My grandfather bought a car dealership and garage 6 days before WW2 hit and he didn't sell a car for 6 years. He survived by selling parts and making wood gas generators that were attached to the front of cars. They were huge units about the size of washing machines but worked a treat as gas/ petrol was in short supply. He used to pump what little fuel there was out of the bowser by hooking up a bicycle to the pump and running a belt and pulley to it. My dad as a kid was the one who did most of the peddling. I still occasionally look at the photos and wonder in amazement how innovative they were back then.
One method of charcoal production we used to use here was a 44 gallon drum on it's side on a short stand with a pipe for the wood gas that would feed back and under the drum and into the small fire beneath it. Little camp fire would heat the drum packed with wood, and the gas would then be burned off to continue the process. This would produce large quantities of charcoal which we would then use in a furnace for metal working.
I’m kind of obsessed with survival and starting from “The Basics” in terms of survival and working up in terms of technology. This, is incredibly interesting and useful.
It is and it will also help you bridge that knowledge into other industries, because they evolved from scratch. Alot of developing countries such as India are looking into this technology.
I've been interested in this type of fuel production for emergency purposes since I saw Mr Tesalonian do a video where he condensed the woodgas into a liquid form that could possibly be used in ICEs in place of normal gasoline or diesel. Can't find many instances of people doing that on a small scale like people do with the FEMA type gasifiers running generators, but enough evidence that it can be done.
I'm going to be taking place in starting a commune in the future where we'll be doing exactly that. I recommend watching Dr. Stone, the anime. It gives a lot of insight into.. a lot!
I thought this would be a complicated thing, requiring some special equipment. I was wonderfully surprised to see you using nothing more than cans, jars, and pipes to extract the gas and compress it too. Awesome!
Back in the day, I saw a version of this that used several tractor tire inner tubes as the collection vessels - which were easy to pressurize by placing a weighted platform over them.
I'm impressed by how high quality your results were with such a simple process. You managed to distill quite a pure byproduct from something that's essentially renewable. All using methods so basic a high school student could replicate them. I think this kind of work is valuable.
Need to make a nozzle with venturi oxygen mixing in like on a torch or bunsen burner etc... your gas rushing by pulls air in the holes at the base, they mix in the nozzle and with that might be able to make a flame that sustains itself
I have a Solo stove (portable backpacking stove) that"s configuration is set up to burn the wood gas coming out of the stove. I didn't know the working theory of charcoal or wood gas but watching your video enlightened me as to what's going on. There are thousands of processes and chemical reactions around us that we see but don't understand, think about or appreciate what's actually happening right there in front of us. Nice work.
4:00 To remove the steam, a long spiral descending coil in the form of a cone, even with ice resting in the conical coil, would condense the steam to liquid to drip out the bottom(like a classical still), leaving much of the volatiles to burn. (some might also condense like tars and creosote, would need to control the final gas temperature to prevent this)
This is really cool. For more efficient collection and pressurization of the gas, you could use something taller like a water barrel, and fix your collection chamber at the bottom of it at the start
As far as I know from my grandpa when they had wood gas to run their cars after WWII here in Germany, the big advantage is you don´t need to store woodgas at high pressure. After you cleaned the gas from tar with some water cooling and a sawdust filter, you can blow and collect it inside a balloon. Even the balloon will give you enough pressure to make it usable to run an engine. Just make sure it´s a vacuum system with no oxygen coming in.
I was watching some kinda 'garage wars' show where they were tasked to improve the fuel efficientcy of some grain farm or some shit. Basically rising fuel prices to run dryers was making drying the grain too expensive with commercial fuels. One of their ideas to capture wood gas was to fill a large half tank with water then sink a slightly narrower half-tank in that. Then using a pipes to carry the smoke exaust down through between the tanks to be captured by the 'floating' half-tank. As more gas was collected it raised the floating tank out of the water. This stored quite a bit of gas. and the weight of the steel half-tank pressurizes it. So when the top tank is vented, gas can be forced out.
Probably just a mishap: Vacuum means less pressure than the atmosphere so air is sucked into the system. You need overpressure or just good seals to keep the air out.
Thank you! What an amazing video! I never knew that heating an organic material such as wood in the absence of oxygen would cause the chemical bonds in the solids to break down and form gasses. This is absolutely fascinating!
As usual I, and I am sure I could say, "we" are not disappointed. I have known about this process and that it was used during WWII but I have often wondered how they may have filtered the smoke and tar from the newly recovered wood gas. This was a great way to do in my opinion. I have had the opportunity to talk with a few people who had experience with this during that time period and one of those was a dear uncle. He said he watched the Germans do this and one of the things they did was to use the freshly made charcoal to heat the next round of wood chunks. One other rambling thought was that when you were 1st lighting your gas after weighting it with the rocks. I made a similar in water collector for a hydrogen generator. I had some success by putting the collection vessel in a ring that allowed it to go up and down but it couldn't tip over. I know that natural gas piped in our homes only has a few pounds of pressure so I placed a two lb. weight on top to give me equal pressure (don't know if my tube size and nozzle made a huge difference or not) for and even less poppy burn. It worked out well for HHO gas torch. I don't want to suggest anyone handle such HHO, just saying what I did was ok for myself and my situation. All gases have potentially dangerous characteristics.
Very cool experiment! I actually have a friend that converted a Geo Tracker to run on wood gas and it works very well. Much better than I thought it would. Thanks again for sharing your method! --Eric O.
How does he store the wood gas. I remember a while back there was a colony reality show where they just put the entire wood gas producing system right onto the truck and piped it right into the engine.
This has given me a great idea for a secondary heat chamber on a wood stove. Now if I can figure out a way to get the tar it produces back in to the wood stove to use it as fuel for the fire as well. That way it doesn't collect in the gas chamber. Thanks!!
if you put a condenser on the brake line (like a shine still) and then had the line running it to a jar with a lid to collect the tar and then a line out of the jar running to a compressor to compress the gas in to a lpg tank to collect it for future use, would that work? i may have to try it myself in the future. i will just have to make shure to get all the air out of the system before attempting to compress the gas so that it wont have a chance to ignite because of the pressure.
