Wood gas distillation

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Hello, Here is a video I made of my apparatus of trying to distill wood gas. Wood gas is made by boiling wood, sticks twigs, without oxygen in a hot fire.

So here I have a paint bucket sealed and a copper tube coming out of it. I filled it with "dry" wood chips, sticks, ect.

Then I put it over a fire and it boiled out gases and goes thourgh three loops of copper coil in a cold water bath. And then comes out and drips into a cup.

The way it looks to me, it seems that this makes a bunch of tar. The liquid that comes out is really smelly and icky looking. My goal was to make methanol fuel as an alternative energy. But it seems that the whole messy liquid only has a little alchohol in it, because I poured it on the fire, and it seemed to put it out, hehe.

Please help tell me what this stuff is, and how I may use it. And be careful, this stuff is toxic and dangerous if in the eyes, skin, or ingested.

Thank you very much for watching, and comment.

Channel: Science & Technology
Uploaded: June 19, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Author: BasementBen

Length: 00:04:06
Rating: 4.00
Views: 2021

Tags: woodgas distilation woodgasdistillation methanolfuel

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Video Comments:
Biggriz86 (July 24, 2008 at 3:29 am)
one other thing i almost forgot about, im toying with the idea of routing the hot wood gas through an automotive catalytic converter. They use the same catalysts as the Fischer Tropish process, used to create synthetic diesel fuel, the high temp of the wood gas, and the nature of its chemical makeup, in theory, would produce liquid fuel useable in diesel engines. just a theory, but something i plan to test out.
BasementBen (July 24, 2008 at 7:34 am)
That sounds like a great idea, just be careful not to gum up the platinum/rodium catylyst with the tar ^_^. It would be interesting what would come out of it, maybe it would break down some of the complex compounds into more simpler compounds.
Well have a good time and too bad you dont have a camera, but thats okey>

Ben.
Biggriz86 (July 24, 2008 at 2:15 am)
im using the pepsi can camp stove to heat a soda can gasifier to test gas production of different samples. i used damp dead leaves today with promising results, but bamboo slivers were far better, ill be testing hardwood shavings tomorrow. I dont have a decent cam or id post up vids of my own to contribute. If you have bamboo, play with it, i had a 12in yellow flame out of the top of my can for a good minute and a half (the can melted from the stove), from about 8in of .5in bamboo.
BasementBen (July 24, 2008 at 7:31 am)
WHoa! bamboo must be really fast release>
Biggriz86 (July 23, 2008 at 5:06 pm)
you have a very nice setup here, but if youre looking to seperate the wood tar from the alcohol, youll want to modify it slightly. take the tube from the paint can, and route it into a bottle of water, so that the tube vents the gas under the surface. the water acts like a filter, the acetic acid and wood tar stays in solution, the methanol gas bubble up and out, use a second tube to vent the gas into a coil type setup that you already have, to further lower the temp and condence the alcohol.
BasementBen (July 23, 2008 at 5:28 pm)
Hey, that is a great idea, and it makes sense to work. I think that the tar liquifies at a higher temperature, so It should work to collect in the water. It might be hard to get pure methanol though, dirty up a gas tank?
Thanks much for your help, I will try to give it a shot>

Ben
Biggriz86 (July 23, 2008 at 9:41 pm)
in terms of dirtying up a gas tank, given the small ammounts made, and the "dirty" quality of the fuel. I would suggest either a second distilation of the liquid to remove the tars, or at least filtering to remove the particlate matter, and using it to power a lawn mower or chainsaw or something. Thats what im planning on doing. using the lawn clippings and dead leaves in the yard to power the lawn mower and chainsaws.
BasementBen (July 23, 2008 at 9:49 pm)
Hey, keep in touch with me, I got the same ideas, lol! Alternative gasoline would be great :)

Yea, i would say make about 1 liter of wood gas liquid and then put it on the stovetop and boil it at a low temp, (170F) and ethenol would only come out, no water or tar.

Thanks again for your help, keep up your ideas

Ben
BasementBen (June 28, 2008 at 9:45 pm)
I just noticed I can hear that Ice cream truck in the backround in this video, lol!
BasementBen (June 21, 2008 at 10:00 pm)
Ok, thanks. That sounds a good idea. It seems that it is flamable, but contains some icky stuff that makes it burn like steam or something. Maybe to get methanol fuel for engine, Heat it up to 180 degrees, and alchohols will evaporate, and other stuff like the tar and junk will stay.
Overall it seems ineficient to get a little fuel, but its worth the gas prices, and by the way, its free to do. ^_^

Thanks for commenting the idea,

Ben