Driving on wood gas

This is a rare Swedish video in English. Scandinavians are masters at the art of running cars on wood gas but their videos tend to be in their native language. All credit to the Vedbil team.



One thing to remember is that automotive gasification does not have to be as messy as the Vedbil car. This team is obviously having fun with engineering and have put aesthetics to one side for the moment. Driving a car on wood gas does not necessarily mean dirt and a car that looks like something out of Back to the Future.

Simplified wood gas stove

Here is a slight variation on the MIDGE stove theme. The design is from a paper by The Biomass Energy Foundation entitled A Wood-Gas Stove for Developing Countries. The main difference between this stove and the MIDGE is this stove uses a stacked can system.

Combustion is carried out in a single walled can, unlike the MIDGE can-in-can method. Wood gas rises to the top of this can to another (upper can) suspended slightly above the lower combustion can.

Between the two cans there is a separation gap (by way of metal spacers between the two cans) where air from outside is sucked in and ignites in the upper can. Inside the upper can there is a third can, known as a 'wick', which holds the flame within the stove. The 'wick' is a can, suspended inside the upper can, with the lower end open and the upper end sealed.

A detailed description of this stove and its performance can be found in the paper A Wood-Gas Stove for Developing Countries.

FEMA simplified wood gas generator in action

This is a very well produced video of the FEMA simplified wood gas generator.

Construction of a simplified wood gas generator

These are a popular set of plans for constructing a simplified wood gas generator for fuelling internal combustions engines. They were developed by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) so that people could continue to use internal combustion engines during a fuel shortage.

The design is simpler to build than the FAO design but many constructors believe it not to produce gas of as good a quality therefore cleaning/filtering the gas is very important.

Documents in HTML and PDF.

Producer Gas for Motor Vehciles

Published in 1942, Producer Gas for Motor Vehicles is a fine book on automotive wood gas. It is probably too complete a book, covering commercial gas producing equipment at a time when petrol supply to the general public was rationed.

However, the book includes photographs and line drawings for all the producer gas plants of the day. If you want ideas on building your own producer plant and how to integrate it then this is the book to have.

If you wish to buy this book then I recommend you contact Lindsay Books in the US or Camden Books in the UK, where I bought my copy. Neither company lists the book now but they might have a copy lying around somewhere.