Just make sure that you make enough gas at once, otherwise the compressor may not have enough gas to suck in which may not be that good for the compressor. I am not sure though, i don't know that much about compressors. Sorry for my bad English. But if it works, that would be really cool.
mayby have a larger copper line or just a t pipe coupling facing down and going in to a jar, there must be a way to extract the tar so that you can compress the gas. i think i will have to start tinkering with this now!
Came from Codyslab recommending one of your videos and I'm hooked. You thoroughly explain everything, have very clever designs and ideas and your editing is fantastic. The best part is your huge grin when you see something working the way you wanted it to 😂 You are one cool ass dude and it's nice to see innovative people like you because this world seems to be losing people like you, Cody, and other RUclipsrs alike because we rely so heavily on corporations and gov't to do the work for us while we are the ones that get screwed in the end for letting them do so.
You sure are a smart guy. I happen to be a chemist, but I haven't done that many "life hacks" like making fuel from trash, or wood as you have. It's a fun method you used, with the fish tank. Thanks for the video.
You need an air mix extension, like propane torches have, a jet in the center and air is allowed to come in from the sides and mix with it prior to the point of ignition. It might work. Also you may have too much water vapor in it, try running it through a back of rock salt, or a box of salt to remove water.
Nice setup. If I could suggest a few improvements: 1. Have your container of gas at the bottom of the tank all the time, then you won't need to lower it. 2. The cap on the end made he pressure too high: I think that's why it burned better without the cap. It may burn better still if a little air is mixed with the gas before you put the lighter to it: like the mixer valve on a Bunsen burner. 3. Cool the gas before it goes into the container: put a wide section of pipe under water so that the tar condenses out. A wider pipe will take longer to get blocked with tar. These are genuine suggestions, I don't claim to be an expert and I don't have the resources to try myself, so offer these suggestions to you so that you may try them for me!
I made a gas collector out of a 5 gallon bucket and an giant upside down nalgene beaker. I had 4 half inch PVC tubes as guides. The PVC tubes we're spaced from the sides of the bucket in order to loosely allow the straight sided nalgene beaker to slide up and down in the bucket. Drill a hole in the bottom (now the top) of the beaker, a couple of rubber washers, a bulkhead hose barb. Fill the bucket with water, push the beaker down so that it is flush with the water, hook up the hose to gas source. The beaker will rise as it fills with gas. Place a weight on top of the beaker to increase gas pressure.
Try pumping it out of the small container with your pvc vacuum pump then using the outlet of the pump to pressurize the wood gas into a separate, detachable container.
Hey what if you had an afterburner oxygen depleted after burner to burn the tires s*** off first before you collected it would that not work I does work I've got it in my camper
I'm sorry, not only have you failed to read the instructions properly, you have also failed to spell "unclear" consistently. You, in fact, do not have any nuclear hazard, you have an unclear hazard. Don't worry, the EPA is much more friendly than the FBI.
Ben: Nice to see you involved in Music plus Science plus Survivalism! Greetings fro a South American, Brazil. I myself am a prepper since 1.995. I like nature, trekking, antiques, craftsmanship, detectorism, art and so on. See you!
During the second world war many German vehicles like trucks and cars were equiped to produce and use woodgas as fuel. They were called Holzvergaser. This was due to the oil shortages at the time.
yes but they used the woodgas compressed and stored it in gas tanks They even made some BMW motorcycles run on this princip - and not that bad and slow as well but most vehicles ran on gas that they didnt produce themselves but from mobile refinerie trucks with a stove and a steam powered compressor with a small wood fired steam engine - the engines generally burned and needed more motor oil -bc of the hortage in oil the germans tried makeing synthetic oil from browncoal , stone coal, the black goo you collected from the wood gas and rapeseed oil they semi succeeded by makeing a additive to normal motor oil witch reduced crude oil needed for makeing motor oil by ~30%
Just a quick shout out: You're awesome. Thanks for the great vids and good content. It's refreshing to see passionate RUclipsrs out there educating other folks on the how's and what's of the natural world. Definitely going to be putting your education to good use! Thank you.
I still have a 70s mother earth news magazine with a article about fueling a vehicle with wood turned to gas. I haven't read it for about 15 years now but will b digging it out.
I used to do this with a 50 gallon drum, layed horizontally on top of two cinder blocks at each end, pipes coming from the top (in the horizontal orientation) around to the bottom, where the holes to release it were. This had a three sided cinder block housing around it. Fill the drum with wood, seal the lid, build a fire under it, and you're using the wood gas from the wood being pyrolized to reduce fuel required in processing into charcoal. I was blacksmithing small trinkets & knives. Umm... Wood gas is typically produced on demand for automotive use. The airflow from the intake of the engine is what pulls the wood gas out of the pyrolizer. I can assure you that it doesn't burn clean, and that even after multiple stages of filtration, you're gonna get lots of tar build up. This is still a problem with modern automotive pyrolizers, which typically use two twenty gallon tanks of filter material.
It's good to see you doing a video on this! I've been interested in wood gas (also known as producer gas) for a while now, ever since I learned that it was used to power cars back during WWII. There was even a training tank converted to run off it! Minus the turret and most of the excess weight, of course. Unfortunately the problem with producer gas cars is that if everyone starts using them, it creates mass deforestation issues. On the other hand, if you have one yourself, all you need to drive cross-country is an axe and a saw. I'd love to see all the scrap wood from mills and other places being used to produce wood gas. Maybe even wood from demolished buildings and such too? Who knows? There's certainly an untapped potential out there. Eventually we may need to start seriously considering it once other sources of fuel begin to dry up or become more expensive.
I always said the best inventions are made around the kitchen table and sooooo 2 speak a fish tank in the back yard has proven correctly, lol. I loved your posts and you definitely explained things so even an old Marine like me can understand. God bless you and thank you again..
one of the experiments I did as a young man was the guanadrel experiment But with a twist. First I think it fears to point out that I was, Born off the Grid in 1952. & by 160/62 I was operating my dad's old gas generator to drive its engine to charge up car batteries for lilting & cooking. Ok back to the experiment instead of using Iron filling as in school & I instead used charcoal hated in a fire pit With steam passing through it. the resulting gas was a mix of monoxide & hydrogen gas. I later repeated the same experiment but I pulled the air & steam into a colom of Burning charcoal which resulted in a better result of Cleaner gas C3H2 I wood keeps the Tempricha from running away by controlling the extent & ues of water, to steam flash over.
