Dear Ken, Tom, and all. Ken, I have always been a fan of your work on listers, even though I strive for larger units, the work you have done with these great slow rpm units, I think in IMO, you have set a great ground breaking president, that it will be hard to keep up to.
Keep up the great work ! P.S. I have a Caterpillar 3208 truck engine that is just dying to get retrofitted...... (someday). Greg On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Ken Boak <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Tom, and Greg, > > Thankyou for clarifying that it is the ~50% nitrogen content in producer > gas that gives it a high octane number, and the simple rule of thumb that > links the octane number and the maximum compression ratio. > > Having read IISc literature about running converted diesel engines on wood > gas at 17:1 CR, this inspired me to continue with the conversion project of > the Lister type engine at All Power Labs, so that it could be run at it's > stock compression ratio of 17:1 on wood gas. > > The conversion involved keeping the original diesel injector and fitting a > spark plug through a side port, which gave direct access to the spherical > combustion chamber. > > The rationale behind this conversion, was to allow the diesel engine to be > started and run as a diesel, providing immediate thermal, pneumatic and > mechanical energy, which could be used to start up the downdraft gasifier. > When the gasifier was producing good, engine grade gas, the diesel fuel > could be shut off, the woodgas introduced to the air intake through a > mixing valve and the engine would continue to run in spark ignition mode on > woodgas. > > This approach seems to make absolute economic sense, where the engine > would only be started and run for 5 minutes or so on diesel (or biodiesel, > WVO) and for the remainder of the daily duty would be run on wood gas. > > The small team working on the Lister conversion project at the April > weekend workshop, found that the 6hp engine and alternator was still > capable of generating 2.5 kWe electrical power in wood gas mode at 600 rpm > - hardly any power derating from what it could achieve at 600 rpm in > diesel mode. > > The Lister type engine is a simple durable engine, still produced, sold > and in common usage around the developing world. It's basic construction > lends itself to this simple spark ignition conversion so that it can > benefit from the much reduced running costs offered by woodgas operation. > > > regards > > > > Ken Boak > > > _______________________________________________ > Gasification mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org > > for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: > http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ > >
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