Gasification with wood

Wood gas (syngas) - a forgotten fuel rediscovered with the Burkhardt wood gas generator

Wood gasifiers are best known from the post-war years when, because of the fuel shortage, we had to be inventive to keep things moving. In the wood gasifier, pyrolysis reactions take place in which, by mixing with air at high temperature, the wood fuel is converted not only into coke or charcoal but also a flammable wood gas that can be extracted, cleaned and put to further use.

Gasification with wood pellets and wood chips

In the wood pellet gasifier, the wood pellets are fed into the reactor from below. An updraught cocurrent flow gasification takes place there, while forming a stationary fluidised bed. This is generated with an airflow over a side-channel compressor. A bed material is not necessary here, since the fuel stabilises by itself. Rising means that the stages of gasification (drying, pyrolysis, oxidation and reduction) are passed through from the bottom to the top.

By contrast, conversion takes place in the wood chip gasifier reactor in a descending process in the co-current flow and in the fixed bed. The fuel is fed in from above, and the resulting wood gas and charcoal exit the gas reactor downwards. In addition, the new development uses a multi-stage gasification system: This means that the three process steps – pyrolysis, oxidation and reduction – take place in one reactor.

With our patented process we achieve constant gasification and the resulting optimised, sequential operations with almost complete transfer to the utilisable wood gas. Only the non-decomposable minerals of the biomass remain as ash content. Substances containing tar are almost completely disintegrated by the uniform reaction conditions and the long dwell time at high temperature ranges, which favours combustion within the engine.

Thus, we are able to achieve a lifespan of over 8,000 h/a with consistent performance.