Wood Gas (See Thru Wood Gas Generator)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มี.ค. 2019
- In this episode I build a See Through Wood Gas Generator to show everybody visually what the main components of a house fire are, and what the actual fuel is the wood produces when heated.
most people think that when wood burns it's the wood itself that burns but in reality it the gas that wood produces "wood gas" mixed with oxygen and an ignition source that causes the chain reaction known more commonly as burning.
Thanks to Chris King, a friend of mine, a Chicago Firefighter, Top Fuel Funny Car Driver for helping me out with this episode and giving me the idea for this episode, he was really surprised when he showed up and I had all of this setup and ready to go.
Check out the previous episodes in the series playlist as well as the links below.
Previous episodes:
See thru Engine E.6 New Turbo Got Boost? • See Thru Engine on New...
See Thru Engine on Turbo Nitro and Dyno (How much HP does it make?) E.5 • See Thru Engine on Tur...
See Through Engine on NITROMETHANE 4k Slow Motion ( S1 • E4 ) Blow Up Attempts 1 -9 Crazy ! • See Through Engine on ...
Directed By: Matt Mikka - บันเทิง
Now build a monster one in the bed of an old pickup and then run the truck with the wood gas. That "wood" be something!!!!
Lol... Yes , that wood be epic !
You know this was common in Germany during world war
It's out there on TH-cam.
Indeed it has been done! SWEET. When I move to Idaho I want to do that!
the dude It definitely wasn’t common but Germany did try this method due to its crude oil shortages.
Correction, there is fuel left in the beaker. It's charcoal and it needs 02 to burn. You distilled all the gasses out of the wood. Good fuel left. The off gasses were always below their flash point until you lit them. You made charcoal. Charcoal production is done through a method called . Pyrolysis is defined as the irreversible chemical change brought about by heating the biomass in the absence of oxygen.
Yep. That’s how charcloth or rope is made by bushcrafters.
This is also how people make charcoal for stuff like biochar fertilization, for example.
Matt, Amazing job with the see through wood gas generator!!! Thanks for all the time, effort, and expense you put into this one. Always a thumbs up from me and looking forward to the next video!
Thank you sir !!
Do this on your channel too, and make the mower run on it !!
@@AK_Ray I second that! Do a colab!
What's great is that you can use some of the bi-products. The tar is a little more tricky as it is in the water, but you can use the gasified wood as it is effectively charcoal and then, of course, use it as the fuel for your next wood gas production.
Volatiles. You cracked off the volatiles. The charcoal (and the tar for that matter) are still viable fuels.
yep. in a traditional wood gas system where the wood itself is on fire (but also, if you just bleed some air into the chamber) the carbon (aka coke) is consumed as carbon monoxide, which is flammable. otoh, if you only use the volatiles as fuel then you end up with a more environmentally sound solution where you have char you can dig back into the earth, and a lower ratio of CO2 per unit of heat energy
@@5naxalotl biochar from pyrolysis
Yes, the charcoal that was left over is now a clean cooking fuel for your grill.
I wanted to tell him immediately when he misspoke and said there was no more fuel in the remaining charcoal.
@@SPHYNX99752 it looks like straight carbon at that point
@@v4riab1lity77 About as close as you're ever going to get, without some Serious Chemistry Shenanigans.
Brilliant. It explains how flash overs happen too. Great experiment.
Exactly, I wish I would have went more in detail but I wasn't feeling well during that shoot. I had the flu.
Yes great demo!
it literally is not
There were a couple points where you made the comment about "All the fuel has been burnt off," and I was just giggling. This is an excellent small scale demonstration of how Charcoal is made!
And the Tar you got from the Aluminum Foil Lid? Is a substance called "Creosote." Used as a preservative on Railroad Ties and Power Poles, among other places. Wonderfully full of some Lovely Carcinogens. Which is one of many reasons it sucks to be a Firefighter.
Thank you for your service.
Now this really warped my perception! I had no idea about wood gas. Never heard about the thing. This is actually really important to know if you are in such a situation that a fire just started and it's burning up to the ceiling. Why they doesn't teach this in class is a mystery to me. Thanks for making this! Love your work!
