Best system to use woodgas in a chemical fuelcell reaction ?

[hartiberlin]

Hi ALl,
what would be the best process reaction to use cleaned  woodgas
in some kind of homemade fuelcell ?

As we get H2, CO and O2 gas out of the woodgas,
when it has gone through a water bubbler(cleaner)
the best thing would be, not to burn it, but chemically convert
it inside a fuelcell into electricity.

How could this be best made without expensive "platin"
catalysators ?

Regards, Stefan.

[Slipmatwax]

Cleaning the wood gas is the key. If you use filters maintenance becomes an issue and specialty materials have to be used. Remember you are dealing with syn-gas so everything has to be leak tight. If you use water to clean the gas, you have to deal with cleaning it or disposing of it...it has toxins in it. Any filters or bubblers require additional fans also.

I don't see a benefit of converting wood gas to straight hydrogen. I am dealing with an advanced gasification equipment company who are use the wood gas in a seconadry combustion chamber (oxidizer) and use the heat as heat for drying wood veneer. They are also studying the conveyance of the syngas, without the oxidizer into a conventional boiler where it will replace the existing natural gas feed.

These guys are on the leading edge of developing biomass combustion and gasification systems and there is no holy grail to producing electricity from it other than extracting as much heat from the biomass as possible and using it to produce steam to run a turbine. Using syngas to run a turbine is in the early development stage and struggles with low BTU ratings from the wood and ensuring air is perfectly clean before it hits the compressor.