Run the Wood Pellet Gasifier

Starting up the gasifier for the first time is a little scarry. Will it explode and hove will it burn. Will it produce enough gas to run an engine.

It seems I have done the most right. It was easy to start-up. The blower on at a low level. A strip of paper in the firing hole and one match. After 3 minutes it could burn a long flame.

The next step was to prepare the Lifan engine. Remove the governor and mount a return spring. Make an intake for the 1” gas line. Check the LIFAN page

Starting the Gasifier and 3 minutes later the Lifan 6.5hp engine was easy to start. Check the video. The air to gas mixture should be about 1:1. I have made manual valves to adjust air and gas. It seems a little critical. It will be interesting to see how that works with load on the engine. I was running the engine two time 25 minutes and only very little tart was collected in the glass. Say 1 ml.

The next project is to run this in the Citroen 2CV 602 cc and 29hp. Before that I want to make and electronic gas mixer, that also could adjust for load, rpm, start and shot down.

It will be interesting to see how much the gasifier can produce. I estimated engine up to 10- 15hp, but I want to run it on the 2CV with 29hp. On that engine it might be necessary with some extra air to gasify more pellets.

The Gasifiers from after the second world war had several issues. At start only gas should be injected in the engine. During warm up the air to gas should be adjusted depending on speed. After a few minutes there was a dead point. The gasifier was not producing enough gas before it was at the working temperature. For that I want to adjust the air intake to the reactor or in the case it can’t produce enough gas for max speed and load think of a blower to control the burn (in the oxidation /reduction zone).