Didn't know this was how wood burned. Looking forward to this series!
Really really really insane. I've been doing my barchelor degree research about this for 2 years and you just give me clean look for what happening when wood is burning. Gigantic thank's and appreciate for you man. Now i can bust my lectures opinion about how wood burned. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Very nice demonstration!
A couple tips: Actually, as the overheated beaker was cooling after the fire was out was still a face safety risk because the glass could still explode due to shrinking and tension set up.
Also, I think the reason the cooled wood gas didn't sustain flame is because it was moving a lot faster coming out of the smaller nozzle. If it was coming out a larger hole it probably would have sustained. Both carbon monoxide and hydrogen are highly ignitable even at room temperature and far below.
But a lovely demonstration none the less!
Being that it's chemistry glassware which is usually made from borosilicate glass which is heat tempered in a kiln, this type of glass usually doesn't explode like the soda-lime or lead based glass does. You would have to really thermal shock it by putting ice directly into it or submerging it into ice water. But it would still probably just crack and not really explode.
@@THEGLASSMANSWORLD Borosilicate is better than soda lime, but worse that fused quartz. And any glass or quartz can absorb other elements when red hot, and become a different alloy.
So by way of background, glass "explodes" because of "Coefficient of thermal expansion." That means that as glass cools, it shrinks. Depending on the "Alloy" or mixture of the glass components, that rate of shrinkage is different. Pure fused silica (i.e. quartz) is very low. It hardly shrinks at all when it cools. Other stuff, like soda lime glass, shrinks a lot. That means if it cools unevenly, the part that cools later shrinks against the cooler part and creates tension.
Ever heard "Don't touch quartz halogen bulb with your fingers or it'll break when it gets hot?" Well think about it, there's salt/SODIUM in your finger prints. Salt dissolves into hot quartz to make soda lime glass, which has a greater coefficient of thermal expansion. Or did you see Cody's video on his beakers that were breaking? I can't find it now, but he found several of his beakers had absorbed elements during some experiments and were randomly breaking, so he had to destroy his whole lot of them.
So when the above wood gas demonstration was taking place, there were lots of elements available including quite possibly sodium from the ashes which could be absorbed into the red hot glass, which could change the coefficient of thermal expansion on the bottom part of the glass, which could actually cause it to "explode."
Yeah yeah, it may not be technically an explosion, but the glass sets up great forces within itself and when it finally breaks, it can send hot and/or sharp bits of glass flying.
Thank you!! Now i finally understand how wood burns! Why did my cemistry teacher in school not teach me this?? Awesome keep it up!
Thanks you, you're not alone, I also did not completely understand how woood burned until doing this experiment, I was working on the firefighting episodes and as the firefighters were explaining to me how the process works, I had to figure out a way to make it visual, and then I said well why not film it and show everybody, so I'm glad you learned something along with me .
They can't teach it because it doesn't really clear about how fire can burn. It's involving some serious decomposition and chemical breakdown process that so complex, so the experts just name it pyrolisis.
Children today aren't being taught pretty much anything in school anymore, they're not even taught how to sign their name so they won't even be able to sign their name on a contract or sign their name on the back of a check. Just talk to one and see how long you can have a conversation with them... it won't last much longer than one or two sentences at the most.
your chemistry teacher didn't teach you this because it isnt true. the solid part of the wood definitely does burn. that's why charcoal is flammable. this video is entirely wrong.
@@Hephera its 50/50 to be honest the wood is a fuel sorce but the gas that comes of the wood is a more flamable fuel sorce than the wood its self. he's no expert in that field and he didn't try saying he was, (this is his understanding of how it works from him being told and seeing it with his own eyes) if he know exactly what he was doing and every thing then he would have been able to tell you that the wood was also turning in to active charcoal witch is the product you are left with after going through that proses.
"I guess you can call this my filter... it's kinda like a distiller"
Trying real hard not to call that a bong
Americans.... Only want to smoke weed....
Bartek Bartek Honestly "bong" is a more accurate descriptor than most of those other words. I think the technical term would be "gas washer" or "scrubber."