Great video, not sure if it was mentioned but, because you started harvesting gas right from the beginning of the burn, I believe you would have collected all the oxygen that was in the can with the sticks. If you look at the volume of the can vs the collector, there is probably 30% maybe? Which would have made quite a leaner mix of gas. I wonder if you did this again but started collecting after it had run for a bit, purging the can so the gas would have been more pure/ a richer mix of wood gas. The flame then should have burned constantly out of the tip
If you could take a water cooler bottle with a cap you would not need to sink the container. Then having a bladder with nozzle like bicycle inner tube. Then using a tire pump you could pressurize the container and use it directly. What do you think about that?
handicapitation, WW2 vehicles would just make it on the go, with a bigger version of this guy's setup attached to the back of the car with hatch(es) for adding more wood and removing charcoal. They got it to an efficiency of about 1.5 miles per kg (2.2 lb) of wood, that's the same weight as a car that gets 4 mpg. Still, 100 lb of wood could get you 150 miles, that's almost halfway from Phoenix to San Diego. It would be like having a constant extra passengers-worth of wood sitting in your car, maybe the size of a small stump. They're currently working on a steam engine that fits in your car hood and runs on any solid, liquid, or gas that can be burned (including dried zombie, vegetable oil, wood, coal, propane, gasoline, etc.) The system is very efficient, but they're still working out the bugs. Look up "Cyclone Steam Engine" on Google. It's works, because it's an external combustion engine, so you don't have to worry about wood chips getting into your pistons.
You are a pretty smart guy with good ideas, Thank you. In gardening circles the charcoal is desired product referred to as bio char as a great soil supplement.
In theory yes, however compressing flammable gas mechanically is pretty dangerous. The Industrial approach would be to cool it till it condenses and than have it as a liquid.
Yes --- a good place to start would be by filling a balloon, which would make it portable and keep the gas pressurized. But wood gas can be explosive like natural gas or propane if it's properly mixed with air. I wouldn't store more than an ordinary balloon amount unless you really understand what you are doing. And wood gas is mostly carbon monoxide ---an odorless poison gas.
I want to see this done a second time, but with using a series of “doublers” where the gas is passed thru methyl alcohol and/or ethyl alcohol to capture methanol. Kind of like a thump keg or thumper in alcohol distillation. Weigh the quantities present both before and after to see if it collects some methanol, and also check the “proof” using a proof and tralles hydrometer. I bet it would work well.
Yes, if you bubble the gass through water/condense it you will get some shit (tar n' stuff) acetic acid (aka vinegar) and methanol. However, not much is produced, if I remember correctly, for birch wood its arround 5L of methanol for every ton of wood, so 1mL per kilo. Also you get a bit of acetone, and the 5x times more acetic acid than methanol
Your method is really smart. It's a great filtering method. If you wanted to store the gas you would only need a pump to compress the gas and then direct the pump to a gas tank that withholds pressure.
That was a nice cheap intro to wood gas. Great capture method similar to methane digester capture and use by weighting a sliding sleeve in a container. Appreciate the video..
I checked an old book I own called The Lore of Still Building, and some stills use something called a “slobber box”. This is just a wider chamber with a spigot or valve on the bottom that you hook up in the middle of the outfeed tube. This might help your design, as such devices are used to collect tars and impurities and drain them off separately. But your wood gas videos are very interesting to watch and I’ll be trying this as it will work better than the methods I use now.
It is possible. It's much more complicated than just pressurizing it. The gasses need to be separated first. Gases such as H2, N2, Methane, CO, CO2 have different properties and weights. If you try to compress and liquefy the gasses together, you will see some of the gasses will turn to liquid while gasses such as H2 will remain as a gas. The best way to separate the gasses is to use cryogenics (aka refrigeration) liquefy the gasses based on their dew point (or freezing point for CO2). This is done in stages until the gas requiring the lowest temperature (H2) is left. tldr: you can ideally pressurize the wood gas no problem, liquefying it is more complicated.
Engineered nanocarbon catalysts can do convert syngas into methanol or ethanol at high temperatures, but unless you're a chemical engineering whiz or have enough money to scale this up to commercial production levels, it's not going to be a viable method of alcohol production.
So to increase the efficiency of the charcoal making process you could bring the wood gas line down into the rocket stove to make it burn hotter and a little cleaner. With the addition of the flame retardant carbon foam you make you could make it even more efficient I would think. Thank you for the great Ideas now to make bio-char for the grill.
Prinz Eugen van Sovoyen No, water pipes have been used for a very long time as a means of filtering the smoke. It doesn’t negate the thc levels that produce the high
I realy enjoyed your video and I wondered if it were possible to get kind of liquide wood gas by using an liquide nitrogen cooler. Can you plase try it or at least explain why it isn't possible?
Gilles Georges you realize car engines actually turn the liquid into gas? You would just run this straight to your engine. It would not be as efficient and your engine will be a little less powerful but I can still work.
Update. Liquid methane is 32,000kPa at room temp. LPG is 850kPa. Unless you carry around cryogenic insulation you'll need a strong container for liquid methane to not explode by thermal expansion.
I saw a wood powered pickup truck on the reality show Mountain Men. It had a 55 gallon drum in the bed that collected the wood gasses and powered the engine. This is definitely an alternative in case gasoline is not available.
Fill a balloon --- that would store the gas, make it portable and keep it pressurized. But keep in mind that wood gas is explosive like natural gas or propane.
wow! nice vid. very very helpful vid. that black liquid can be used in organic farming as pest control, improves soil quality, its called mokusaku (wood vinegar) ive been searching on how to collect the gas, this by far is the best thanks for giving me an idea on how to collect the gas very very helpful vid.
쌀맛을껌 - RiceFlavoredGum Theoretically yes. The issue with biofuels is which ones are more efficient to manufacture and burn. This is measured in EROI (energy returned on energy invested) depicted as a ratio. Different materials or "feedstock" will produce a different plethora of gasses. After you make gasses the next step is to refine those gasses into a desired gas. Think you could do that?
