Gasifier Calculations

Feasibility of wood vs. charcoal - volume considerations

• start with a nice graph of energy density of fuels - [1]
• Wood pellets - 640 kg/cu m [2]
• Volume density of wood chips- 240-520 480 kg/cu m [3]
• Volume density of charcoal - 240-480 kg/cu m [4] ; 208 [5]
• Energy volume density of wood - 14-18 MJ/kg
• Energy volume density of charcoal - 30 MJ/kg [6], [7]
• gasoline is 45 MJ/kg, or 120 MJ/gal
• 1MJ = .3 kWhr -> 1 kG of charcoal has 9 kWhr of energy, tapped at 10% - gets us ~ 1 kWhr of energy. 1 kW hour of energy per .5 - 1 gallon of fuel
• 1 cu yd = 200 gallons, 1 cu m = ? 264 gal
• 4kg of charcoal has the same energy as 1 gallon of gas. If engine is deranged for char gas, 1 gallon of gas is 8 kg of charcoal.
• 1 gallon of char is about 1 kg of char.