Gasification is a process that converts carbonaceous materials, such as coal, petroleum, biofuel, or biomass, into carbon monoxide and hydrogen by reacting the raw material at high temperatures with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam. The resulting gas mixture is called synthesis gas or syngas and is itself a fuel. Gasification is a method for extracting energy from many different types of organic materials.

The advantage of gasification is that using the syngas is potentially more efficient than direct combustion of the original fuel because it can be combusted at higher temperatures or even in fuel cells, so that the thermodynamic upper limit to the efficiency defined by Carnot's rule is higher or not applicable. Syngas may be burned directly in internal combustion engines, used to produce methanol and hydrogen, or converted via the Fischer-Tropsch process into synthetic fuel. Gasification can also begin with materials that are not otherwise useful fuels, such as biomass or organic waste. In addition, the high-temperature combustion refines out corrosive ash elements such as chloride and potassium, allowing clean gas production from otherwise problematic fuels.

That over one million vehicles in Europe ran with onbord gasifiers during WWII fueled only with wood and charcoal, as gasoline and diesel was unavailable.

And that Long before there was biodiesel and ethanol, we actually succeeded in a large-scale, alternative fuels redeployment. One which curiously used only cellulosic biomass, not oil and sugar based biofuel sources which famously compete with food.

The process of gasification to produce combustible from organic feed stocks was used in blast furnaces over 180 years ago. The possibility of using this gas for heating and for power generation was soon realized and there emerged in Europe producer gas systems, which used charcoal and peat as feed material. At the turn of the century petroleum gained wider use as a fuel, but during both world wars and particularly World War II, shortage in petroleum supplies led to widespread re-introduction of gasification. By 1945 the gas was being used to power trucks, buses and agricultural and industrial machines. It is estimated that there were close to 1,200,000 Vehicles running on producer gas all over the world.

After World War II the availability of cheap fossil fuels led to general decline in the producer gas industry.

You might think of gasification as burning a match, but interrupting the process by piping off the clear gas you see right above the match, not letting it mix with oxygen and complete combustion.

The production of generator gas (producer gas) called gasification, is partial combustion of solid fuel (biomass) and takes place at temperatures of about 1000C. The reactor is called a gasifier.

The combustion products from complete combustion of biomass generally contain nitrogen, water vapor, carbon dioxide and surplus of oxygen. However in gasification where there is a surplus of solid fuel (incomplete combustion) the products of combustion are combustible gases like Carbon monoxide (CO), Hydrogen (H2) and traces of Methane and nonuseful products like tar and dust. The production of these gases is by reaction of water vapor and carbon dioxide through a glowing layer of charcoal. Thus the key to gasifier design is to create conditions such that

a) biomass is reduced to charcoal

b) charcoal is converted at suitable temperature to produce CO and H2

Garringer Gasifier has done just that. With the Libarator Gasifer that uses our downflow technology that increase the biomass reduction into charcoal a trade secret of Garringer Gasifer INC.