@@ryanhicks5627 in term of cost is no, the feeding material should be extremely cheap or free, or it would be pointless to do so as $ needed to convert to fuel is high
Can you try to make an all-natural bamboo gun using this gass, a thick piece of bamboo, which naturally has some sort of plugs every so many inches, and fire a metal or stone ball of some sort
Hey Nighthawkinlight you should try bending the brake line at an angle in which it points the gas back into the oxygen intake to double the efficiency of your charcoal wood stove. P.s. If you make a small bubbler system for the gas to run through before going back into the stove, it will clean the gas before it burns
All you have to do to increase efficiency for charcoal is use my can with the holes in the lid but flip it upside down. The gas is ejected back into the fire.
Just remove the lid. Put enough wood in to the can to make it "stick" when you turn it upside down. Place it in the rocket stove. Fill it with "enough" wood, and light it of. After a few runs you can tune it to the point where it produces great charcoal for BP. Charcoal produced when running it al the way to "completion" as in this video is overcooked, and doesn't work great for BP, but will do fine for pretty much anything other then pyo, where charcoal is needed.
I remember watching an apocalypse survival reality show, where one of the guys was a bit of a scientist and built something very similar to this so that they could run a generator to power lights and stuff in their set-up. Super cool!
@@outright4620 ever heard about multi level distillation, i think it will work, but since we saw that the tar drips directly after the vapor produced, we put some sort of a container that has a hole on top of it for wood gas
My grandfather bought a car dealership and garage 6 days before WW2 hit and he didn't sell a car for 6 years. He survived by selling parts and making wood gas generators that were attached to the front of cars. They were huge units about the size of washing machines but worked a treat as gas/ petrol was in short supply. He used to pump what little fuel there was out of the bowser by hooking up a bicycle to the pump and running a belt and pulley to it. My dad as a kid was the one who did most of the peddling. I still occasionally look at the photos and wonder in amazement how innovative they were back then.
Really cool. Thanks for sharing. :)
hi do you have his design
One method of charcoal production we used to use here was a 44 gallon drum on it's side on a short stand with a pipe for the wood gas that would feed back and under the drum and into the small fire beneath it. Little camp fire would heat the drum packed with wood, and the gas would then be burned off to continue the process. This would produce large quantities of charcoal which we would then use in a furnace for metal working.
I’m kind of obsessed with survival and starting from “The Basics” in terms of survival and working up in terms of technology. This, is incredibly interesting and useful.
It is and it will also help you bridge that knowledge into other industries, because they evolved from scratch. Alot of developing countries such as India are looking into this technology.
I've been interested in this type of fuel production for emergency purposes since I saw Mr Tesalonian do a video where he condensed the woodgas into a liquid form that could possibly be used in ICEs in place of normal gasoline or diesel. Can't find many instances of people doing that on a small scale like people do with the FEMA type gasifiers running generators, but enough evidence that it can be done.
I'm going to be taking place in starting a commune in the future where we'll be doing exactly that. I recommend watching Dr. Stone, the anime. It gives a lot of insight into.. a lot!
same hahah. I want to build my tools too
@@supersophisticated9943 cultist weebs, got it
I thought this would be a complicated thing, requiring some special equipment. I was wonderfully surprised to see you using nothing more than cans, jars, and pipes to extract the gas and compress it too. Awesome!
Back in the day, I saw a version of this that used several tractor tire inner tubes as the collection vessels - which were easy to pressurize by placing a weighted platform over them.
I have watched several of these now. How is this guy so likable? Great videos.
Subtle confidence, knowledgeable & conveys that information in a very pedagogical way
Nice white guy with no rapey vibe
Cuz u gey
o.o its the bird yup XD
Are you kidding me within 3 seconds into the video I wanted to give him a noogie and give him a wedgie.... im sure it has been done many times before
I'm impressed by how high quality your results were with such a simple process. You managed to distill quite a pure byproduct from something that's essentially renewable. All using methods so basic a high school student could replicate them. I think this kind of work is valuable.
Need to make a nozzle with venturi oxygen mixing in like on a torch or bunsen burner etc... your gas rushing by pulls air in the holes at the base, they mix in the nozzle and with that might be able to make a flame that sustains itself
Zeff I was going to suggest this also.
Like in Oxy-Acetylen.
two years later he could use a pumper torch
Ah! Is that why the gas isn't staying lit -- too rich?
@@timmccormack3930 yeah without introducing turbulence in some way or another the gases cool before they mix and combust
I have a Solo stove (portable backpacking stove) that"s configuration is set up to burn the wood gas coming out of the stove. I didn't know the working theory of charcoal or wood gas but watching your video enlightened me as to what's going on. There are thousands of processes and chemical reactions around us that we see but don't understand, think about or appreciate what's actually happening right there in front of us. Nice work.
The Quality of life in this clip is off the charts
4:00 To remove the steam, a long spiral descending coil in the form of a cone, even with ice resting in the conical coil, would condense the steam to liquid to drip out the bottom(like a classical still), leaving much of the volatiles to burn. (some might also condense like tars and creosote, would need to control the final gas temperature to prevent this)
This is really cool. For more efficient collection and pressurization of the gas, you could use something taller like a water barrel, and fix your collection chamber at the bottom of it at the start
As far as I know from my grandpa when they had wood gas to run their cars after WWII here in Germany, the big advantage is you don´t need to store woodgas at high pressure.
After you cleaned the gas from tar with some water cooling and a sawdust filter, you can blow and collect it inside a balloon. Even the balloon will give you enough pressure to make it usable to run an engine. Just make sure it´s a vacuum system with no oxygen coming in.
Sounds like a plan
I was watching some kinda 'garage wars' show where they were tasked to improve the fuel efficientcy of some grain farm or some shit. Basically rising fuel prices to run dryers was making drying the grain too expensive with commercial fuels. One of their ideas to capture wood gas was to fill a large half tank with water then sink a slightly narrower half-tank in that. Then using a pipes to carry the smoke exaust down through between the tanks to be captured by the 'floating' half-tank. As more gas was collected it raised the floating tank out of the water. This stored quite a bit of gas. and the weight of the steel half-tank pressurizes it. So when the top tank is vented, gas can be forced out.
