ALL Power Labs works with universities, high schools, and government institutes around the world to advance the science of gasification and help develop sustainable and renewable technologies. APL can help teachers and students alike build programs, set up research projects, and teach classes on a broad array of biomass thermal conversion processes. Always eager to support advances in the science and technology of not only gasification but of all carbon-lean biomass energy projects, APL offers continuing support to numerous academic and industrial research programs.
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York – November 2021
The Advanced Energy and Technology Center at Stony Brook University, which is a part of the State University of New York system has installed one a PP30 at the Advanced Energy Center (AEC) lab. They are operating the unit as part of their graduate program in Chemical and Molecular engineering, and plan to study the physics of the operation of the gasifier and the chemistry of its producer gas product.
Their Power Pallet is an ideal match for this program, and we hope their mission of education and training to advance our renewable energy goals will help them in their efforts to solve some of the energy dilemmas facing the world.
University of Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica – November 2019
APL provided a new PP30 to the University of Costa Rica. Their School of Agronomy is committed to carrying out scientific and technological research in agriculture, contributing to the development of society, and that promotes transformations needed for the future health and success of the environment and society. We are hopeful that their use and study of APL equipment can help them further these goals.
Ecostage, Tokyo, Japan – October 2019
APL provided a new PP30 to Ecostage. Ecostage believes the earth where we live is irreplaceable, and that they have an obligation to contribute to the global environment as a responsibility to future generations. Their work with alternative energy deployment is welcome and important, and APL is proud to help them build the biomass component of their environmental efforts.
Hertz Ranch, Malibu, California, USA – January 2019
As Part of our partnership with the Skysource/Skywater Alliance, the prototype WEDEW Atmospheric Water Distiller, powered by a PP30, was installed at David Hertz and Laura Doss-Hertz’s ranch in Malibu, California. Ongoing development, following our winning of the Water Abundance XPrize, is aimed at producing portable units able to be deployed at disaster sites worldwide.
Sierra Resource Conservation District, June 2019
APL provided a PP20 to the Sierra Resource Conservation District (SRCD), the entity responsible for managing and protecting more than 3000 square miles of forest and foothills in the Sierra Nevada and Central Valley. SRCD operates the gasifier in wooded areas that have experienced wildland fire and insect infestations to demonstrate the PP20’s capacity to reduce forest fuel loads and wildfire risk while sequestering carbon and generating on-demand electricity. These activities are part of SRCD’s recently launched Carbon Management Program that aims to understand and manage the carbon cycle for both ecological and economical benefit. APL and SRDC were awarded funding for these activities by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
DeNova, Frederiksværk, Denmark – June 2018
This PP20 was purchased by DeNova, a waste recycling and reuse yard at the port of Frederiksværk, about 50 km northwest of the capital city of Copenhagen. They see it as a challenge to find value in what others may think is just trash, using modern techniques to sort waste into fractions that can be recycled or reused. One way they hope to reuse biomass waste is by gasifying it. They plan to use their PP20 to explore how our efficient CHP systems can best fit into their mission to mine potential resources from the waste stream, trying to save the environment at the same time that they grow a successful waste-based business. Adding value by offsetting waste-disposal costs is an important part of APL’s design strategy.
The University of Guyana, Greater Georgetown, Guyana – June 2018
The University of Guyana installed a PP30 to use for research in their Forestry and Agricultural schools on their Turkeyen Campus in Greater Georgetown.
University of Chester, Chester, England, UK – May 2018
The Chemical Engineering department of the University of Chester in the UK installed a PP20 so that Professor John Brammer and his associates can study the details of the highly efficient thermal conversion in our GEK gasifier. The University of Chester is a public university with five campuses in the city of Chester, about 35 km south of Liverpool in northwest England. Professor Brammer has a Ph.D. in the production of energy from biomass, and considerable industrial experience in combustion (working on gas turbines at Rolls Royce). We look forward to Dr. Brammer’s results using our technology and hope that others at the University of Chester find having access to this equipment useful in their work.
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai, Johor, Malaysia – May 2018
We installed a PP20 at UTM to be used for research into sustainable technology. UTM is a leading innovation-driven entrepreneurial research university and the largest postgraduate research university for technology in Malaysia. It has also established a reputation for innovative education and cutting-edge research, with a vision towards the development of creative human capital and the advancement of technological innovation.
CIRAD, Montpellier, France – April 2018
CIRAD, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, is an organization working for the sustainable development of tropical and Mediterranean regions. We installed a PP20 at their Montpellier campus in the south of France to advance their mission with their partners in the global South to generate and pass on new knowledge to support agricultural development.
The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Austrailia – March 2018
The University of Newcastle is as committed as we at APL are to improving the process of gasification. They installed a PP20 as part of this effort. They believe innovations in this technology are not only important economically for industry, but also valuable to society’s overall quality of life, health, and environment. We look forward to the results of their studies and effort to help reduce energy poverty and address climate change.
Rwanda Girls School, Gashora, Rwanda – Dec 2017
The Rwanda Girls Initiative operates the Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology – an upper-secondary girls’ boarding school located in Bugesera District an hour south of Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali. APL’s tapped into its long-established relationships in Africa, especially with the Booker Washington Institute in Liberia, to place a PP20 at the Gashora campus. The school has an active agricultural program, operating a successful 14-acre farm on campus where they hope to perfect techniques for running the locally plentiful macadamia nutshells as feedstock.
