Explosive Safety Testing for Bio-Fuel Storage
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ค. 2018
- In this video I test to see if a gasometer is at risk of explosion without flame arresters on the gas lines. Air intrusion in a low pressure storage tank is always a risk, so this question is an important one. Though my conclusion in the video is that wood gas is not combustible below a 50/50 ratio with air, flame arresters are still a good precaution to take. If air is injected into the storage tank and ignited quickly enough (prior to evenly distributing) there could be a flammable pocket of gas at the correct ratios to cause ignition, in which case the top of the gasometer could be blown off and expose the rest of the gas to air. This is an unlikely, but possible scenario that a flame arrester would help prevent.
If you missed my previous videos in this wood gas/bio-fuel series check them out here:
Building a better gassifier: • Testing A Better Wood ...
Building a gasometer for wood gas storage: • Bio Fuel Storage: Buil...
Thanks to all my Patrons for helping me make these videos! A special thanks to my top Patrons: Syniurge, Matthew Leitzke, TheBackyardScientist, Enzo Breda Lee, John Johnson, & Thibaud Peverelli! / nighthawkprojects
If you missed my previous videos in this wood gas/bio-fuel series check them out here:
Building a better gassifier: th-cam.com/video/HQIW4dVVokE/w-d-xo.html
Building a gasometer for wood gas storage: th-cam.com/video/5hfznunVzKY/w-d-xo.html
NightHawkInLight, thank you for ❤ my comment !
NightHawkInLight so uh... Gas cannon? Golfball mortar would be fun.
Make it run a model engine!!
how hard is it to be a one man cew i know i just want to know you thinking
NightHawkInLight can you Build a rocket with it
Instead of placing your very expensive high speed camera right next to an explosion, place the camera behind some cover and film your subject using a mirror to see around the corner. Worst case is the mirror gets damaged, and you can always flip the video in post to put it back to normal.
what about just using a simple zoom lens?
@@BloodSprite-tan mirrors are much cheaper than lenses.
@@NM-wd7kx are you imply he doesn't already have one?
@@BloodSprite-tan he might well, but I'd have expected him to use it if he did.
@@NM-wd7kx But then the camera should be close to the mirror as well then... unless it's a parabolic mirror, but it'd probably be cheaper to buy a zoom lens. What about some polycarbonate to protect the camera?
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The nice thing about your gasometer design is that even IF there was combustion in the chamber, the top of the gasometer would just come off to release the pressure from the explosion. It's like an isobaric system opposed to a isovolumetric system (ie. a propane tank) that would most likely explode more violently in the same situation. Still a dangerous situation nonetheless. This is a very interesting series of yours
You're right, but keep in mind that something like a propane tank is more than capable of withstanding the pressures produced by this sort of combustion. A propane/air deflagration in a constant volume container only produces something like 100 psi of pressure (can't recall the exact number, but it's about that much). I imagine wood gas is similar.
When it gets dangerous is when you have a system with more energy dense gasses (like acetylene), or compressed fuel/air mixtures. Look up 'hybrid potato cannon' to see how much power you can get by doing this.
@@JMMC1005 You can simply place a pressure valve and it should be fixed. Since this set-up makes it fairly easy to calculate the amount of pressure a filled container has. If it surpasses that, the valve will open and release excess. Allowing the pressure to not build up.
Albeit, it might result in a risk of not knowing impure gases got into the tank. A simple balloon on that pressure valve. You will recognize a infalted balloon as a warning sign that hte gas is starting to get contaminated by something.
Propane?! BWAAA!
Could simply place a riser tube attached to the water reservoir and going up to the water level with a simple chain retaining the upper gas reservoir to keep it from flying apart, but leaving the riser open to the atmosphere allowing for the water to evacuate itself from the rapid increase in pressure without any relief mechanical valve.
A bit obscure, but this just reminded me of the text with a title along the lines of "the art of distillation" by John French(?) that includes various stopper designs for a large glass flask, such as a plain glass stopper with a lead weight on it so that if pressure should build up too much, the cap would blow off, rather than the flask explode or crack, as it would be sealed and heated presumably over long durations.
So, assuming your wood gas is pure CO, you need 1 O2 : 2 CO to be stoichiometric.
Since air is 1/5th O2, and assuming the perfect gases law applies as well as neglecting the effect of water vapor, the ideal ratio should be 2.5 air : 1 CO. Or roughly 70/30.