Probably just a mishap: Vacuum means less pressure than the atmosphere so air is sucked into the system. You need overpressure or just good seals to keep the air out.
People make the process seem so complicated thanks for making it simple.
Thank you! What an amazing video! I never knew that heating an organic material such as wood in the absence of oxygen would cause the chemical bonds in the solids to break down and form gasses. This is absolutely fascinating!
As usual I, and I am sure I could say, "we" are not disappointed. I have known about this process and that it was used during WWII but I have often wondered how they may have filtered the smoke and tar from the newly recovered wood gas. This was a great way to do in my opinion. I have had the opportunity to talk with a few people who had experience with this during that time period and one of those was a dear uncle. He said he watched the Germans do this and one of the things they did was to use the freshly made charcoal to heat the next round of wood chunks. One other rambling thought was that when you were 1st lighting your gas after weighting it with the rocks. I made a similar in water collector for a hydrogen generator. I had some success by putting the collection vessel in a ring that allowed it to go up and down but it couldn't tip over. I know that natural gas piped in our homes only has a few pounds of pressure so I placed a two lb. weight on top to give me equal pressure (don't know if my tube size and nozzle made a huge difference or not) for and even less poppy burn. It worked out well for HHO gas torch. I don't want to suggest anyone handle such HHO, just saying what I did was ok for myself and my situation. All gases have potentially dangerous characteristics.
Very cool experiment! I actually have a friend that converted a Geo Tracker to run on wood gas and it works very well. Much better than I thought it would. Thanks again for sharing your method!
--Eric O.
That would be a very fun project. I've got some work to do before I have a system that runs clean enough for that
To my surprise it works very well. Good luck with it and look forward to seeing more!
How does he store the wood gas. I remember a while back there was a colony reality show where they just put the entire wood gas producing system right onto the truck and piped it right into the engine.
some use a small trailer, basicly they haul their own fuel source
Probably uses a lot of wood... which would create another problem that is already present... deforestation.
You're such a happy dude
I have been trying to understand how it works. You just explained it in less than 12 minutes. Thank you sir.
This has given me a great idea for a secondary heat chamber on a wood stove. Now if I can figure out a way to get the tar it produces back in to the wood stove to use it as fuel for the fire as well. That way it doesn't collect in the gas chamber. Thanks!!
if you put a condenser on the brake line (like a shine still) and then had the line running it to a jar with a lid to collect the tar and then a line out of the jar running to a compressor to compress the gas in to a lpg tank to collect it for future use, would that work? i may have to try it myself in the future. i will just have to make shure to get all the air out of the system before attempting to compress the gas so that it wont have a chance to ignite because of the pressure.
Condensing the smoke and that is hard to do in a small line without clogging it
I think the tar would/could condense and congeal in the condenser and plug it
Just make sure that you make enough gas at once, otherwise the compressor may not have enough gas to suck in which may not be that good for the compressor. I am not sure though, i don't know that much about compressors. Sorry for my bad English. But if it works, that would be really cool.
mayby have a larger copper line or just a t pipe coupling facing down and going in to a jar, there must be a way to extract the tar so that you can compress the gas. i think i will have to start tinkering with this now!
i think the compressor would work as a vacum pump so that is going to be a problem...
GUYS ITS WILL WHEATON
YES!!!
as in night hawk light is Wesley crusher from star trek?
Nah, it's Will Wheaton's love child with Eric Bana.
you're right! Will's eyes, Eric's voice. But whose parrot? ;)
Haha, I thought the same thing when I started the video!
Came from Codyslab recommending one of your videos and I'm hooked. You thoroughly explain everything, have very clever designs and ideas and your editing is fantastic. The best part is your huge grin when you see something working the way you wanted it to 😂 You are one cool ass dude and it's nice to see innovative people like you because this world seems to be losing people like you, Cody, and other RUclipsrs alike because we rely so heavily on corporations and gov't to do the work for us while we are the ones that get screwed in the end for letting them do so.
You sure are a smart guy. I happen to be a chemist, but I haven't done that many "life hacks" like making fuel from trash, or wood as you have. It's a fun method you used, with the fish tank. Thanks for the video.
the level of simplicity in the video is unmatched! thanks
You need an air mix extension, like propane torches have, a jet in the center and air is allowed to come in from the sides and mix with it prior to the point of ignition. It might work. Also you may have too much water vapor in it, try running it through a back of rock salt, or a box of salt to remove water.
I suspect that the parrot is the one giving you ideas! ;-)
Hello
@@birdpump Hello have a good day 😊
Nice setup. If I could suggest a few improvements: 1. Have your container of gas at the bottom of the tank all the time, then you won't need to lower it. 2. The cap on the end made he pressure too high: I think that's why it burned better without the cap. It may burn better still if a little air is mixed with the gas before you put the lighter to it: like the mixer valve on a Bunsen burner. 3. Cool the gas before it goes into the container: put a wide section of pipe under water so that the tar condenses out. A wider pipe will take longer to get blocked with tar. These are genuine suggestions, I don't claim to be an expert and I don't have the resources to try myself, so offer these suggestions to you so that you may try them for me!
How to convert this to liquid state?
Jonathan Croley And he could have waited for the water vapor to cook off before he collected the gas
I can do it
Hook up a compressor
a bigg thank you from sri lanka!!! your experiment is immensely valuable to us. we support your channel by all means brother....
a bird in a harness is the cutest thing ive seen all day !
I made a gas collector out of a 5 gallon bucket and an giant upside down nalgene beaker. I had 4 half inch PVC tubes as guides. The PVC tubes we're spaced from the sides of the bucket in order to loosely allow the straight sided nalgene beaker to slide up and down in the bucket.
Drill a hole in the bottom (now the top) of the beaker, a couple of rubber washers, a bulkhead hose barb.
Fill the bucket with water, push the beaker down so that it is flush with the water, hook up the hose to gas source.
The beaker will rise as it fills with gas. Place a weight on top of the beaker to increase gas pressure.