CICY, Yucatan, Mexico – Dec 2017
Merida, Yucatan. CICY is a public Research Center of the CONACYT (Mexican National Council of Science and Technology) focused on conducting basic and applied research to develop and transfer technology that promotes the development of a society in harmony with the environment. CICY has a strong focus on climate change due to the Yucatan’s extensive forests and abundant resources that can be used for bioenergy, such as wastes from the agri-food industry. Part of the CICY’s mission is to become a key entity in Mexico’s transition to a sustainable energy economy, and APL is proud to help them achieve this goal with the help of our technology.
National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore – Dec 2017
NUS has installed a PP20 to contribute to research on bioenergy and gasification. NUS began over 100 years ago as a small medical school, today, it is Singapore’s flagship university. A world-class research institution, teams at NUS are working in the same areas of interest as APL, studying gasification technologies and the acronomic uses and benefits of Biochar. We hope that having access to our machine helps them make breakthroughs in this important research space.
El Jardín Botánico, Bogota, Colombia – Nov. 2014
Two PP20 Power Pallets were installed in the José Celestino Mutis botanical garden. Located in Bogota, the Jardín Botánico is Colombia’s largest botanical garden and serves both as a recreation and research center. Our biomass gensets are part of a program to create a sophisticated demonstration site featuring multiple forms of renewable power generation integrated into a micro-grid, which ties the PP20s to a solar array and an energy storage system. Their lovely facility is the focus of educational outreach surrounding environmental and conservations issues, as well as general science education for both children and adults. APL is pleased to be a part of this excellent program.
Green Energy GEE, China – Nov. 2014
Using a PP20 v5 and working with university partners, Shenzhen Green & clear world Environmental Engineering (GEE) is developing a syngas-to-liquid reactor. Focusing on the commercialization of environmentally responsible projects, GEE’s Power Pallet is part of a program to process municipal solid waste (MSW) into a transportation fuel. They are working to integrate their system into the solid-waste disposal chain of a large Chinese city to develop a product based on its specific local needs. GEE is using a proprietary catalytic system that promises to increase the yield of syngas and lower the temperature needed, while minimizing tar and other by-products. The ability to process MSW in our gasifiers is a long standing, but still remote goal for APL, and we welcome GEE’s efforts to solve this difficult problem.
University of Minnesota, Morris, Minnesota – Jun. 2012
In a partnership with Cummins Inc., APL worked with University of Minnesota in Morris to develop a prototype shipping-container-based 100 kW genset running on Minnesota’s plentiful agricultural waste corn cobs. With the help of a grant from the California Energy Commission, APL is currently partnered with University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Forestry and their Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory to develop this unit as a commercial genset: the 150 kW Powertainer. Our goal is to incentivize forest fire and bark beetle remediation in the Sierra Nevadas by creating a market for the forest waste as an energy resource.
Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois – Feb. 2012
With one of the largest biomass renewable energy projects in the country, EIU students and faculty use their Power Pallet to do testing and research on biomass feedstocks and gasification. EIU Renewable Energy Center provides all the heating for the whole campus, using multiple biomass boilers to provide much of this energy. Their use of biomass gasification on a significant scale makes them an ideal site for an educational installation of an APL Power Pallet.
University of West Virginia, Morgantown, West Virginia – Aug. 2011
Like so many other colleges and universities that have purchased Power Pallets, West Virginia University (UWV) uses our equipment to help their students do hands-on research and learning in their programs in agriculture, conservation and resource management. WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design thousands of acres of farms and forests is uniquely situated to address important research in fields from food and shelter to energy and environmental protection. APL’s first focus was in research and education, and we are proud of our relationship with institutions like UWV.
Customer Highlight: Stony Brook University
Stony Brook’s Advanced Energy Center (AEC) is working at the forefront of the development of new energy technologies, including the advancement of renewable and sustainable systems that can help mitigate climate change. Dr. Devinder Mahajan heads the AEC’s Low Carbon Energy Laboratory and Institute of Gas Innovation and Technology. He leads cutting edge research on gaseous fuels and their practical use and application in advanced energy technologies.
His work with hydrogen as a fuel and energy storage medium, and in energy research at the chemical engineering/chemistry interface towards developing clean fuel production technologies that can complement CO2 mitigation has led him to add a Power Pallet PP30 to his lab. His team will study the chemical processes involved in creation of the hydrogen rich producer gas in Power Pallet’s gasifier, focusing on the physics and molecular level processes at work in the PP30. We are proud that such a world class innovator in our field has chosen to work with our technology.
APL has been proud to assist all of the institutions below in using GEK Gasifiers in their research programs.
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Choosing a Project:
If you don’t have any equipment yet, its best to match your GEK system with your educational goals. (We recommend contacting us at sales@allpowerlabs.org to ask about our current lead times so that we can be sure to get you set up before your semester starts). We are now selling a skid-based GEK kit intended for you to add your own engine and generator, or to generate producer gas for any other purpose. While our most current gasifier technology is no longer open source, plans, CAD files and instructions for all our earlier versions are still available from our wiki to allow you to begin research on gasifier design and engineering.
Other helpful links:
- Multi-Fuel Run Comparison
- Convert Engines and Generators
- Data Logging and Control with the Process Control Unit (PCU)
We get many questions about where to set up the GEK Gasifier and Power Pallets for research purposes. Only operate or conduct maintenance on the GEK Gasifier or the Power Pallet in a well ventilated place. We have seen universities install hoods, negative pressure flues, or build a small single walled shed or roof structure to accommodate the equipment.