Gasifier Experimenters Kit

Gasifier Experimenters Kitresult was a tar free gas overabout 10 hours of operation. Thefuel was walnut shells at 15%moisture content.This air preheating system usesheat exchange tubes in the form ofstainless steel natural gas lines,48" in length, 5/8" ID, spiralwrapped around the reactor.When the reactor is bolted downinto the gas cowling, these heatexchange tubes fill the circularvolume where the product gasrises upwads towards the outlet.The heat exchange tubes aremostly perpendicular to thedirection of gas flow, unlike theprevious "J tube" scheme. SSnatural gas lines are welloptimized for repuposing as heatexchange tubes. They are thin andcorregated (thus lots of surfacearea), easy to bend, non-corrosiveand cheap.Somewhat to our surprise, thisaggressive air preheating systemresulted in a gas that appearedcompletely tar free. This is likelythe result of higher combustionand reduction zone temps andthus improved tar consumptionand conversion. Condensate toowas significantly decreased, owingto increased H2O conversion inthe reduction zone from the highertemps.Below you can see the clear gashoses we use for the product gaspiping. After one hour of running,there was absolutely no brown orhttp://www.allpowerlabs.org/gasification/gek/gekreports/report1/report1.html (3 of 9) [10/9/2008 08:04:35]