An upside down DriZzleR to overcome Grate problems by continious operations.

The concept Idea was; continious operation.

My first gasifeir project, Pascal's third,  started with the goal to come to an automatic working gasifier that could meet the energy and heating needs of a complete autark home. For that purpose the build machine should be able to run 24 hours a day, seven on seven. The wish to Feed that gasifier with a simple feeder in a simple manor, not using sluises nor rotary valves, eliminated the Imbert's style types and made it a must to improve the open top gasifiers in such a way that our open top, unlike the previous open top's, known as  tar makers, would be able to produce engine grade woodgas easy and comfortable.

The DriZzleR and the limits of that design.

With creative thinking good observation and a bit of luck a new type of gasifier was invented, equiped with a load depended level sensor, feeded in drip feed mode, "The DriZzleR"

Repeated operation, by different operators with independend builds, prooved that "The DriZzleR" is one of the very few, if not the only open top gasifier, that is able to produce engine grade gas without a much exstensive or poluting (scrubber) gas cleaning train behind it.

After a lot of testing, Pascal and I, are now able to produce with the DriZzleR and a VW 1.6l car engine, on pellets, 14 hours combined electricity and heating,  and some 4 hours the same on woodchips. That is not bad and many would be happy with this results, but it is far from the goal we've set.

With a turning-grate, set on time interval, or presure drop sensing,  the working time could be easy expanded, but that would be at the cost of, waisting a lot of valuable, not completely gassed out, charcoal.

On woodchips: even a turning grate would not be enough to run continously. Why? As I stated almost a year ago on this forum, minimum a grate sraper is needed too, to cope with the impurety's that are sneaking in with the chips.

Pascal and I Tested the past year almost dayly different fuels, delivered from various sources; The conclusion is that woodchips, having too many dirt in them, (stones, nails, bit of glass and ceramic and klinker), making it impossible to run the gasifier in a simple way continiously, unattented. A simple grate finger and a simple turning grate can not coop with a big nail that falls in the grate verticaly. More sofisticated and expensive automatic grate cleaning devises are needed.

The upsite down DriZzleR, grateless.

Trying to simplifice such complicated grates is one way to go. Going grateless is the other.

A good way to design a grateless gasifier is to turn the DriZzleR upside down. Have the open top as open bottom. Making the drip feed into a push feed. Fload the flaming pyrolyse zone with forced air.

Is a grateless non reduction gasifier revolutionary or something new?

Some of good people on the German Holz Gibt Gas  forum are running already several years with good succes grateless and reductionless gasifiers. One of them is an gentleman named Pertl wich based his build on numerous patents, some already almost hundred years old. Grateless designs are nothing new, nor revolutionary, nor secret, lots of patents information.

Pertl produced with his grateless and reductionless design, from the begin of his build up to 8.2.2009 (after that he did not kept trac) 240.000 Kw warm water and 132.000 Kw electricity.

Another hard working succesfull gasser is, Holzigas, with the same VW 1.6L car engine as Pascal uses, He heats and energise his home  already several thousend of hours, this from 2009 on; He has to replace his second hand VW engines regulary. (No sweat because in German they are death cheap. 50 to 100 euro's.

Seeing the concept could maybe solve the grate connected problems, we are tempted to explore also the posibility's of an upside down DriZzleR for continious operation.

What with the standard DriZzleR?.

Does that means we give up the regular DriZzleR. No way. This concept is so technicaly simple and elegant. It can be build by anybody without much pain. If you run it in intervals, some hours, then little cleaning, then some hours again, Just as most imbert types are run,  it will produce the same good gas an easier way.

The DriZzleR will be further developed,  It has a small but steady growing user comunity and  news on it will be posted regualry. Side on side with the other new gasifier project The upside down DriZzleR.

Luk/Pascal

A new family member arrived / Ein neues Familienmitglied ist angekommen - 20 KVa VW boxer Generator.

self-regulating synchronous generator, Voltage: 230 V / 400 V

Output Power: 20 KVa

 Engine: VW 4 cylinder aircooled boxer

Typ 126, 1493 cm³ 38 HP / 28 KW @ 3000rpm

produced in 1962

Startup via electric starter or manually with hand crank

I can´t wait to see it running on woodgas :-) 

Comments and critics directly in the Blog are everytime welcome. 