"Experimental Collection Method"
Makes a Gravity Bong
This comment made a significant amount of air come out of my nose
@@NavJordaan same
Try pumping it out of the small container with your pvc vacuum pump then using the outlet of the pump to pressurize the wood gas into a separate, detachable container.
You are a real teacher i must be sincere with you, you are talented
To produce my own fuel to engines are among the most interesting knowledge I ever wanted to learn.
Instructions unclear. I created a Level 3 Nuclear Biohazard.
My station is worse i accidentally create a nuclear bomb
Lol
Hey what if you had an afterburner oxygen depleted after burner to burn the tires s*** off first before you collected it would that not work I does work I've got it in my camper
lol
I'm sorry, not only have you failed to read the instructions properly, you have also failed to spell "unclear" consistently. You, in fact, do not have any nuclear hazard, you have an unclear hazard. Don't worry, the EPA is much more friendly than the FBI.
Well now i understan! I have had a wak understaning about how to make the gass, but this short video gave me all the info i need! Thanks
Ramble on as led zeppelin sings. You addressed so many awesome questions. Fantastic episode thanks.
Ben:
Nice to see you involved in Music plus Science plus Survivalism! Greetings fro a South American, Brazil.
I myself am a prepper since 1.995. I like nature, trekking, antiques, craftsmanship, detectorism, art and so on.
See you!
This knowledge is so practical and extremely useful for rural areas anywhere in the world
You might try using the nozzle from a propane torch so you get air mixing with the wood gas for better combustion. Good video!
During the second world war many German vehicles like trucks and cars were equiped to produce and use woodgas as fuel. They were called Holzvergaser. This was due to the oil shortages at the time.
yes but they used the woodgas compressed and stored it in gas tanks
They even made some BMW motorcycles run on this princip - and not that bad and slow as well but most vehicles ran on gas that they didnt produce themselves but from mobile refinerie trucks with a stove and a steam powered compressor with a small wood fired steam engine - the engines generally burned and needed more motor oil
-bc of the hortage in oil the germans tried makeing synthetic oil from browncoal , stone coal, the black goo you collected from the wood gas and rapeseed oil they semi succeeded by makeing a additive to normal motor oil witch reduced crude oil needed for makeing motor oil by ~30%
Yes, it is a desperate option for fuel, can't win wars without sufficient fuel, fancy tanks, supply lines all required fuel
@@pckkaboo6800 I love that cat. So cute.
Just a quick shout out: You're awesome. Thanks for the great vids and good content. It's refreshing to see passionate RUclipsrs out there educating other folks on the how's and what's of the natural world. Definitely going to be putting your education to good use! Thank you.
I still have a 70s mother earth news magazine with a article about fueling a vehicle with wood turned to gas. I haven't read it for about 15 years now but will b digging it out.
I used to do this with a 50 gallon drum, layed horizontally on top of two cinder blocks at each end, pipes coming from the top (in the horizontal orientation) around to the bottom, where the holes to release it were. This had a three sided cinder block housing around it.
Fill the drum with wood, seal the lid, build a fire under it, and you're using the wood gas from the wood being pyrolized to reduce fuel required in processing into charcoal.
I was blacksmithing small trinkets & knives.
Umm...
Wood gas is typically produced on demand for automotive use.
The airflow from the intake of the engine is what pulls the wood gas out of the pyrolizer.
I can assure you that it doesn't burn clean, and that even after multiple stages of filtration, you're gonna get lots of tar build up.
This is still a problem with modern automotive pyrolizers, which typically use two twenty gallon tanks of filter material.
It's good to see you doing a video on this! I've been interested in wood gas (also known as producer gas) for a while now, ever since I learned that it was used to power cars back during WWII. There was even a training tank converted to run off it! Minus the turret and most of the excess weight, of course. Unfortunately the problem with producer gas cars is that if everyone starts using them, it creates mass deforestation issues. On the other hand, if you have one yourself, all you need to drive cross-country is an axe and a saw.
I'd love to see all the scrap wood from mills and other places being used to produce wood gas. Maybe even wood from demolished buildings and such too? Who knows? There's certainly an untapped potential out there. Eventually we may need to start seriously considering it once other sources of fuel begin to dry up or become more expensive.
Yep
Great video! The tank of water was sooo black after filling the vessel just once.
RUclips be like: wanna see a hipster ted cruz make some wood smoke
IM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES THIS LMFAO
Lol is thinking lumberjack Elijah Wood
And pronounce valve is a really strange way.
And... now I can’t unsee it... thanks
More like bigdawstv
I always said the best inventions are made around the kitchen table and sooooo 2 speak a fish tank in the back yard has proven correctly, lol.
I loved your posts and you definitely explained things so even an old Marine like me can understand.
God bless you and thank you again..
one of the experiments I did as a young man was the guanadrel experiment But with a twist. First I think it fears to point out that I was, Born off the Grid in 1952. & by 160/62 I was operating my dad's old gas generator to drive its engine to charge up car batteries for lilting & cooking. Ok back to the experiment instead of using Iron filling as in school & I instead used charcoal hated in a fire pit With steam passing through it. the resulting gas was a mix of monoxide & hydrogen gas. I later repeated the same experiment but I pulled the air & steam into a colom of Burning charcoal which resulted in a better result of Cleaner gas C3H2 I wood keeps the Tempricha from running away by controlling the extent & ues of water, to steam flash over.
Is it possible to keep it light without an external open flame such as from a lighter or light it using an electric spark.
i think it needs a venturi burner on the end to mix in oxygen with the fuel to make it stay alight
4:24
also a larger amount of positive pressure... the gas is burning faster than it can come out... so all the gas burns of and stops the reaction
I LUV u'r ' Go 4 it ' attitude. It's the BEST WAY to educate oneself. God Bless U young man. ALOHA.
