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Wood gas is flammable because of the tar, carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane content.
Wood gas can be used to power cars with ordinary internal combustion engines if a wood gasifier is attached. This was quite popular during World War II in several European countries because the armies active in the war had all available oil. In more recent times, wood gas has been suggested as a clean and efficient method to heat and cook in developing countries, or even to produce electricity when combined with a gas turbine or internal combustion engine. Compared to the WWII technology, gasifiers have become less dependent on constant attention due to the use of sophisticated electronic control systems, but it remains difficult to get clean gas from them.
A wood gasifier takes wood chips, sawdust, charcoal, coal or similar materials as fuel and burns these incompletely in a fire box, producing solid ashes and soot (which have to be removed periodically from the gasifier and constantly from the gas) and wood gas. The wood gas can then be filtered for tars and soot/ash particles, cooled and directed to e.g. an internal combustion engine, gas turbine, stirling engine or fuel cell to produce electricity. Most of these devices have severe requirements to the purity of the wood gas, so the gas often has to pass through extensive gas cleaning in order to remove or convert ("crack") tars and particles. If you plan to run wood gas in an internal combustion engine, get to know your local cylinder head repair shops.
The quality of the gas from different gasifier varies very much. Staged gasifiers, where pyrolysis and gasification occur separately (instead of in the same reaction zone as was the case in e.g. the WWII gasifiers) can be engineered to produce essentially tar-free gas (<1 mg/Nm3), while single reactor fluid-bed gasifiers may exceed 50.000 mg/Nm3 tar. The fluid bed reactors have the advantage of being much more compact (more capacity per volume and price). Depending on your intended use of the gas, tar can be beneficial as well; increasing the higher heating value of the gas.
The first wood gasifier was apparently built by Bischof in 1839Events January 9 The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process. January 19 British East India Company captures Aden January 20 In the Battle of Yungay, Chile defeats a Peruvian and Bolivian alliance. February 24 William Ot. The first vehicle powered by wood gas was built by Parker in 1901Events January 1 World celebrates what is regarded as the start of the new century. Zero-ists' argument that new century should be celebrated in 1900 rejected worldwide). January 1 The six colonies that make up Australia are federated as under an act of t. Around 1900, many cities delivered wood gas (centrally produced typically from coal) to residences. Natural gasNatural gas is a gas produced by the anaerobic decay of organic material. It is usually found in oil fields and natural gas fields, but is also generated in swamps and marshes (where it is called swamp gas or marsh gas , in landfill sites, and during dige began to be used only in 1930.