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MAKE YOUR OWN CHARCOAL

From: shannon@som-uky.campus.mci.net (shannon wagoner)
Newsgroups: misc.survivalism
Subject: Re: bio-filter? cheap/home made?
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 05:58:23 GMT

Blue chili (bluechili@aol.com) wrote:

I have a friend who makes his own charcoal in fairly large amounts and its easy. 

 Take a 55 gal barrel - the kind with lid that fastens down - and set it on blocks. Punch a hole in the top. Fill with small blocks of hardwood. Build fire under barrel. First steam comes out. Very visible. Then it changes to a gas. Light the gas. The gas will burn with a blue flame. When you can no longer keep a flame going, let the fire go for a while and then put out. Let charcoal cool and remove. Before you ask, the barrel will not explode when you light the gas because steam has driven out the oxygen.

I wonder if it would be easy to capture this flammable gas (methane right?)- it might be a easy way to generate fuel for a generator to make electricity as well :)

Yes it is very possible, in fact many internal combustion engines have been run on such "wood gas".  The resulting fractions you get from destructive distillation of wood include a variety of tars and oils and the like.  

The problems you'll find trying to convert an engine to run on such a fuel is the lack of uniformity in what you get from the wood.  

The first products will be the lightest ones, moving on up into the heavier tars and creosote.  So you have to constantly be adjusting the fuel/air ratios to stay close to stoichiometric as possible.

 

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