Then again, I think this is technically closer to vaping than smoking... 🤔
@@CODMarioWarfare sure thing, I was just joking ;) . Water filtration is enough for lungs (in case of MJ) and carburetor in car (in case of Holzgas) :)
@@Kawka1122 I wish.
@@CODMarioWarfare Distilling is separating so the whole rig really is a distiller. The water not really doing anything.
I work at a coal gasification power plant, we do exactly the same thing you're doing here. It's cool to watch it in see through tubes!
Thank you for the demonstration of the basics of gasification. Making your own charcoal and cooking gas.
This actually the best presentation I've ever seen! Bravo!
I wish this guy taught every class I took in school lol. I'd get straight As.
Lol.. thank you, wait till you see the next episode on cymatics. It's been super trippy.
actually they got wrong many things
Noticed the firemans gear said Caledonia..was it Caledonia , IL?
I went to school there
I doubt that, he even was saying the reason the flame wouldnt hold from the water filter because of moister when its because the flame had nothing to hold on to, if he was your teacher you more than likely would get an f since he was clueless as to how it works,
this should be a great teaching tool to explain how all of this stuff works for those looking to get into that profession. helps to make better sense of how things work with fire
Thanks!
Your video is so interesting because it's not only pointing out the pyrolysis effect, but it's also showing that a gas has to reach to it's IGNITION temperature in order to catch fire. THANKS A LOT ! 5:34
Great vid!
Most "work place safety" fire fighting videos I've seen say to aim the fire extinguisher at the base of the flame. But I imagine a house fire is different, in that the gases accumulate as they rise up with the heat.
I learned so much from this video! Thanks for such a great share!
Insightful, thank you for the upload.
Thanks for making this. It helps us understand the working principles. Gassifier tech is good to know as a potential survival skill
Very clean looking carbonized wood. Awesome set up man great video.
Amazing job! Incredibly entertaining way to demonstrate this effect!
Thanks , I'm glad you enjoyed it!
The issue of ignition is most likely definitely not a temperature problem. Water helps because the wood gas is highly soluable in water and when it come out is taken out of its lower flammability limit in terms of fuel composition.
this dude is super creative, awesome entertaining video as usual
This is really cool to see working with glass. I blow glass and was thinking of making a miniature gasifier out of glass. Looks like it's possible and you made bio-char too! Bio-char is basically activated carbon which can be used for filtering water and also used in soils to enrich it.
That biochar is likely very low grade. You have to heat it enough to burn that tar out. Otherwise it recondenses onto the coal, and will make water taste like gas if you soak water in it.
Mind. Blown.... Brilliant👍
Very cool for such a hot topic. Thank you, good job.
VERY EDUCATIONAL STUFF, THANK YOU
I love your channel man! You show just how smart, and innovative regular ass dudes like us can be lol.
it's good to see shoenice doing some actual science and not living homeless anymore God bless
Oh man you must be like the 10,000 person to tell me that. I had no idea who that guy was until people started leaving comments like 2 years ago.
It's pretty amazing an experiment. Your senses are great.
Genial vídeo.
Hasta el próximo.
How could I miss that one...
While other content of good youtuber like Colin, Hacksmith etc are getting worse and worse your is improving like hell. Love your videos they are really entertaining and educational.
Thank you, starting this month I have everything coming to TH-cam, glad you like it !!!. Definitely motivating to hear.
Excelente explicación y gran video, felicitaciones, gracias por compartir.
There is still plenty of fuel left afterwards. Biochar burns pretty much like charcoal.
Also great for your garden.
Flashpoint is % by volume. Your burn temperature was to low to squeeze out enough hydrogen when the flame wouldnt lite. Ice cold gas will ignite just fine! Awesome presentation- a great emergency fuel source for combustion engines.
Awesome video, it was interesting seeing the wood gas. You can actually run a gasoline engine on wood gas especially on say a small engine, just put the output of the woodgas generator so the gas flows into the intake on the engine.
Great video bro this was awsome! Loved it! Never knew this so thnx!
Thank you, your welcome!
Great Video. Thanks!
Thank you for your video, I understand much better now
Sounds like something the see through motor can run on! ;)
Thanks for share!