Which matches quite well with your experimental results!
piranha031091 absolutely correct.... But you neglected the hydrogen content of the wood gas .....
Akash Mukherjee : doesn't make a difference, O2 reacts in the exact same 1:2 ratio with H2.
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Thanks science guy
neglecting all the intentionally left out variables, that sounds about right. Although, i do kinda wanna see what it'd look like if we used the combined gas law and included the appx ratios for the other gases in wood gas.
Slow motion flame propagation is so satisfying. Love your videos
Fill up weather balloon with 75/25 mixture to make giant wood powered explosion :D I think that would make great slow motion clip
That would certainly be impressive!
You should do a collaboration
And her we go!!!
Yes please!
you want wood powered explosion? fill a high pressure tank with water, and throw it into a big fire, and walk away, because you don't want to be near to it when it explodes
I think your wood gas series is perhaps the best series you’ve done on here. Wood gas has so much untapped potential, yet many people don’t seem to know about it.
This footage also pretty neatly shows off some of the difference between a rich and a lean air-fuel mixture. In the 60-40 mixture explosion, the flame is quite bright yellow, which indicates there is unburnt carbon - there is just enough air for the wood gas to ignite, but not enough to burn all of it. On the other hand, in the 80-20 mixture, the flame is much paler and blue instead of yellow, which indicates that all of the wood gas does burn completely, due to enough air being available for it.
Are you a furnace guy? They are the only people I know that knows that! Cheers! btw,, i'm not one. lol
those combustile vapor high speed shots were amazing
I really appreciate this. I feel like most creators I've seen would've responded to people saying that you should do something and complaining with hostility, or if it wasn't necessary then anger and acting smarter than them. But here instead of lashing out at people who range from concerned for your safety to overly critical, you treat it as a valid concern and then discover for yourself, with your viewers along for the ride, whether or not the concern is necessary to have. Rather than just telling them they don't know what they are talking about. I really appreciate that.
I couldn't agree more. In the spirit of inquiry, no need to let one's ego get in the way.
Are you making a complement by bagging on a hypothetical issue? How weird.
I was downright queasy with that expensive high-speed camera getting soaked with water ! Excellent video👍
The opening alone earns my Like! Never underestimate the appeal of your sillier experiments!
This was awesome! I loved the 80/20 slomo more than the 75 as the internal fireball was really quite pretty! Cant wait to see what's next!
Now that you know the magic "fuel:air" ratio, let's see a follow-up "fuel:oxygen" video! Then move on to some sort of wood gas fired spud gun, or better yet, a cannon! Keep up the great work! Sure wish I lived in your neighborhood...
If it takes a 60:40 AFR to cause ignition and atmo is 20% oxygen, it's pretty simple arithmetic to guess that about 12% oxygen is required to ignite 88% woodgas. You can probably make it even richer than that since there isn't nitrogen diluting the combustion.
Great video! Now that you know the right mixture for good combustion, maybe you could create a simple engine that runs on wood gas.
Nice to see that pure woodgas really don’t burn. A lesson learned in school shown in a practical experiment - nice!
Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪
How come I see this 3 years later!?! Anyway, I love the candid-ness. And I actually laughed out loud from those explosions too. This is a great one.
It's videos like this that are the real gems of TH-cam.
Bravissimo!
This is a very interesting series! I look forward to your videos every week!
Love the series. I have a coworker who wants to do this and was really excited when I told him about your channel. Keep up the good work!
What a beautiful slow motion footage.... Brilliant demonstration of A-F ratio explosion..... Good job....
Fun to see a video with less effort like this every so often. It feels more relaxed and makes for a nice change of pace.
I'd be curious to see how you would compress the wood gas and store it in an old propane bottle.
What he said. I came here to say just that.
i agree with this. that would be awesome.
Q-Hack! I believe Mr teslonian has done that on his channel
with that small setup the compressor from a fridge would work.
I'v been planning to do that
I love woodgas!!!! Please continue the series a while. 👍
The best part of this was seeing how much fun you were having.
Popping balloons of wood gas? How about trying to compress it and put the gas into a cylinder/tank.
there is a man on youtube who is running his truck off of wood gas
I believe wood gas when pressurized cannot return to a volatile state
Wouldn't that cost more energy than the woodgass provides? Of course, a steam engine could do the hard work, but the final question is whether it's worth it... adding a weight on top of the gasometer while in use would provide more gas pressure of course... Just thinking that building the pressure necessary for the gas to go liquid would be too much work.
