Natural Gas Compressor - Where to get a low pressure cheapie?
 

I have been secretly (or not so secretly) locating CNG parts and vehicles in leiu of the set of Wisconsin CNG stations that will be coming online (supposedly) late spring.

But something that is alluding me is a at home pump. My logic is that the NG at home is cheaper and that since around town I rarely need to travel much over 20 miles, I should be able to get by with a low pressure NG compressor AKA 500-1000psi.

Anyway this is Something that seems to be taboo for some reason. I know there are alternative natural gas compressors out there (or compressors that are suitable for compressing natural gas with a few mods)

But what ones are easiest to locate used and inexpensive, while still being reliable?

Given the high price and very low reliability of the Phill and related units I am curious if anyone knows of alternative compressors from other sectors capable of compressing natural gas effiently and at home?

I know compressors exist for welding and other applications so I would guess one of those lower volume / more efficient units would be suitable to fill up your NG vehicle for around town use (aka less than 3000psi)

Any ideas what brands or models of pumps are out there that could handle reliably pumping the small volumes of NG I would use day to day? My goal would be a 1000psi pump or so.

I have heard rumblings that there are inexpensive common used pumps that are up to the task but many of the forums delete them out or close the topic.

Wouldn't mind some been there done that on the subject of the pump.

Thank You
Ryan

dude, I am TOTALLY looking for a good solution also.

I have looked at air compressors for scuba diving. And I have thought about making one from scratch using a hydraulic ram driven by air, but surely there is something out there already........

??? I don't think I would mess with anything that was not from an INDUSTRIAL application. There are devices to compress gas for welders and the like as I said, not always CNG, sometimes H2. I know these exist because I have seen them in use, I just have no knowledge of the brands, models and types of pumps that would be best for this purpose.

My intent would be to have something that is not only industrial and designed for constant use but also something that is reliable, rebuildable, efficient (compressing to 3600psi is much less efficient/reliable than to say 1000psi) and preferably already designed to be pumping some sort of flammable gas.

I don't think I would mess with things that don't handle flammable materials, scuba compressors handle semi flammable materials but I don't think 02 counts.

We will have to wait for someone that has messed with industrial applications, there are many many compressors out there so there has to be something that meets my criteria that I could get on the used market. When it comes to something flammable I see no reason to reinvent the wheel when its already been done for 60 years.

Do you have a standard air compressor ?

If so, you may want to look at this.

Low Pressure ANG Tanks (30-70 bars)

Adsorbed Natural Gas Technology Applications

One of our members, "Staska", posted it in another thread.

It may be something to consider.

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Here is some more on ANG.

http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/prepr...08-98_0575.pdf

Even know this is about "Large scale storage" but it has a lot of useful info.

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Thats all well and good but how do I buy vaporware?

Well...Thats a problem that needs to be addressed. Since I have not investigated being able to purchase a tank, I don't know if one can.

However, it may be possible to DIY.

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As far as I can tell they talk about tanks, show tanks, but don't actually sell any tanks.

As for DIY we would need to get one of the college students that made the corn cobs tank to divulge how they made theirs.

I am guessing its more complex than getting an expired CNG tank, removing the fittings and filling it with burn corn cobs.

(although I would love to see one of the guys who actually worked on such things talk here, might be half a chance of seeing it in real world if DIY happened.)

Cheers
Ryan

Yes, that would be great if we could get one of those students to come here.

I've spent some time researching this today and here is some of what I found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon

Alternative Energy and Fuel News: Adsorbed Natural Gas: fuel storage solution?

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/cleancit...11_pfeifer.pdf

http://144.206.159.178/ft/69/867987/15147188.pdf

There are a lot of technical papers on the web about this.

This doesn't seem to be rocket science. One should be able to come up a usable tank of their own design easily. Most of the articles quote 500psi (35 bar). However, since you only require a short range vehicle, a propane tank with activated carbon filled by a standard two stage oil less air compressor to say maybe 175 psi should do the trick.

Activated carbon is not that expensive in bulk.

Google

Time to experiment...;)

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My recently study on ANG, in 16 bar ratio or lpg tank max pressure and "standart" activated carbon show for 1 to 50 storage ratio to methane ratio. Not so fancy as stated with special activated carbon - 1 to 170 or more, but sufficient to beat EV in range and efficiency.

http://oi39.tinypic.com/wsr49.jpg

Later, i will post best schoolar articles, found so far.

One of the best, general testing without fancy tech or know-how.

http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/prepr...09-65_0132.pdf

http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/prepr...03-96_0246.pdf