Carbo Consult & Engineering (Pty) Ltd, System Johansson Gas Producers, South Africa
Gero Eckermann, November 10, 2006

My partner Guenther Freudendahl and I are delighted about Paul Anderson's kind reference to Gus Johansson, our friend and mentor, who passed away at the age of nearly 84 on 09 March 2005.

Gus retired from his co-founder position of one of South Africa’s major civil engineering companies in 1984. To realize his dream of many decades and keep his gray matter active, he devoted all his time to invent a TAR FREE Gasifier, based on the 2nd world war Imbert down draft method. The result came swiftly: in the System Johansson, tar is cracked at ±1,500ºC --- a breakthrough of extraordinary proportions.

Guenther and I founded Carbo Consult & Engineering (Pty) Ltd in early 1994, in close collaboration with Gus, investing substantial work and resources to document the engineering of five types of gasifiers with an output capacity range from 120 to 850 Nm³ tar-free gas per hour, with complete sets of workshop drawings, manufacturing manuals, layout drawings and operation and maintenance manuals.

We also initiated basic engineering to establish design data for five larger gasifiers with an output capacity range from 1100 to 2500 Nm³ gas per hour.
Substantial development work was done by redesigning the hearth reaction zone to widen the range of suitable feedstock to biomass, sawdust- and agricultural waste hard compacted briquettes.

We currently produce four types of TAR FREE Gasifiers only, in the following kWe (kWth) ranges:

1. A 120Nm³/h, with a max output of 40kWe (180kWth),
2. A 180Nm³/h, with a max output of 64kWe (275kWth),
3. A 300Nm³/h, with a max output of 112kWe (460kWth) and
4. A 450Nm³/h, with a max output of 160kWe (685kWth)

The basic design data for the 850 Nm³/h (400kVA) and bigger plants are available, but have not yet undergone industrialization due to little or no demand.

Since cost is always one of the first questions asked, please find our budgetary, ex works prices and cost ratios in the attachment.

I am shying away from giving you the cost per energy unit, as this depends on the cost in your country of a ton of biomass. “Ignoring” the once off purchase cost, you can say as a thumb rule: 1kg of biomass produces 1kVA (0.8kWe).

The size of wood block fuel, or hard compacted briquettes, for the four types range from 60mm long x 20cm² cross area to 110mm x 40cm² cross area, with a max allowable moisture content of 20%. For additional information about the fuel topic, please consult para 14 of our brochure in the website www.carboconsult.com. It will also provide answers to a host of additional questions which come to mind.