---

selbstregelnder Synchrongenerator, Spannung: 230 V / 400 V

Leistung: 20 KVa

 Motor: VW 4 Zylinder Boxer Luftgekühlt

Typ 126, 1493 cm³ 38 PS / 28KW bei 3000U/min

Baujahr: 1962

 Elektrostarter über Anlasser oder manuell per Handkurbel

Das schöne am dem Aggregat ist, das es sich um den 1,5l Motor mit 38PS-3000U/min handelt. In den meisten Fällen wurde nur der 1,2l Motor mit 27PS-3000U/min verwendet mit dem dann im Benzinbetrieb ebenfalls 20KVa erzeugt werden. Gerade durch den größeren Motor sollte sich der Leistungsverluste im Holzgasbetrieb also in Grenzen halten. Aber das wird der Test zeigen.

Ich kann es kaum abwarten wie er auf Holzgas läuft :-)

Kommentare und Kritik direkt im Blog sind ausdrücklich und jederzeit erwünscht.

  

 here you can see a video of the first run with old gasoline.

hier könnt ihr ein Video vom ersten Testlauf mit altem Benzin sehen.

What others say about the DriZzleR

Stuart Perkins; 

"The concept is incredibly simple. By restricting the amount of fuel being gasified to that which is in the immediate vicinity of the pyrolysis zone, that is, no "full" hopper above, you eliminate the excessive tars being produced. By keeping the tars being produced to an absolute minimum, these tars are quite handily cracked by the pyrolysis zone and voila...engine grade gas. Sometimes, the simplest solutions evade us for years... We, people that is, are too smart to do the simple things. Good job Luk, for being smart enough to try something so obvious the rest of us missed it."

Brian Hughes;

My own observations.... the Drizzler principles fall into the category of Obvious When You Think About It. It's an extension of throwing stuff down the tuyere of a charcoal gasifier, and moving between charcoal fuel/charcoal reduction zone, and wood fuel/charcoal reduction zone. The point that's being missed is that Luk and Pascal thought about it, then did a bit more than think about it. AIUI, the key to tar free gas is to control the shape and temperature of the combustion zone. The FEMA falls down because it relies on the combustion zone air percolating down through the fuel- the combustion zone then does what it wants, and the tars tunnel through. The Imbert works by feeding the air at the right point, the Drizzler works by feeding fuel into the "naked" combustion zone at the right point. The tight control can happen with electronics, thermocouples, lambda sensors, stepper motors, servos, and Arduinos, luxuries unavailable to Imbert and the other pioneers- let's embrace them.

Ron Ohler questions the originality of the design Stating Greg Manning was the inventor.

.........Greg Manning - the credit that he deserved. Had you read more posts you might have possibly even come to understand Greg's personality and humor a bit better. You demanded that I look for the post to prove to you that I wrote the truth about what had been posted by Greg about incremental feed and an open top FEMA type design

The Aswer of Kevin Chisholm to that claim

Ken and Greg

What can either of you offer to clarify and resolve the issue? You both have a depth and wealth of "Gasifier Experience" that could help give credit where credit was due.

I feel that Luk's "Drizzler Gasifier" is as radically different from the Imbert Gasifier or the Stratified Downdraft Gasifier as the Diesel Engine is radically different from the Spark Ignition Engine. Fundamentally, the Drizzler adds fuel in proportion to load, while with the Imbert and Stratified Downdraft Gasifiers, and all other gasifiers I know of that are in the Public Domain have excess fuel available, and gas output is controlled primarily by control of oxygen or air input to the gasifier.

Do either of you know of any gasifier design that was previously Patented, and/or is now in the Public Domain and freely available to all,  other than Luk's Drizzler, that produces "Engine Grade Gas" and controls Gasifier output by controlling fuel input to the gasifier? If so, please provide a URL showing that Luk was not the first to publicly describe the Drizzler Process, or the concept of "providing fuel in proportion to load."  

As knowledgeable experts in the field of Gasification, if you can't point to URL's showing that Luk's Drizzler concept was in the Public Domain prior to Luk's presentation of it, I would respectfully suggest that Luk should be given full credit for presenting the Drizzler Concept to the Gasifier Community.

Best wishes,

Kevin 

Tom Blackburn;

It's been intriguing watching and reading about the progress Luk and Pascal have had. Awhile back Luk asked me to try the drizzle method in my new gasifier and I just kind of shined him on. Wasn't a true believer.
So today, I was in the experimental frame of mind, so I unbolted the hopper and put a few handfuls of these small chips into the hearth and lit it. It smoked like crazy for a few minutes and puked out much condensate, then something magical happened. The smoke turned nearly clear and I thought it couldn't be, but I put the torch to the flare tube and it went Pop!, and there was the most beautiful, strong, blue flame
This was really cool to observe and to be so active with the inner workings of the gasifier. I could watch it all. This went on for 2 hours and a couple pails of fuel. Here is a video of it if you don't believe it.

