run generators, cars, trucks, buses, and even tractors on wood. You can also run certain appliances that use propane or natural gas. While it is pretty comparable to gasoline (some reduction in power, overall good efficiency, higher "octane" rating) it has the important environmental advantage of being carbon neutral. And unlike fossil fuels, it requires no extraction, refinement, or system of global trade.
Like I said, there's a lot out there already. Some posts on this site mentioned Ben Peterson's book, the
Wood Gasifier Builder's Bible. That is a pretty good resource for a stationary, small-scale, (but good quality) do-it-yourself gasifier. But there are a lot of other excellent resources out there as well:
The WK Gasifier by Wayne Kieth is perfect for converting a truck to drive on wood. You can see it in action in this Eco Jaunt video with Wayne here. Mr. Kieth also developed this free and very lively forum for automotive gasification DriveOnWood.com. I highly recommend it. You'll find some really wacky and brilliant ideas there.Another resource is All power Labs. They started off making the GEK (Gasifier Experimenter's Kit) as an Open Source project and have since evolved to become a more serious provider of stationary gasifier-generators from 20 kW to 130 Kw. And then there's the Mother Earth News truck design, the FEMA downdraft design, and a whole host of other online examples.
So why make a new design when so many already exist?
The aim of our project is to make free and open-source plans for a gasifier that can be used both on a vehicle as well as in a stationary context. It should be adaptable to different engine sizes (different flow rates) and include a more up-to-date monitoring system with sensors, controls and a digital readout. This will also allow us to better test and improve the design under different conditions. In addition to this, we also want to maximize the gasifier's use for a wider variety of off-grid applications. So in addition to powering the bus itself, the gasifier will also power a generator for charging a battery bank, heat water for cooking and bathing, and provide heat to the living space inside the bus. The idea is to create something like a Swiss army tool for off-grid living.
In time we'd also like to fit the gasifier onto a trailer so it can be used by a wider range of automobiles and installed alone for stationary use. You can read more about this larger project on our website,
wikiground.org/. We're currently about 70% finished with prototype, including the reactor and the digital sensor system. You can find info specific to the gasifier on our
fundraising page,
Thank you for taking the time to read! Below are a few images of CAD models and some pics of the fabrication process.
Enjoy,
Billy
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