Water, electricity and carbon make synthetic 'powergas'

By CHRIS DANIELS

An ability to make your own flammable gas is the sort of claim likely to prompt little more than a lame joke about baked beans or an invitation to pull someone's leg.

But after 10 years of hard slog and thousands of dollars of his own money, Auckland inventor Chris Newman is on the brink of taking his synthetic "powergas" project out of the shed and on to the world stage.

His ideas could prove a godsend to isolated communities and those who need a clean, non-polluting energy source to power their lives - personally and professionally.

Newman has patented a method of making synthetic gas - with water, electricity and carbon.

To make powergas in a large plastic bucket, he dons big rubber gloves and shoves his arms deep into the dirty black water, holding a graphite rod attached to an electrical generator. Sparks jitter beneath the surface, then gas bubbles rise up to be collected by a kitchen funnel attached to a tube. The gas then flows into a plastic bag pegged to a domestic clothes rack.

The bag inflates slowly with Newman's creation: powergas.

Newman says synthetic powergas can run a motor - burning no fossil fuels. It operates just like LPG or CNG but can be made in a lab or factory.

Of course, energy is required to produce the gas - but far less than the end result from the usual engine. Newman says the first run of tests at the Auckland University's thermodynamics lab have been extremely positive. Results show powergas has properties nearing 80 per cent of that in CNG. And that, from his home-built operation, is pretty good.

There is nothing new about synthetic gas, the properties and potential of which have been known for more than a century. More recent advances have, however, allowed the gas to be analysed much better, allowing it to be used more effectively in combustion engines.

And despite the sacrifices he and his family have made pursuing his dream, Newman pays tribute to those Government agencies and others who've given grants or helped with expert advice.

"I have put in the hard yards. I have walked down all the roads and knocked on all the doors until I found people who could understand what I'm talking about," he said. "Then I've asked them, independently, to evaluate what I'm doing and I've built a team."

As a result of this lengthy process, Newman now has a team of advisers and consultants to take the project to the next level - when the money comes.

That level involves a standalone plant, which should attract commercial interest from big energy players.

Newman says such a plant will suit isolated communities that are either far from power generation or at the end of insecure transmission lines. Gas could be produced and stored onsite, ready to be fed into a generator when needed. It can be produced from dirty, polluted water and the carbon fuel can even be created from old, discarded car tyres.

Newman hasn't come up with a perpetual motion machine - 25 per cent of the gas produced needs to be recycled back into the system, with more carbon and water to keep the cycle going.

"We are using a process to change the state of carbon and water, which is solid and liquid, into a gas you can burn. You can't burn water and you can't burn carbon, but if you make a new gas you can use it all."

Creating the gas - a mixture of primarily hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane - is also pollution free.

Powergas can also be used as a dual-fuel, where it can be added to other fuels to improve emissions or power. This could include being added to the methane generated from landfills which is then used in small-scale electricity generation.

The next stage for powergas is the construction of a full-scale plant. Newman is working on getting financial assistance from Technology New Zealand.