Luk and Pascal, I am a believer now. 

Steve Ewings on "build A Gasifier.com"DriZzleR Gasifier

Luk Vanhauwaert describes The DriZzleR Gasifier as producing "tarfree gas with a basic simple gasifier (The DriZzleR) together with a basic simple fuel feed technique (The DriZzling method)".  

Stuart Perkins describes this by saying, "The concept is incredibly simple. By restricting the amount of fuel being gasified to that which is in the immediate vicinity of the pyrolysis zone, that is, no "full" hopper above, you eliminate the excessive tars being produced. By keeping the tars being produced to an absolute minimum, these tars are quite handily cracked by the pyrolysis zone and voila...engine grade gas. Sometimes, the simplest solutions evade us for years... We, people that is, are too smart to do the simple things. Good job Luk, for being smart enough to try something so obvious the rest of us missed it."

The video below shows components of this gasfier design without cyclone, cooler, filter, or generator, just the basic gasifier unit. It appears much simpler than the closed Imbert designs, and I think most people could build this! Luk suggests that the basic unit can be build in a couple of hours. The aparent success of the design is essentially down to the simple gasifier design and the method of 'drizzling' feedstock into the pyrolysis zone.   Whilst there are no plans as such, a great deal of information and videos can be found on the DriZzleR Blogspot.

Chuck Pallen; thinks the DriZzleR is only about auger feeding:

It really comes down to this, you came up with a good idea on your own and it works but you were not the first to use an auger to bring fuel to your gasser.  It has been used for years (reference the book I told you about), if you would want recent non commercial reference I told you about my friend while he was in France but look a some of Ben's old Victory Gas video's where he uses an auger to feed him gasser. 

Kevin Chisholm's answer to Chuck

 Looking on and it has been a while still seems like the same channel. Lol Luc and others fighting over his design.  Luc did you ever buy the gassification book I told you about.  It really comes down to this, you came up with a good idea on your own and it works but you were not the first to use an auger to bring fuel to your gasser. 

# You miss the point entirely! The reason why the Drizzler works is that the fuel is drizzled into the gasifier at just the right rate. The unique feature of the Drizzler is that the fuel feeder is operated in a manner to keep teh top of the fuel bed within a very narrow range.

 It has been used for years (reference the book I told you about), if you would want recent non commercial reference I told you about my friend while he was in France but look a some of Ben's old Victory Gas video's where he uses an auger to feed him gasser. 

# Did your friend in france produce Engine Grade Gas? I believe that Victory Gasifiers are of the Imbert design, and not relevant to teh Drizzler which makes Engine Grade Gas with a stratified downdraft configuration.

As far as an down draft gasser Non FEMA there are many out there including mine that will run on many fuels and make engine grade gas.

# Sure!! Millions of Imbert style gasifiers have successfully produced engine grade gas. Other than for Luk's Drizzler, can you point to any freely available designs for a Stratified Downdraft gasifier that produces Engine Grade Gas?

  Gassers have been made sense the 1690s some say earlier.  There are as many gassers as builders everyone adds a little to their own but to say auger feed is new no that will not fly.

# Luk is not saying the augre feed is new. What he IS saying is that if you correctly operate an augre, you can make engine grade gas with a stratified downdraft gasifier.

  To say a non FEMA downdraft is new that will not ether, but some things in certain combos maybe new.

# Luk uses an open top gasifier, with no nozzles for air supply, and as such, it is a "Stratified Downdraft Gasifier,", in the same general class as the FEMA Gasifier, that is noted for its tar production. Luk's Drizzle Feed method is what makes the difference. Luk was the first to publically tell about the technique.  Others may have thought about the concept in passing and did nothing about it. OR, tehy may have actually perfected the Drizzle Feed Technique, but decided to keep it as proprietary information. As far as I know, Luk was the first to make teh information technically available as "open source knowledge", and therefore deserves full credit for disclosure of teh "Drizzler Technology". Can you, or anyone else point to a URL showing the Drizzler technology being freely available before Luk revealed his Drizzler Technology to us?

  just not an non FEMA downdraft with an auger feed.  Main thing is to try and get along with each other or this whole thing called life does not work.  Good luck  Chuck

# In fairness to all, credit should be given where credit is due. I feel that Luk's Drizzler Technology is one of the best improvements to gasifiers producing "Engine Grade Gas" since Imbert came out with his design concept about 92 years ago.

