Table Of ContentGasifier Experimenters Kit
ALL Power Labs: Tools for Power Hacking
Gasification Home:
The Basics
The Science of Biomass
Gasification
Gasifier Types
How to Build a Gasifier
Gasifier Experimenters Kit
(GEK)
Quadrafier (4 in 1)
Gas-can-o-fire
Cigifier
GMC truck
overview - gallery - reactor options - manfacturing -
FAQ - test reports - downloads - purchase
The Gasifier Experimenters
Kit (aka: the Lego gasifier)
The Gasifier Experimenters Kit (GEK) offers beginners
through experts an easy way build, compare and
customize a wide variety of gasifier reactor types and
configurations. Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or a
university researcher, the GEK will get you over the
starting hurdles of biomass gasification, and on to the
more rewarding work of refining specific architectures,
testing fuels, and making power.
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Gasifier Experimenters Kit
Other Designs Online
Gasifier System
Components
Technical Resources
Gasification Worshop (June,
08)
The GEK kit is designed in a modular fashion which
allows for easy switching between common reactor types
and operating regimes. Each "reactor type" is a separate
assembly that bolts into a common "gas cowling and ash
handling" base. See here for the full list of planned GEK
reactors. Within each reactor type, relevant variables are
easily adjusted and sub-assemblies are simply replaced
via standardized "bolt to" flanges.
The result is a Lego system of gasification- a motivated
and flexible building system enabling you to run,
compare and share results over a wide range of
architectures and commonly discussed --but rarely
implemented-- "expert configurations".
Getting Started in Downdraft
Gasification
The default reactor offered for the GEK system is a
nozzle and constriction (Imbert type) downdraft reactor.
An Imbert downdraft is the usual starting point for
generating low tar wood gas to power internal
combustion engines. The GEK version combines all
common Imbert type variations into a single configurable
reactor, with easy adjustability of all critical dimensions.
Here's what it can do:
G variable combustion / reduction zone size and
shape (tube, bell, inverted V, hourglass)
G variable air nozzle position and size
G air preheating (or lack there of)
G active tar recycling into incoming air
G variable air injection architecture (air from top,
bottom, or side annular ring)
G "monorator" type condensing hopper
G rotary grates/stirrer additions
The GEK Imbert reactor is delivered with a default
configuration known to produce clean syngas when
operated by a knowledgeable enthusiast. This default
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Gasifier Experimenters Kit
configuration will run 5-20hp engines. Other GEK
configurations will support up to 50hp engines. (typical
disclaimers apply, given the variability of fuels and
human operators)
G Pictures of fully assembled GEK with downdraft
reactor
G GEK reactor dimensions, general gasifier sizing
charts, and other resources
Performance
To be clear, the GEK is not a turnkey wood gasification
unit. It does not guarantee 24/7 hands free operation right
out of the box. Such is usually a dubious claim anyways,
given the fuel sensitivity and use variability of all small-
scale gasifiers. What the GEK does promise is a highly
motivated building and configuration system, enabling
you to build, run and test all the best ideas in small scale
biomass gasfication. In the hands of a knowledgable
operator, the GEK will produce excellent results. And
once you do achieve your performance goals, the GEK
manufacturing scenario gives you an easy to way to set
up formal manufacturing of your solution in your local
area.
GEK Community
The expertise to support the GEK is the responsibility
and opportunity of its community of users. We
encourage the growth of specific set up suggestions, use
reports, and quantative data via the project wiki and
general community collaboration. A basic
instrumentation set comes with the full GEK kit, so you
will be able to share quantative data with others- mabye
even help advance the general state of gasification.
The GEK design partculars and manufacturing technique
are open source and well documented (see the downloads
page for details). You are welcome to use this common
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Gasifier Experimenters Kit
base "operating system" to build new "applications",
"widgits" or other customizations- whether open source
or proprietary. Or to put it in gearhead terms, the GEK is
the proposed "small block chevy" of gasification. It is
now your job to build the better cams, carbs, cranks, and
manifolds to make it go faster. . .
We invite you to join the GEK community of
collaborative science and open source engineering.
Questions? Contact: gek_at_allpowerlabs_dot_org
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Gasifier Experimenters Kit
ALL Power Labs: Tools for Power Hacking
Gasification Home:
The Basics
The Science of Biomass
Gasification
Gasifier Types
How to Build a Gasifier
Gasifier Experimenters Kit
(GEK)
Quadrafier (4 in 1)
Gas-can-o-fire
Cigifier
GMC truck
forward to Gasfier Experimenters Kit
Gasification
Gasification is the use of heat to tranform solid biomass,
or other carbonaceous solids, into a synthetic "natural gas
like" flammable fuel. There are a wide variety of
processes which fall under this general term- but all
share the characteristic of transforming solid
hydrocarbon material into simple hydrocarbon gases.
The resulting gaseous fuel is usually called: "syngas",
"woodgas", "producer gas", "generator gas" or "suction
gas".
Through gasification, we can convert nearly any solid
waste biomass into a clean burning, carbon neutral,
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Gasifier Experimenters Kit
Other Designs Online
Gasifier System
Components
Technical Resources
Gasification Worshop (June,
08)
gaseous fuel. Whether starting with wood chips or coffee
grounds, municipal trash or agricultrual waste, the end
product is a flexible gaseous fuel you can burn in your
internal combustion engine, cooking stove, heating
furnace and/or flamethrower. Upmigration to liquid fuels
is also possible with some additional effort and common
catalysts.
Sound impossible?
Well, over one million vehicles in Europe ran onboard
gasifiers during WWII to make fuel from wood and
charcoal, as gasoline and diesel were rationed and/or
unavailable. Long before there was biodiesel and
ethanol, we actually succeeded in a large-scale,
alternative fuels redeployment-- and one which curiously
used only cellulosic biomass, not the oil and sugar based
biofuel sources which famously compete with food.
This redeployment was made possible by the gasification
of waste biomass, using simple gasifiers about as
complex as a traditional wood stove. These small-scale
gasifiers are easily reproduced (and improved) today by
DIY enthusiasts using simple hammer and wrench
technology. The same principles are applied at much
larger scale and complexity to recover a wide variety of
municipal, agricultural, construction, forestry and
industrial waste to energy, soil amendments and other
useful end products.
ALL Power Labs now offers the Gasifier Experimenters
Kit (GEK) to help you get starts in the biomass thermal
conversion arts and sciences.
Questions? Contact: gek_at_allpowerlabs_dot_org
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Quadrafier
The
Quadrafier
Gasifier:
A learning gasifier
rig of updraft,
downdraft,
crossdraft, and
fluidized bed on a
single frame.
Jim Mason.
Jan/Feb 2007
Sept, 08. See updated
gasifier at: Gasifier
Experimenters Kit (GEK)
Recetly I tired of my ever growing notebook of complex gasifier designs, all
unbuilt, and decided to just get started building some simple and quick ones. It
seemed far more would be learned by building multiple ones in quick iteration,
using readiliy obtainable obtainium, than trying to straight out build the
imagined "perfect" one. The process turned out to be vastly more educational
than I ever imagined.
I decided to build one of each of the 4 main types of gaifiers (updraft,
downdraft, cross-draft and fluidized bed) on the same frame and at the same
size, allowing for easy comparisons between types. (ok, maybe I will eventually
need a TLUD and a cyclonic one too, but for now, a 4 in 1 covers my main
interests.)
To make it interesting (and fast and cheap), I decided that I could only build
with junk i had lying around the shop, and a few home depot parts. Purposely
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