Awesome simple way to make it work Could plump it to your carburetor/intake that same way but adding a bigger burn supply and bigger water supply to drop off the crud before going into your intake!
Never understood why firefighters always fought fires by 1st watering over above the fire, before finally going after the flame. Now I know. Thank-you.
Btw, I once jokingly made an off the cuff remark on one of your livestreams asking if you were a NASA rocket scientist, your reply was to simply wonder aloud, "why would he say that"...Now, I was recently told you actually are! Would certainly make sense to me. ARE YOU???
Have a good day now and thank-you for your time.
Lol.... You're right, I remember that, I was like what the heck is this guy psychic, that was kind of a weird moment TBH. Not quite I'm an aerospace engineer, but I really haven't practiced in the corporate world in forever, I've only done micro contracts and other stuff in the recent past. I started studying that when I was about 7 years old out of pure interest and passion, a lot of the stuff I don't remember because I haven't used it in forever, but I still try to apply the ingenuity, I'm just not really good with words but I'm really really good with numbers and figuring things out. Thanks though that was memorable for sure.
Yeah I never understood that either, until my friend the guy who's in this video told me about it, I always thought to myself why don't they hit the bottom of the fire first???. Now we know why
This is a great video on not only how this works, but the basic elements of how to start building a gasifier. But now what you have left in the burn chamber is biochar, biochar is great to put into your garden to balance the soils Ph. So if one was to think of this method to heat their house and or their shop, it would benefit their garden as well. Now go beyond this, the gas created from a gasifier can run your car, any engine, so your generator which you could run to charge your batteries to run your needs f electricity in your house and shop, ect...
Great expirement! I actually didn't know that
Awesome stuff bro!
In industrial charcoal production, they actually use the woodgas that furnace A gives off to power furnace B and so on until it makes a circle and each furnace is fueled on the woodgas of the one before it. This way they only have to start one furnace with butane/propane in the end the ring of furnaces are essentially self sustaining.
Knowledge is power!!!!!!!!
If you would drill a whole in the end of the exit tube to allow air to draw in and mix with the gas it will burn like a propane torch ..you should try it ,it will amaze you ,the hole has to be big enough to let enough air to mix ,but not to large, about an 1/8 inch roughly I'd say on that sixe toob ,you can always drill 2 if 1 isn't enough .
That's so cool!
So very cool!
Fantastic science project for my kids! I'll leave the mess to you though. Thanks!
"Just get my protection so I look safe" LOL
The wood remnants are what you buy as lump charcoal. The briquets you buy is that stuff compressed. You bet it still has fuel left!
That's what I was thinking, I should have tried to burn it, I will in the next episode, one thing I did note however is that this charcoal seemed much lighter than regular charcoal, however it could be my imagination. I wonder what type of fuel is left in the charcoal?, Do you know by any chance?
@@WarpedPerception
I believe the fuel left is simply the cellulose fibers, like burning paper. For the briquets it is compressed. Lump charcoal is very light. Henry Ford hated waste, he had his brother in law Mr. Kingsford figure out something to do with it. He invented the charcoal briquets as we know them for Ford's workers to have something fun to do in their free time. It stuck I would say! Edit: the waste was the wood scraps from roofs, wheels, etc.
@@upsidedowndog1256 YES. You're right
Warped Perception lump charcoal is lighter than briquettes
About 30% of briquettes are sand
They grind the lump charcoal into powder mix in sand and water
Press into molds
The sand is added to make them burn cooler and last longer
AVE did a video on this some time ago
Amazing!
Great video
Great video! If the fuel from the wood is all used, I'd expect it to be ash like the wood in my stove or oven. So it'd be interesting to see if you could set it on fire.
I completely agree I didn't even think about that until after the fact
It will burn like charcoal, because that's what that is
You don't want to directly use water for a coolant. That will add more water into your gas.
You essentially want to use a radiator/heatsink type cooler (lots of surface area). No water-cooling needed (although you could), one could simply make a long array of connected pipes with good thermal conductivity.
Edit: Again, the gas going through the water doesn't fail to ignite because of the temperature. It fails to ignite because there is too much moisture. You WANT to cool the gas down as much as possible before using the gas in order to purify it via letting the contaminants condense into tar.