Best wishes,

Kevin Chisholm reaction on childisch remarks from Gregg Manning and Ken Koch

Dear Ken and Greg

As very knowledgeable "gasifier guys":

1: Do either of you know of any gasifier design that was previously Patented, and/or is now in the Public Domain and freely available to all,  other than Luk's Drizzler, that produces "Engine Grade Gas" and controls Gasifier output by controlling fuel input to the gasifier? If so, please provide a URL showing that Luk was not the first to publicly describe the Drizzler Process, or the concept of "providing fuel in proportion to load." 

2:  As knowledgeable experts in the field of Gasification, if you can't point to URL's showing that Luk's Drizzler concept was in the Public Domain prior to Luk's presentation of it, would it be reasonable to suggest that Luk (and Pascal) should be given full credit for presenting the Drizzler Concept to the Gasifier Community?

Thanks!

Kevin

Flash001USA

I don't know that much about Pascal or Luk or what their professions are but I can tell you this much, they both know their stuff and when you watch their youtube videos you'll understand why I made that statement. Their build is a unique design that is somewhat based on the FEMA concept but with a twist. They took a different approach to controlling tar by using the "DriZzleR" method. The way it basically works is they starve the ember bed of fuel and only feed the gasifier enough fuel to sustain it so the ember bed is never smothered in fuel and they accomplishes this by balancing the feeding of the fuel into the gasifier so just enough fuel is fed into the system to replace what the engine needs to run and what they wind up with is an ultra HOT ember bed with a much lower production of tar to have to crack plus this setup is very efficient at cracking and managing the remaining tars. Not only is this mechanical build impressive but so is both Luk's and Pascals method of producing a clean robust woodgas. My hats of to the both of you. Check out their website link below

Spacepeter;

Der DriZzleR ist so ziemlich das gutmütigste was ich an Kleinstvergasern gesehen habe.

Kevin Chisholm

What you did was to take a bunch of techniques, procedures, ideas, etc that were in plain view of everybody, and had the focus and determination to "put them all together" in a very simple manner that works. Now that everybody sees it working, and how simple it is, all too many are all too quick to say "I knew that."
Sure, they knew that, but they didn't do anything about it!! "It doesn't matter what you know. What matters is "what you do about what you know." You did it... the others didn't.
I have all kinds of "gasifier designs"! I think that one in particular is better than your "DriZler", but I haven't built it yet. Or tested it. So, I can't claim tom have a better design. If you discover the concept, then I can't claim credit for it, simply because "I had the idea first." What is important is "Who builds and proves it first?"
I hope that you are not seriously annoyed by those who attempt to reduce the significance of your advancement.
Congratulations and Best wishes, for your significant achievement!

A new filter and a new pyrotouch

Hi All,

New Filter design, First part of the video.

I just posted a video of a test of my new filter setup. The previous filter a combination of cokes coal/woo/stainless steel shavings works well but created Too much presure drop. Also It was a real mess this coals SS shavings ... ugly smell and difficult to clean or to dispose.
This filtersetup is far more lighter in aplication and has very little pressure drop. Off coarse I have tested it only for 2.5 hours so I can not tell how fast it will pack up with dirt.

New pyrotouch/kompaktor/agitator. Second part of the video.

A DriZzLeR beeing a gasifier working in drip feed need to be feed the least possible amount of fuel. Also the flaming pyrolyse zone should be kept very shallow and always at the same level. This is easy if you have a constant load; then just DriZzle in on time interval. But coupled on a generator in island mode with various laod demands and thus various fuel consumption, on should have some kind of a level sensing device to feed more under heavy load and less in idle load. The Pyrotouch/kompaktor works fine with dense fuel such as pellets. With Woodchips the constant hitting the fuel, even if only very little force, is kompakting the reduction  too much and after some hours the reduction is packed densely and the gasifier stops breathing.
Also when DriZzling in pellets the distribute fine all over the flaming pyrolyse. Woodchips are falling down in one chute and pile up on one side of the fuel tube. The other side gets no wood and burns empty with as result a big hollow burn. So the Pyrotouch should have one more function exstra, an agitator and leveling function to make an even and level flaming zone. In the second part of the video I show an attempt to achieve this goal. Unfortunatly the mikroswitch beeing too close to the hot zone melted. Adaptations are needed But the principe seems to work.

