Micro Gasification
“Micro gasification for household cooking is a relatively young development. The principle, invented in 1985, took some years to develop, with the first commercial micro-gasifier available in 2003. Recently many more people are becoming aware of the concept and the potential of micro gasification. New developments come up virtually every day.
Because gasifiers require high temperatures and heat transfer into cold biomass, making them small is difficult. As such, making biomass gasification suitable for domestic cooking has been a challenge. Larger, commercially viable gasifiers exist in large industries and transportation. For example, biomass gasification powered over one million vehicles worldwide during World War II, with charcoal as the fuel source. But there was nothing similar for small applications such as household stoves. The most common and best-known industrial applications are downdraft gasifiers. Firstly, a reactor generates gases. The extracted gas is fuel for a an external device. For example, an internal combustion engine or a street lamp supplied by town gas.
Fundamentally, the challenge in cooking is a question of scale. Primarlily, gaining control over the pyrolysis, gasification and combustion in a small device for individual households. (successful designs are in the gasifier stoves download section of this site).
Micro Gasification Development
Micro gasification refers to gasifiers small enough in size to fit under a cooking pot at a convenient height. Initially conceptualised as a top-lit up-draft (abbreviated TLUD) process in 1985. Dr Thomas B. Reed in the USA developed a laboratory prototype. Independently in the 1990s, the Norwegian Paal Wendelbo developed stoves based on the same TLUD principle in refugee camps in Uganda. TLUD devices have always been intended as biomass-burning cook-stoves, with some early Do-It-Yourself backpacker efforts. Still, it was only in 2003 that the first micro-gasifier was commercially made available by Dr Thomas B. Reed when he presented the Woodgas Campstove to the outdoor camping niche market in the USA.”
Reproduced from Micro Gasification: Cooking with gas from biomass, 2011 Published by GIZ HERA, Christa Roth.
