Photo taken by Pikatan Tahta Prabhu Diwangkara. Mt. Gede Java, Indonesia

After hours of peering into the wonder of infinity, on top of an ancient volcanic mountain, you begin to yearn for a crispy black marshmallow. Your toil of rubbing sticks together has beget a bright fire, but now another query of wonder is upon you: ” why was there smoke before the fire?” Thinking back you discover that the heat from the friction of rubbing sticks releases gasses, which ignite from the heat and surrounding midnight air. Eureka! The wood itself does not burn. It has been pyrolyzed.

The video is of a gasifier that does this action, but captures most of the gases before they are burned.The feed-stock is charcoal in the above video, which is heated inside the downdraft gasifier until it releases moisture, gases, ash and some tar. The aim is to capture CO and H2; these gases then can be used for direct combustion (as see in the video) or can be used for electrical power production.

Fernando and Christoni — undergraduates at the Agricultural Institute of Bogor — check  for concentrations level of CO and H2. i.e. seeing if it catches a flame.

Corn cob waste that has been densified into a briquette and then carbonized. It is essentially charcoal and ready to be burned.