Have a look in this video, subscribe, advise and comment

Luk

Bagfilter cleanout cannon / Sackfilter Abreinungskanone

 There are many different ways to clean a filter. This air gun creates a back pressure through the clean gas outlet. Thus begin the filter bags to vibrate. By vibration of the filter bags of the filter cake fall down into the collecting container. After cleaning the filter, you can help. Nothing filters better than the filter cake. You should rebuild these light cake. This can be done by precoating the filter bag. Through the raw gas input a precoating powder will supplied. This Precoating powder lays down on the fabric and the filter can not wear out so quickly. Since the particles can not penetrate into the filter bag. They will be retained by the filter cake.

The gun is build with a fire extinguisher. This is the pressure tank.
Approved up to 15bar pressure sufficient for the cannon. Behind it comes a tee. Side of this tee sits the compressed air inlet to fill. This input is opened by a magnetic valve 1/8". On the tee sits a 1" magnetic valve. The tank is filled up till 8 bar are reached. Then the filling valve is closed. After, the tank is loaded. Now clean off the filter is very simple. Just open the 1" magnetic valve. After cleaning the 1"valve is closed again and the pressure tank is filled again.

Comments and critics directly in the Blog are welcome. 

   

  
Es gibt viele verschiedene Möglichkeiten einen Filter zu reinigen. Diese Luftkanone erzeugt einen Gegendruck durch den Reingas Ausgang. Dadurch fangen die Filtersäcke an zu vibrieren. Durch die Vibration der Filtersäcke fällt der Filterkuchen nach unten in den Sammelbehälter. Nach der Abreinigung kann man den Filter helfen. Nix filtert besser als der Filterkuchen. Man sollte diesen leichten Kuchen wiederaufbauen. Das kann man durch precoating des Filtersackes erreichen. Durch den Rohgas Eingang wird ein precoatingpowder zugeführt. Dieses Precoatingpowder legt sich auf das Gewebe und der Filter kann nicht so schnell verschleissen. Da die Partikel nicht mehr in den Filtersack eindringen können. Sie werden vom Filterkuchen gehalten werden. 

Die Kanone besteht aus einem Feuerlöscher. Dieser ist der Druckspeicher.
Zugelassen bis 15bar Druck völlig ausreichend für die Kanone. Dahinter kommt ein T-Stück. An diesem T-Stück sitzt seitlich der Druckluft Eingang zum befüllen. Dieser Eingang wird über ein Magnetventil 1/8 geöffnet. Auf dem T-Stück sitzt dann ein 1" Magnetventil. Der Druckspeicher wird befüllt, bis 8bar erreicht sind. Dann wird das Einfüllventil geschlossen. Danach ist der Druckspeicher geladen. Um jetzt den Filter abzureinigen wird einfach das 1" Ventil geöffnet. Nach der Abreinigung wird das 1" Ventil wieder geschlossen und der Druckspeicher wird erneut befüllt.

Kommentare und Kritik direkt im Blog sind erwünscht.

We want to see your DriZzleR!

We often receive emails from woodgasers. It is often written exactly the same as in the mail before from another woodgaser. I have built a DriZzleR and now there are here and there a few problems. Or I want to build a DriZzleR and need some infos to build. We are not gurus only pure observers. The most inventions where made by the artist and abstract thinking of Luk. Paired with electro-technical feasibilities which were solved by Pascal. It is often written that one is ashamed to publish his pictures or questions. But why ? we all started like YOU!

No let the world see your DriZzleR´s to help other people bulding their one ones.

send your videos, hyperlinks and pictures with a short description to: mail@thedrizzler.org

 

Immer wieder erreichen uns emails von Woodgas Bastlern. Oft wird genau das selbe geschrieben, was man von anderen in der Mail davor gelesen hat. Ich habe einen DriZzleR gebaut und nun gibt es hier oder da ein paar Probleme. Oder ich möchte einen DriZzleR bauen und brauche Infos. Wir sind keine Gurus sondern reine Beobachter. Allein dem künstlerischen abstrakten Denken von Luk. Gepaart mit elektrotechnischen Machbarkeiten die von Pascal gelöst wurden. Oft wird geschrieben, das man sich schämt seine Bilder oder auch Fragen zu veröffentlichen. Aber warum? Wir starteten genauso wie IHR!

Lasst die Welt eure DriZzleR sehen. Und helft damit anderen Ihre zu bauen.

Sendet eure Videos, Links und Bilder mit einer kurzen Beschreibung an: mail@thedrizzler.org