Charcoal gasifier hybrid as an alternative to battery
 

As in title. We could add electric motor + battery pack to any car and make mild hybrid. And also 100++ kg of battery in any form. And we will be proud of getting better mpg.

3-5-10 kW of motor power is the least amount to feel any gain.

But... 3 or 5 or 10 kW is made in primitive (hermetical bucket plus simple nozzle and filter) and easy to make charcoal gasifier. And energy to weight ratio is sky-rocking in comparison with any battery. Worst case is like an half of gasoline.

By very rough calculation - 25 liter bucket, will hold about 5 kg of charcoal. Or in energy - same as 3 to 4 liter of gasoline.

Or by using this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density - ic motor efficiency of 15% - same as 41 kg of lithium battery...

If ecu stays in closed loop - it won't need any adjustment till 30% of extra fuel - it will just decrease amount of fossil fuel.

And yes, this solution do have two problems.

1. You will have to make your own charcoal.
2. Not plug in charging.

Wood and charcoal gasifiers were quite popular during WWII. Using it as a replacement to the battery in a hybrid, on the other hand, doesn't sound viable. But anyway, maybe if one could get the engine in a BAS-Hybrid vehicle optimized to run on wood gas (which tends to be quite poor on its energy content due to many impurities) and eventually recover some of the heat applied to the gasifying process, would be interesting to say the least.

Emissions?


And you would need to know departure times half an hour in advance

Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank - LOW-TECH MAGAZINE

It's been done. But you have to ask: if it has been done, but is currently not, why would that be?

41kg of lithium batteries would be MUCH more convenient to use, for one thing. And take a lesser volume up in your car compared to all the equipment for your gasifier. And produce less soot and NOx.

"And yes, this solution do have ... problems.

1. You will have to make your own charcoal.
2. Not plug in charging."

3. filtering particulates
4. no regeneration
....

I wonder if it is compressible.

Co is not really stable, but if you could have a shop compressor compress it that would give you a bit of convenience, so you can leave all the heavy stuff at home and could potentially have better filtering. But your range will be limited to very short erands.

3. with charcoal is not seriuos problem
4. add 10-20% more fuel.

I have seen those general review. Also - did have legendary Vesa book on wood gasification.


And again - yes, it will be harder to fill up. But it could be solved. Lesser volume - i am talking about charcoal gasification, not wood. It needs only small filter.

Adding power is generally not a way to improve economy. Hybrids don't get better economy because they add more electric horsepower / kw, it's because they downsize the gas engine and shut it off whenever possible, but keep total vehicle power the same with an electric assist. A lot of early American "hybrids" that simply slapped an electric motor onto the existing gas engine + transmission with minimal modifications don't get much, if any better economy.

My understanding is that charcoal is what's left over after the gasification process happens. :confused:

But maybe you could make charcoal 'cartridges' out of metal buckets, and pull the spent one and replace with a fresh 'cartridge'.

I have already considered to perform experiences with a "gas bag" like that, but I would rather try biomethane. Only downside is that it would be nearly impossible to license a setup like that in my country.

i've still planned to put a gasifier on a trailer to power a two-wheel tractor.

That sounds cool. But would you dare to drive it during the winter there? Have you already seen some video footages of Chinese 2-wheel tractors converted into some sort of rudimentary truck with an enclosed cabin? Maybe it could be a good approach to overcome this issue...

it would be something of a poor man's ATV. we'll see

I meant something like this, even though this one doesn't have a driven trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hybXFXiPtcs

Look at this one from Brazil, without a cabin but it has a driven trailer (which would be desirable to overcome the disadvantage inherent to the rear weight bias when fully-loaded under certain terrain conditions):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2pnLWWNH4o

But I still believe a fully-enclosed cab is more likely to fulfill your needs for an all-year-round commuter.