How To Make Wood Gas Biofuel (and an experimental gas collection method)

In my previous video I showed how I make my charcoal for use in fireworks. A byproduct of my charcoal making process is wood gas, a mixture of many flammable gasses that can be used as fuel. Wood gas is simple to make, but requires some careful thought to collect and process to remove tar and other contaminants. My collection method could use some work, but I did end up with a reasonable quantity of purified gas by the end.

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Thanks for watching!

[Aussiehomestead]

My grandfather bought a car dealership and garage 6 days before WW2 hit and he didn't sell a car for 6 years. He survived by selling parts and making wood gas generators that were attached to the front of cars. They were huge units about the size of washing machines but worked a treat as gas/ petrol was in short supply. He used to pump what little fuel there was out of the bowser by hooking up a bicycle to the pump and running a belt and pulley to it. My dad as a kid was the one who did most of the peddling. I still occasionally look at the photos and wonder in amazement how innovative they were back then.

[tehspamgozehere]

One method of charcoal production we used to use here was a 44 gallon drum on it's side on a short stand with a pipe for the wood gas that would feed back and under the drum and into the small fire beneath it. Little camp fire would heat the drum packed with wood, and the gas would then be burned off to continue the process. This would produce large quantities of charcoal which we would then use in a furnace for metal working.

[peterstoric]

I’m kind of obsessed with survival and starting from “The Basics” in terms of survival and working up in terms of technology. This, is incredibly interesting and useful.

[makeitbuilditloveit]

I thought this would be a complicated thing, requiring some special equipment. I was wonderfully surprised to see you using nothing more than cans, jars, and pipes to extract the gas and compress it too. Awesome!

[caretakerfochr]

Back in the day, I saw a version of this that used several tractor tire inner tubes as the collection vessels - which were easy to pressurize by placing a weighted platform over them.

[JBO]

I have watched several of these now. How is this guy so likable? Great videos.

[matthewroberts]

I'm impressed by how high quality your results were with such a simple process. You managed to distill quite a pure byproduct from something that's essentially renewable. All using methods so basic a high school student could replicate them. I think this kind of work is valuable.

[Viercey]

"Experimental Collection Method"
Makes a Gravity Bong

[junkmail]

4:00 To remove the steam, a long spiral descending coil in the form of a cone, even with ice resting in the conical coil, would condense the steam to liquid to drip out the bottom(like a classical still), leaving much of the volatiles to burn. (some might also condense like tars and creosote, would need to control the final gas temperature to prevent this)

[stephenstarko]

This is really cool. For more efficient collection and pressurization of the gas, you could use something taller like a water barrel, and fix your collection chamber at the bottom of it at the start

[ZeffAU]

Need to make a nozzle with venturi oxygen mixing in like on a torch or bunsen burner etc... your gas rushing by pulls air in the holes at the base, they mix in the nozzle and with that might be able to make a flame that sustains itself

[ocsam]

I have a Solo stove (portable backpacking stove) that"s configuration is set up to burn the wood gas coming out of the stove. I didn't know the working theory of charcoal or wood gas but watching your video enlightened me as to what's going on. There are thousands of processes and chemical reactions around us that we see but don't understand, think about or appreciate what's actually happening right there in front of us. Nice work.

[rheinerftvideo]

As far as I know from my grandpa when they had wood gas to run their cars after WWII here in Germany, the big advantage is you don´t need to store woodgas at high pressure.
After you cleaned the gas from tar with some water cooling and a sawdust filter, you can blow and collect it inside a balloon. Even the balloon will give you enough pressure to make it usable to run an engine. Just make sure it´s a vacuum system with no oxygen coming in.

[waynegilchrist]

As usual I, and I am sure I could say, "we" are not disappointed. I have known about this process and that it was used during WWII but I have often wondered how they may have filtered the smoke and tar from the newly recovered wood gas. This was a great way to do in my opinion. I have had the opportunity to talk with a few people who had experience with this during that time period and one of those was a dear uncle. He said he watched the Germans do this and one of the things they did was to use the freshly made charcoal to heat the next round of wood chunks. One other rambling thought was that when you were 1st lighting your gas after weighting it with the rocks. I made a similar in water collector for a hydrogen generator. I had some success by putting the collection vessel in a ring that allowed it to go up and down but it couldn't tip over. I know that natural gas piped in our homes only has a few pounds of pressure so I placed a two lb. weight on top to give me equal pressure (don't know if my tube size and nozzle made a huge difference or not) for and even less poppy burn. It worked out well for HHO gas torch. I don't want to suggest anyone handle such HHO, just saying what I did was ok for myself and my situation. All gases have potentially dangerous characteristics.

[krissmek]

People make the process seem so complicated thanks for making it simple.

[SouthMainAuto]

Very cool experiment! I actually have a friend that converted a Geo Tracker to run on wood gas and it works very well. Much better than I thought it would. Thanks again for sharing your method!
--Eric O.

[stevemorgan]

Thank you! What an amazing video! I never knew that heating an organic material such as wood in the absence of oxygen would cause the chemical bonds in the solids to break down and form gasses. This is absolutely fascinating!

[jaredsimpson]

Came from Codyslab recommending one of your videos and I'm hooked. You thoroughly explain everything, have very clever designs and ideas and your editing is fantastic. The best part is your huge grin when you see something working the way you wanted it to 😂 You are one cool ass dude and it's nice to see innovative people like you because this world seems to be losing people like you, Cody, and other YouTubers alike because we rely so heavily on corporations and gov't to do the work for us while we are the ones that get screwed in the end for letting them do so.

[loranceradu]

This knowledge is so practical and extremely useful for rural areas anywhere in the world

[dogmeat]

The Quality of life in this clip is off the charts