Great video, not sure if it was mentioned but, because you started harvesting gas right from the beginning of the burn, I believe you would have collected all the oxygen that was in the can with the sticks. If you look at the volume of the can vs the collector, there is probably 30% maybe? Which would have made quite a leaner mix of gas. I wonder if you did this again but started collecting after it had run for a bit, purging the can so the gas would have been more pure/ a richer mix of wood gas. The flame then should have burned constantly out of the tip
Thank you, I now know that I can use not only wood to make charcoal but also I can save the gas as fuel. mucho Appreciato
If you could take a water cooler bottle with a cap you would not need to sink the container. Then having a bladder with nozzle like bicycle inner tube. Then using a tire pump you could pressurize the container and use it directly.
What do you think about that?
It would be cool to see this compressed and running something like a stove or water heater
MrTessalonian ran a fridge and generator off of a wood gas generator
That is what used to be the town gas supply. You might be able to find my description in another comment but it is too long to repeat here.
So for survival purposes in case of a zombie apocalypse, how would you get it to liquid form so you can fill up your gas tank?
handicapitation I think you could pressurize it
handicapitation, WW2 vehicles would just make it on the go, with a bigger version of this guy's setup attached to the back of the car with hatch(es) for adding more wood and removing charcoal. They got it to an efficiency of about 1.5 miles per kg (2.2 lb) of wood, that's the same weight as a car that gets 4 mpg. Still, 100 lb of wood could get you 150 miles, that's almost halfway from Phoenix to San Diego. It would be like having a constant extra passengers-worth of wood sitting in your car, maybe the size of a small stump.
They're currently working on a steam engine that fits in your car hood and runs on any solid, liquid, or gas that can be burned (including dried zombie, vegetable oil, wood, coal, propane, gasoline, etc.) The system is very efficient, but they're still working out the bugs. Look up "Cyclone Steam Engine" on Google. It's works, because it's an external combustion engine, so you don't have to worry about wood chips getting into your pistons.
+Carson Rush Sweet answer! Thanks
The Real Damon Jackson compress*
you would distill the tar into gas or run the wood gas into your carb with some oxygen
I'm starting a fundraiser to get NHIL an iron for his shirts.
GuildOfCalamity The initial steam proceeding wood gas would effectively remove those wrinkles! ; )
You are a pretty smart guy with good ideas, Thank you. In gardening circles the charcoal is desired product referred to as bio char as a great soil supplement.
dude you litterally just made a massive bong for wood gas. amazing
could you compress it from the collector Vessel to store larger quantities in a bottle like butane?
In theory yes, however compressing flammable gas mechanically is pretty dangerous. The Industrial approach would be to cool it till it condenses and than have it as a liquid.
@@Klokopf52 why should it be risky if it is a oxygen/oxidizer free/deprived athmosphere
Yes --- a good place to start would be by filling a balloon, which would make it portable and keep the gas pressurized.
But wood gas can be explosive like natural gas or propane if it's properly mixed with air. I wouldn't store more than an ordinary balloon amount unless you really understand what you are doing.
And wood gas is mostly carbon monoxide ---an odorless poison gas.
I want to see this done a second time, but with using a series of “doublers” where the gas is passed thru methyl alcohol and/or ethyl alcohol to capture methanol. Kind of like a thump keg or thumper in alcohol distillation. Weigh the quantities present both before and after to see if it collects some methanol, and also check the “proof” using a proof and tralles hydrometer. I bet it would work well.
Would Methanol (Wood Alcohol) also be released during this process?
No. The combustible chemicals in this thing are primarily hydrogen and some methane, very little heavier hydrocarbons.
if it were to be produced, it will escape before steam does, as it had a lower boiling point
It's pyrolysis process, not distillation. The boiling point ain't really relevant.
yes it will, but drinking it will fuck you up
Yes, if you bubble the gass through water/condense it you will get some shit (tar n' stuff) acetic acid (aka vinegar) and methanol.
However, not much is produced, if I remember correctly, for birch wood its arround 5L of methanol for every ton of wood, so 1mL per kilo.
Also you get a bit of acetone, and the 5x times more acetic acid than methanol
Your method is really smart. It's a great filtering method. If you wanted to store the gas you would only need a pump to compress the gas and then direct the pump to a gas tank that withholds pressure.
That was a nice cheap intro to wood gas. Great capture method similar to methane digester capture and use by weighting a sliding sleeve in a container. Appreciate the video..
another great video!
yes it is :)
Nice bong
He looks like James Arthur doin' some Science and Engineering hahaha. Nice content man. Keep it up.
I checked an old book I own called The Lore of Still Building, and some stills use something called a “slobber box”. This is just a wider chamber with a spigot or valve on the bottom that you hook up in the middle of the outfeed tube. This might help your design, as such devices are used to collect tars and impurities and drain them off separately. But your wood gas videos are very interesting to watch and I’ll be trying this as it will work better than the methods I use now.
We always love your videos mate. You are one of a few amazing science/DIY youtubers. Never doubt your creativity and ingenuity.
Is it possible to get enough wood gas to pressurize it and turn it into a liquid?
It is possible. It's much more complicated than just pressurizing it. The gasses need to be separated first. Gases such as H2, N2, Methane, CO, CO2 have different properties and weights. If you try to compress and liquefy the gasses together, you will see some of the gasses will turn to liquid while gasses such as H2 will remain as a gas.
The best way to separate the gasses is to use cryogenics (aka refrigeration) liquefy the gasses based on their dew point (or freezing point for CO2). This is done in stages until the gas requiring the lowest temperature (H2) is left.
tldr: you can ideally pressurize the wood gas no problem, liquefying it is more complicated.
@@ziggarot maybe just to store it as a gas...
"- dear, walk the parrot, please.
- ok, i'll take it to make some wood gas"
The parrot may be his best friend, but small birds are an amazing gas detector. In case you were wondering why coal miners were so fond of canaries.
you can turn the syn-gas into methanol using a catalyst
methanol can easily be stored and is a very versatile fuel it can be used as an additive in both gas and diesel engines
Viro Science which catalyst is that again ?
Engineered nanocarbon catalysts can do convert syngas into methanol or ethanol at high temperatures, but unless you're a chemical engineering whiz or have enough money to scale this up to commercial production levels, it's not going to be a viable method of alcohol production.
I really interested to this process, what is the best catalyst?
PolyJohn it's still worth a try if we xan get hands on some catalyst
Ok guys this is the crocodile hunter of science! Dirty hands band aid green shirt makes him so reliable. Good luck man!