5:00 i don't think the gas actually picks up that much moisture from the water trap, but the thinner pipe makes it flow out so fast it essentially pushes away the flame, plus it comes out in distinct puffs from each bubble instead of one nice stream, so each puff pushes away the flame, then the lower pressure behind it doesn't supply enough fuel anymore.
plus of course some cooling involved like you mentioned.
The heat of the gas allows the water to vaporize. So if the water gets above 212F, It could be up to 100% water. This is why it was getting put out. The concentration of water was too high compared to the flammable gasses.
amazing video
Excellent experiment.
Maybe you can try to test out fire resistant paint.
I'm up for that but In what way ?.
@@WarpedPerception well in this experiment it is the gases which are combustible, when the wood is heated.
So I wonder is the paint heat resistant?
Would wood coated in fire resistant paint still break down and emit those gases?
Something like starlite material could be of interest.
Dude! Thank you for filming this!
Could you do this with a few other samples besides wood?
-- Potato chips, Cake donuts, and walnuts do this cool thing where they sweat out oils.
-- Popcorn! In high school, I lit a giant bucket of pre-popped popcorn on fire. It smoked like crazy, but pyrolyzing it might be interesting because the popped part is a different chemical makeup than the hull of the kernel.
-- A vanilla cupcake might film really well, as would white rice.
I actually have been working on a video like that... But I was waiting for some equipment to show up.
What you have left over is called tinder, a very fine fire starter with a flint/steel spark in the presence of oxygen.
Very good!
Very nice!
Thanks, shooting a small video tomorrow on whether or not the leftover charcoal from this thing will burn, time to barbecue!!
Great vid!
thats why you use a gravity based separation system, like a pipe tilted upwards so the moisture and the tar dosent go into the eventual engine or generator.
That's dangerously cool. Ya that's it
Yeah it felt a little dangerous. I was hoping it would stay transparent for a little longer but I think it gave everybody the idea.
@@WarpedPerception that's see through engine video of your's is also cool I am trying it here in India. But what's that transparent material is it acrylic
I've heard of people running cars and s*** off of wood gas! you should try getting a little Briggs & Stratton to run off that!
I was think about running it soon.
Here's a peek at wood gas history: www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html
Well, in WW2, the german population had to run trucks with woodgas, since oil was only allowed to be used by the military. At some point, the german military even used woodgas to power a special training Tiger tank ;D.
The flashpoint is the temperature that the wood gas would light on fire without an ignition source spontaneously once oxygen is available like a backdraft.
The only reason the flask didn't light is because the flow rate wasn't correct for a self sustaining flame. All you needed was a nozzle to get proper mix and flow, like a torch.
muito bom este video
*@Warped Perception*
5:20 So if you added a metal tube onto the end, put a torch to to the tube, to lightly re-heat the gas, THEN you could ignite the gas, I assume?
WOOD GAS SEE THROUGH ENGINE.
The reason why the small port wouldn't burn isn't because of the flash point. It's because the small hole increased the velocity of the gas, causing it to blow itself out. Try using a bigger whole or expansion port and it will burn just fine and with a nice clean blue flame.
I got to go see this irl later on today. I work as a boiler operator for a wood burning boiler.
Where did you get your transfer tube from? What is it called exactly? I need this for a school project! Love it!
So, what if you made the same thing, but with the second basin being empty? With the plug in the top, forcing everything to go into the second basin, would the outlet gas still be pretty clean? I would assume so, because of the positive internal pressure. I'd like to see it done.
The remnant is biochar, an excellent plant food/fuel :D
Yay ... This is a fun way for me to study physics.
Same here. I used to love physics and chemistry and everything else, but just hands on not really the book stuff unless I could apply the book information as soon as I got out of school that day.. I would read something in the book and go straight to my garage!!!
That fuel would have burned down to ash completely in a normal gasifier where it would be consumed with incoming oxygen under the heat conditions. I also understand temperature is critical for cracking all the gases to their flammable constituents. Good see through demonstration though!