@@BonesMcoy Did he make the system himself? Cars and trucks can be run on wood gas no problem, and so a lot of wood gas conversion kits were made in Europe during ww2. He could've been using one of those.
Thats not a good idea, could easily explode and you can’t store hydrogen for any length of time anyway. If it explodes Carbon monoxide will spread and likely kill anyone in the vicinity as well.
Pretty fun stuff indeed! Your explanations are always so clear and concise, sweet!
I absolutely love watching your videos with my son. Just a sincere suggestion (from a guy with muscular dystrophy) whenever you are sitting around reading or studying, use a dumbbell to build up your upper body muscles. You'll thank yourself in the future. For anyone wanting to bash me for this comment...go ahead but I won't be reading it. ....and pickup a dumbbell too! ;)
I remember watching you a few years ago. I just re-subscribed as I don’t use my old account anymore. You were one of my inspirations for making fireworks! Great vids!!
i don’t comment much. but i’ve been a long term subscriber. love each one of your videos. you never let me down. amazing work always.
What you should have done with your test tank you should have put string on the test tank and suspend it above you so when it flys up in the air the string won't let it slam to the floor and your test tank will always be intact every single time
Takes me back to my spud gun days. $0.99 cans of hairspray, at a ratio of about 15:85 was good for 150 yards. Good times. Love seeing you work with this unique fuel.
I really enjoy your works...
Thanks for uploading these..
people think everyone is stupid and somehow a comment is going to save your life and you're going to be so grateful. When in fact, everyone thinks they suck. Probably even their closest friends find them disappointing.
I just wanted to say how much I love the work you do. It always makes me feel so happy when I see a new video from you. Please keep up the amazing work.
This is so cool, and a real eye opener. I figured the amount of air necessary for ignition would be a lot less. Useful! I Subscribed!
Good information. Thanks for doing the leg work and giving us a solid starting point.
I'm loving this series!!
That looked like a lot of fun! Good info too, thanks for holding the experiment and sharing the results!
It's very entertaining to watch you do these experiments. And you probably have the best video quality on youtube!
These videos are proof that *anything* can get dislikes on TH-cam. I watched all these wood gas videos straight through all at once. Good stuff.
thanks for tackling the safety issue. I think far too many people are ignorant of the dangers of flammable liquids and gases...especially gases, because they are usually invisible and sometimes odorless. you don't know there is a problem until it's too late and it happens very fast, so no time to react. highly recommend if you are not an expert you take all available and precautions. work in well ventilated areas where fuel vapors can't build up, and there are no sparks or open flames. some appliances such as refrigerators produce sparks, so be aware of that.
Just discovered your videos and they are so much fun to watch. Thanks for sharing and explaining all that you do, great shows!
Why are all of your videos so satisfying to watch?
Thanks Knighthawk, i am moving soon to a wooded acreage and I plan to produce and store woodgas for fuel. This helps my research a lot.
OK, subscribed, anyone that has as much rube goldberg engineering in their videos deserves that much!
Great video! Love watching your projects. Keep up the good work.
Night, what are your plans for a long term storage? I do understand that the water in the current storage device is used for filtration. So after you believe the wood gas has been purified enough, do you plan to find a way to compress it and store it in some type of tank? My thought process is an efficient storage tank to use as the fuel for an engine of some sort. Keep up the amazing work!
I was thinking on modifying a bicycle pump (or building a pump) so that it can intake purified wood gas to be pumped into either a metal air tank (those small metal tanks for holding air for air tools) or making a woodgas tank out of ABS or PVC (whichever generates less static) so one can be used for powering a small engine.
Wood gas is, among other factors, CO and H2. Compressing it will promote production of methanol. Now, there's still a kinetic barrier (that's why to do it deliberately one uses a catalyst and heat as well), but that's a thing to bear in mind if compressing it.
That said, methanol is a useful fuel, with higher energy density than a gas - if it wasn't toxic it'd be an almost ideal fuel for many purposes! In practice, most wood gas is a bit deficient in hydrogen to be optimal, however. Still, if one wanted to go to extremes, then making 'water gas' with the left over charcoal is how to get more out of the fuel.
@@syninys100 It would be interesting to set up a contest to see who could extract the most fuel from a given weight of wood stock.
thank you so much dude, now after watching 4 videos, I learned:
1. what is wood gas.
2. create a device to produce wood gas.