So to increase the efficiency of the charcoal making process you could bring the wood gas line down into the rocket stove to make it burn hotter and a little cleaner. With the addition of the flame retardant carbon foam you make you could make it even more efficient I would think. Thank you for the great Ideas now to make bio-char for the grill.
It's possible to make bio crude oil out of wood and algea could you possibly make something in a simple and easy method
Lmao he basically made a fish tank bong
Hahahahaha
Who drinking the water?
so should he try the same with weed? Wouldnt the smoke loose effect by being washed out in the whater
Prinz Eugen van Sovoyen No, water pipes have been used for a very long time as a means of filtering the smoke. It doesn’t negate the thc levels that produce the high
😂😂😂
I realy enjoyed your video and I wondered if it were possible to get kind of liquide wood gas by using an liquide nitrogen cooler. Can you plase try it or at least explain why it isn't possible?
Methane is hard to liquefy. Might work but unlikely.
I've heard CO doesn't really like condensing, but with access to liquid N2 anything can happen. His attempt should at least be fun to watch.
Gilles Georges you realize car engines actually turn the liquid into gas? You would just run this straight to your engine. It would not be as efficient and your engine will be a little less powerful but I can still work.
Update. Liquid methane is 32,000kPa at room temp. LPG is 850kPa. Unless you carry around cryogenic insulation you'll need a strong container for liquid methane to not explode by thermal expansion.
AnantaSesaDas There are activated charcoals developed to almost liquidise CH4 by increasing its density. So you mean to say it may still explode?
I saw a wood powered pickup truck on the reality show Mountain Men. It had a 55 gallon drum in the bed that collected the wood gasses and powered the engine. This is definitely an alternative in case gasoline is not available.
I just tried it, and it works surprisingly well! Thanks for informing me!
you are a great youtuber. I enjoy your work. Please keep it up!
0:15 sounds like a bong rip.
Try to compress it to some kind of gas tank and try to use it in for example burner, that would be great.
Fill a balloon --- that would store the gas, make it portable and keep it pressurized. But keep in mind that wood gas is explosive like natural gas or propane.
Awesome! This is the clearest explanation of producing wood gas that I've seen so far.
wow! nice vid. very very helpful vid.
that black liquid can be used in organic farming as pest control, improves soil quality, its called mokusaku (wood vinegar)
ive been searching on how to collect the gas, this by far is the best
thanks for giving me an idea on how to collect the gas very very helpful vid.
Can I use weed instead of wood to make WEED GAS?
Cringe
쌀맛을껌 - RiceFlavoredGum Theoretically yes. The issue with biofuels is which ones are more efficient to manufacture and burn. This is measured in EROI (energy returned on energy invested) depicted as a ratio. Different materials or "feedstock" will produce a different plethora of gasses. After you make gasses the next step is to refine those gasses into a desired gas. Think you could do that?
@@ryanhicks5627 in term of cost is no, the feeding material should be extremely cheap or free, or it would be pointless to do so as $ needed to convert to fuel is high
nighthawk has the baby face of a Confederate general I mean that in a good way
He kind of looks like one of the Toy Story relatives Woody had.
Can you try to make an all-natural bamboo gun using this gass, a thick piece of bamboo, which naturally has some sort of plugs every so many inches, and fire a metal or stone ball of some sort
Would be fun, but no bamboo around here.
NightHawkInLight also not in certain stores or in online webshops?
The closest he can get is probably reeds, which aren't nearly as iconic or durable.
Still, he could always just use plastic or metal piping
alnoso one problem with the gas though: it needs enough air to quickly combust. Otherwise not much pressure will be built up
McGyver could do it LOL
i never knew tar can be produced this way .. very informative .. great video , great work
Never thought to use a pine twig to start a fire without paper, very clever!
I got one of those Aussie *_"QUIT SMOKING"_* ads before the video. I think it thinks that I wanna use this thing to *SMOKE.*
Fill that tank with dank weed 👌
BIG SMONK
Hey Nighthawkinlight you should try bending the brake line at an angle in which it points the gas back into the oxygen intake to double the efficiency of your charcoal wood stove. P.s. If you make a small bubbler system for the gas to run through before going back into the stove, it will clean the gas before it burns
All you have to do to increase efficiency for charcoal is use my can with the holes in the lid but flip it upside down. The gas is ejected back into the fire.
Just remove the lid.
Put enough wood in to the can to make it "stick" when you turn it upside down. Place it in the rocket stove. Fill it with "enough" wood, and light it of. After a few runs you can tune it to the point where it produces great charcoal for BP. Charcoal produced when running it al the way to "completion" as in this video is overcooked, and doesn't work great for BP, but will do fine for pretty much anything other then pyo, where charcoal is needed.
Mr B what's BP
carolyn mmitchell black powder
By BP, you mean an activated charcoal?
So you get both charcoal *and* woodgas? Awesome :)
Edit: *And* tar :)
Yeah I caught that too, essentially making a fuel to create a better fuel.
The charcoal is basically just carbon tho so it's not useful in a barbecue or something like that
I remember watching an apocalypse survival reality show, where one of the guys was a bit of a scientist and built something very similar to this so that they could run a generator to power lights and stuff in their set-up. Super cool!
was that the show with a bunch of people trying to survive, and on the other side they bad guys were trying to steal and break in?
Wasn't it called the colony? May be wrong but God it was such a good watch. They need to bring shows like that back
As an artist, the first thing I thought about was using your charcoal for mark making. Awesome!
0:17 homie recorded himself dragging on the bong for the audio effect.
Hits from the bong... Pick it. Pack it. Fire it up...
In Scandinavia, in WWI, they ran busses off wood gas.
I think you need to wait till the gas is cleared of moisture and then start collecting it, will give better results ;}
or, we can try separate water inside it by distill it...
Well maybe distill will work but the problem is to separate the tar from it
@@outright4620 ever heard about multi level distillation, i think it will work, but since we saw that the tar drips directly after the vapor produced, we put some sort of a container that has a hole on top of it for wood gas
Good work well done. I think it is very useful in an era of energy crisis.
Your videos are always so easy to understand. Many thx!