You should also understand that using water to fight fire is not just cooling. The water flashes into steam and this require a large amount of energy that it steals from the combustion. The steam created also displaces all the oxygen starving the fire. A house fire is not just "wood gas" (H2 and CO). It is also tars and carbon compounds. True wood gas is only made under o2 restricted conditions where pyrolysis occurs to crack the wood sap and tars into primarily CO and H2. Steam is used in industrial process fire suppression for plastic and rubber manufacturing since it will quickly extinguish fires by displacing all the oxygen.
Nice video
I wonder if you heated the water, would the wood gas have stayed lit? Nice demo !
The carbon left behind actually is a fuel. You did not have any oxygen in with it when you heated it for it to react with. Carbon will not melt or vaporize until much higher temperatures than you could possibly achieve with that propane stove, so your end product was a good quality charcoal.
Thinking about the house fire and what needs to be replaced after the fire. Everything needs to be replaced whether you put the fire out or let it burn.
Could you trap that gas and store it for later combustion use or would it be too cold to later relight?
I'm pretty sure you can, if I have good camera guys on our crew, I would probably shoot a lot more small subjects like that, but I'm thinking about shooting those anyway and putting them on the warped perception x channel. I'm going to fill it out though.
@@WarpedPerception
Huh?
Can we compressed wood gas in a compressor cooker then use it like a lpg tank for cooking?
This video was amazing.
But the Erlenmeyer flask wasn’t the distillation technically. The production of the wood gas was closer to a distillation
I do not believe the gas was too cold after going through the water to light. I have distilled oil and had the vapors bubbling through water and they lit up without problem.
The reason the gas didn't light up after going through the water here was because there wasn't enough gas after having the volitiles condensed in the water. If there was more wood in the beaker and a stronger heat source it would have lit up no problems.
Propane lights up straight out the bottle and that's coming out a lot colder than that wood gas was.
Flash over is a different effect to what was taking place here.
You have a great point, the only thing I was thinking about what that while carbon monoxide is flammable, I could be wrong but I believe it needs to be heated up to a certain temperature before it will ignite, the hydrogen no problem at any temp but the CO I'm unsure of, I'm going to do some research on this but I believe this to be the case, but you could also be dead on.
Great example. Just one problem, when you said there is no more fuel in the material you pulled from the cylinder, you were wrong. I use a coal forge to make knives and began by making my own hardwood charcoal. This kind of charcoal is made almost exactly like you made your generator but on a much larger scale. There are quite a few TH-cam videos show how it is made and how flammable it still is. Again great experiment for house fire or large fire examples.
You are correct, and I realized that as soon as I posted it so I made this th-cam.com/video/0gLqKkA8HWII/w-d-xo.html I used the wrong wording I should have said all of the volatile fuel or something along those lines, yeah but I do realize that there is still fuel in the form of carbon and probably a couple other things left over. Thanks for the feedback I hope you like that video link
Hi, can you make a see through syngas generator, if it is not too dangerous? Thanks
This video is amazing.
The Char left over are carbons that can still burn and the cooled gas is more "explosive" just need to mix it better with oxygen such as a venturi or valve.
Im wondering how much truth there is to saying that lowering the temp of the gas reduces it ability to spark. In a real world situation with woodgas as a fuel, it must go through multiple cyclone filters, that create a gravity effect and remove heavier than air particles. After that, the the gas must pass through a radiator in order to COOL the gas down (not heat it up) to or below the dew point (this also helps release all the remaining moisture in the fuel), then finally through a hay or metal shavings filter to remove any excess tar and buildup. These steps are done in order to make a clean gas. Thanks for the video demonstration.
How ur lungs look like after smoking
Thank you. Awesome. But I’m just curious if you could salvage the beaker and clean it like new?
I did clean it for the most part, that video is posting tomorrow,however I didn't have the patience to sit around and clean it completely. But I did have a mishap in the middle of it all with that beaker, very unfortunate, look out for that video tomorrow, it'll be posting in the morning early.
Thanks for watching
Oh no about the mishap! And thanks so much for the reply. I am a new fan and follower! Keep up the great experiments!
You should try the filter with boiling water to see if the smoke temp stays hot enough to keep the smoke lit. See if we can prove Chris's theory.