Gazogène or Producer Gas

[Patbretagne]

Did you ever have this sort of attachment in US, basically converts wood to gas, scrubs it and uses it as carburant.
Pat

[Fordlords]

I can't say as I have seen anything like that tested or used in the USA. I do have a lot of science background, and know that the only chemical, "fuel," that can derive from wood is methanol, an alcohol, and it can be used in carburetors. (Mixed with nitromethane it is a popular fuel to burn in tiny RC car and plane engines.) But, it takes a LOT of wood to produce very little combustable liquid methanol, inefficient to the point of uselessness. Just about all comercially available chemical methanol is now man-made rather than derived from wood, yet is still much more expensive than petroleum based fuels.

Who knows, some day the, "Mr Fusion," in Doc's Back to the Future Delorean might be reality though

-Fordlords-

[beaconlight]

Pat is that a production working tractor or a protype test bed? So many interesting curiosities show up here.
Bill

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

It was a little before my time, but I beleive there were some in use during WW2 and possibly during the depression, but having the luxury of cheap gas, after the war, pretty well did away with them.

[Rudi]

Pat:

My Dad had pics of Germany after the 1st war and during the 2nd... many types of equipment used Rube Goldberg apparatus such as that to get em from point a to point b.. from cars, to trucks, to buses and it seems -- to farm tractors.

Put it mildly, necessity is the mother of invention, and I believe that Europeans were very inventive during those years.... and of course later on during the Warsaw Pact states period of occupation...

Interesting to say the least.

[yaume]

the only chemical, "fuel," that can derive from wood is methanol, an alcohol, and it can be used in carburetors. (Mixed with nitromethane it is a popular fuel to burn in tiny RC car and plane engines.) But, it takes a LOT of wood to produce very little combustable liquid methanol, inefficient to the point of uselessness.

When wood burns, flames are burning gaz (indeed every flame are burning gaz). In a Gazogène, burning wood (or coal) heats some pieces of woods placed in another chamber. while heating these pieces of wood produce flamable gaz (not only methanol). But this gaz doesn't self light because there is no O2 in the chamber.

After then the engine works like a LPG engine. (almost...)

Gazogène where the only way to use cars (except military purposes) during WW2 in France.

I believe that the tractor in the picture was a serial tractor. many of them where retrofitted to gasoline after WW2.

[beaconlight]

n Thank you yaume. The end product of this would be charcoal as well as the Gas. It must have been difficult to regulate the pressure and volume of gas produced. The charcoal could be used for cooking and heating for I am sure that energy for those purposes was in short supply too.

bill

[Hengy]

Along with being a Cub enthusiast, I am also a VW Beetle Enthusiast... Used to own a 1965 Beetle back in the early 90's and LOVED IT...it was my daily driver.

I have several Beetle Books which show the history of the car from its inception. Basically, this car was designed as an economical car for every German in Hitler's eutopia, but when the country went to war, the design was transferred over to military applications...from their equivalent of the US "Jeep" using a heavier floorpan to a "Schwimmwagen" which was an amphibious vehicle. They also tacked the VW body to the "jeep" chassis to transport the "brass" in the war effort.

Where I am going with this is that I have seen pictures of VW Beetles on beefed up chassis' with a "producer gas" unit in the nose of the car. The picture showed a man putting wood into a hatch in the nose, but I had NO earthly idea how that would work...burning wood to run an internal combustion engine...

Well now I know!!!

Pretty ingenious, if you ask me... Inefficient... but ingenious!!

Mike in La Crosse, WI