3. making that procedure pretty efficient.
4. how much air to mix to make it explode.
5. wipe out all the useless PhD's in my university. and possibly all humanity :)
I've watched you since you made your debut here. You showed me how to make multi-break shells and how to properly spike them. You likely didn't have any grey hairs and your hands were soft and your joints ungrizzled. You've come a long way on youtube and in your personal life* (unverifiable). I sort of feel like a proud parent watching his kid grow up. Keep up the awesome work, tough guy.
Ha, no, I had gray hair back then too
Very excited to see what you end up using the wood gas for.
really enjoy your videos thanks. i made the pop gun with my nephew last year and he still talks about it was a great time
I love how you can see a hint of green flame in the 60/40 mix, was the copper aerosolized when the wires arced or was there another source? Great video! I am loving the biogas series.
That was fun to watch. Oh, and informative too. Thanks.
always nice to have an upload from you, Night!
You seemed to have a genuinely good time filming this video, I would definitely like to see more videos like this.
Man oh man that was one of the best videos I've ever seen of yours I loved your happiness I love your enthusiasm I love watching you laugh because you remind me of myself when things go boom a little bit. Anyways thanks for that enjoyable few minutes that you just gave me.
I just want to say that the lighting in your videos is always spot on
Really? I thought this one I did a pretty bad job with. But thank you!
Thank you for showing how safe it can be.
Great video!
I really enjoyed!👌🏼👍🏼
Congrats, you just figured the upper explosive level of wood gas. The best explosion you'd get, if you had something like a little mixer, bc not only the ratio, but also the mixture of the two components air and woodgas is quite important. I really liked this 👍
Another way to store the gasses is to have two 50 gallon drums on their side with one directly over the other. Have a pipe that goes from the bottom of one drum to the bottom of the second drum. Have a hole in the top of the upper drum as a vent and fill the bottom drum with water. Then on the top of the lower drum you have a inlet where you add your gas (your schrader valve might work) . As you add gas to the bottom drum and the pressure builds the water has nowhere to go but through the bottom pipe up into the empty top drum and because the bottom drum is sealed and only has one exit at the bottom it will just keep pushing the water up to the top drum. The water that is now in the top drum will want to drain back into the bottom drum but cant as the bottom drum is sealed. However if you ever completely fill the bottom drum with gas it will just vent out the vent top drum.
JonnieMazda but if that does detonate/burn you're screwed. The sliding portion of the gasometer provides an easy pressure relief by moving up, the barrel would have to catastrophically fail to release the pressure.
I love how much fun YOU had in this one :)
I can’t wait to see where this experimenting goes, hopefully an amazing project (I haven’t watched the full series yet so my apologies if you already told us what the end goal is)
Really enjoy your indepth exploration and explaination. Any chance you could tackle a vegetable based biogas project?
Lyndsay Beck
He would need to modify his current gas maker to be more of a low temp boiler because methane(not pure,of course)is a byproduct of rotting plant matter(composting),which is sped up by moderate heat and high air humidity in the chamber.And that's pretty much it.
Aw man. I'm so excited about this. I am hoping to get a solar-focused wood-gas processor up and rolling someday. you've got all the tricks I need
there is just something so oddly satisfying watching stuff explode, however, your reaction is priceless ! LOL
Thanks for 10 minutes of humor in my day !
Its funny how you are blowing stuff up to see how safe it is. Enjoyed it very much
You are so boss! i am loving the new content! very good logic and information,
How cool is that colour transition of the fire ball from yellow/orange to green. Great work dude!
Great quality as always. Keep up the great work. :D
Video idea: bio fuel cannon!
If you want to go full 19ty century with your gas, I'd love to see this in a small jet power a limelight - you can use a modern butane lamp mantle or make your own with quicklime and cloth
Just wanted to say that you're my favorite TH-camr. Nothing but good content and interesting ideas. In a way, it reminds me of watching Mythbusters when I was little. Keep it up!
more videos like this, please! That was awesome.
The videos are GREAT, I subscribed and can't wait for more!!!!
Please make a detailed video on home made gasoline from plastic and diesel from tires. There is no good ones on youtube. Stay safe great video
Awesome video as always!
I imagine you’re planning quite a few wood-gas projects, but it would also be interesting to see if you can use coal instead of wood in your gasifier. The left-overs might be akin to coal-coke and be usable as a clean charcoal-like fuel for smelting.
