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!