Apart from that would be the usual Bunsen-burner, gas-stove, hot water heater, perhaps a primitive engine of some sort.
Great video!
I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure wood-gas only really works because of other chemicals other than just carbon in the wood, whereas coal is almost entirely carbon, so it's more like the charcoal you're left with after making the wood gas. Basically the coal is the by-product of a natural wood-gasification process, just under very high pressure. that's what i've been told anyway. still worth trying though i think.
I know it’s been 4 years so you might have found the answer, but there are actually charcoal gasifiers. Wood gas is updraft iirc, where charcoal is down. So little different, and the need for filtering is much less.
I've been planning on building a pallet house for awhile and was looking for a good way to have a working stove in it and I think you've helped me decide what I should go for, so thank you
A regular wood stove is more efficient than woodgas for direct heating. Either way make sure to have a carbon monoxide detector to stay safe
@@Nighthawkinlight this is going to be a very open pallet house, mainly to go camping out at the lake in the backyard whenever I want to, but I appreciate the reply!
A 1 or 2 liter bottle with a snorkel (reverse siphon?) to add air and wood gas would be ideal for this, cheap, easy to film through, and strong
The way I see it; one of the reasons the 80% air mix was less powerful, is that the hole in the container caused the explosion to be less restrained. It met the open air a lot sooner.
Fun video as always!
Great video, thanks for the upload.
Beautiful flame colours!!!
Please do some slowmotionshots of the burning woodgas and airmix inside a clear container or bag, or even inside some soapbubbles.
03:04 @NightHawkInLight I was testing my new monitor with your video and you do this to me? hahahah great video tho
Excellent instruction....the mistakes add to the knowledge base. 👏 Thank you very much
this wood gas videos are great! i'm really interested in self-sufficient stuff like growing your own food and getting your electricity from your environment (even if it's just a small generator made of a computer fan and some magnets to charge a smartphone), so all this wood gas homemade contraptions to manufacture, purify and store are really interesting to me.
and it's explained in a clear fun way in your channel! so yeah
I have had some serious explosions in my wood gasser.
These can cause a LOT of damage, and can easily cause personal injury, so due respect is required.
Stainless steel scrubbers make for one of the simplest, and most effective, flame arrestors.
Keep it safe - keep it fun :) .
Oh yeah, we all totally just have a stun gun. Nice job shopping at Supreme for supplies 👌 , makes these projects super accessible....
First of all I love your wood gas videos. It's a valuable bit of information to have. I think a really cool project in the future (not wood gas related) would be to make a reflector telescope. I think a home made telescope that works would be inspirational to your viewers. Keep up the good work.
great to watch as usual
Man where have you been. I love your channel
1 A flame can not travel through a window screen and if properly sized will pose very little obstruction to gas flow.
2. A propane bottle type tip should increase reliability of flame.
3.A curled piece of copper tubing like on a still will rapidly remove heat even if just exposed to air, even better if run through a small amount of water.
4. a tube run through the bottom or side of your gas collection system that extends to just below your maximum/minimum water level would rapidly remove particles from your gas.
5. I'm not seeing a drying system after the collection tank ? perhaps a large container of wood shavings?
6. would love to see this upgraded to 55 gal drum size with water as the moving element to create pressure inside the drum.
7 THANK YOU FOR SHARING IN A INTELLIGENT FASHION.
Can you cool the wood gas into a liquid and store it in a pressurized container, and how much gas in liquid form would a given quantity of wood produce? Great series!
Eduardo Fuentes I don't think wood gas liquifies well but it's very dangerous when pressurised, I think the carbon monoxide makes it a shock sensitive explosive so it's a very bad idea to try pressurising
* very good.
7:20, very interesting the delayed reaction and what appeared to be smoke or fire that formed leading just up to it.
TrollFaceTheMan Hey, ma man! And interesting is why there is green fire after explosion 🤔
Rough guess, it required more activation energy before it could ignite, the smoke was likely the beginnings of the reaction which could only take place in the high energy of the plasma, but once it got going the rest was able to ignite.
I'd say it's just the insulation on the wires of the igniter burning off
putting a small amount of weight on top like half a pound or so to see if the higher pressure would only dampen the explosion or rupture the sides. ether way cool video and would love to see more wood gas vids.
Thank you for sharing!
I came here to comment after you told me to :P Dude, awesome work as ever. Keep it up, TH-cam can always use intelligent content!
added to my wood gas playlist!
That high speed is gorgeous