User:Jefferydodson4031/sandbox
THE FIELD RETORT GASIFIER
(aka "The Redneck Rocket Booster" / RRB)
An Open Source Biochar and Syngas Production System
Invented by Jeffery Dodson — March 2026
Released freely to the public domain for the benefit of all.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE INVENTOR'S STATEMENT
"I just wanted to help make the world a better place and help
people who are off grid with their lives."
— Jeffery Dodson, inventor
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT IS THE RRB?
The Field Retort Gasifier is a portable, two-part system for
converting woody biomass waste into biochar and usable syngas
in field conditions. It is designed to be built from universally
available materials, operated by a two-person crew, and deployed
anywhere biomass waste exists — from logging slash piles to
small farms to off-grid homesteads.
It is being released as open source hardware, free for anyone
to build, use, or improve.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE SYSTEM — TWO COMPONENTS
COMPONENT 1: THE BASE UNIT (Reusable)
• A rocket stove design built from sheet metal
• Firebox in heavy gauge mild steel for durability
• 4-6 inch mild steel chimney that mates with the drum above
• Accepts syngas recirculation from the drum as supplemental fuel
• Bolts together for flat-pack transport and field assembly
• Elevates the drum safely off the ground reducing fire risk
• Designed to last indefinitely with basic maintenance
COMPONENT 2: THE MODIFIED DRUM (Replaceable)
• Standard 55 gallon steel drum with airtight lid
• Internal 4-6 inch mild steel chimney tube welded to lid,
running full depth of drum — delivers heat to center of
feedstock mass for even, efficient pyrolysis
• 3-way ball valve and 1-2 inch syngas outlet pipe welded
near top of drum — controls gas pathway
• Hose fitting welded into drum for quench water or
nutrient solution injection
• Welded side handles for safe two-person handling
• Uses standard, globally available fittings throughout
• Drum is a consumable component — replaced when worn,
preserving the valuable base unit investment
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HOW IT WORKS
SETUP
A two-person crew transports and assembles two or more base
units at a biomass waste site. Feedstock is cut to fit the drum.
A loaded, sealed drum is placed on the heated base unit.
PYROLYSIS PHASE
The rocket stove heats the drum from below while the internal
chimney tube delivers heat through the center of the feedstock.
The 3-way valve is set to recirculation mode — syngas produced
by the heating feedstock feeds back into the rocket stove
firebox, sustaining and intensifying the heat. The system
becomes largely self-fueling once pyrolysis is underway.
POWER/FUEL MODE (Optional)
Once pyrolysis is fully established the valve is switched to
divert syngas to a generator for electricity production or to
a collection vessel for later use as fuel. The system can
produce biochar and electricity simultaneously.
QUENCH AND RESET
When feedstock is fully converted to char, a water hose is
connected to the quench fitting. Water introduced into the
hot drum generates steam which vents back through the syngas
recirculation pipe, automatically extinguishing the fire in
the base unit. The drum cools to a safely handleable
temperature. The finished drum is removed and replaced with
a loaded empty drum. The biochar can be enriched by using
a nutrient solution instead of plain water during quenching,
delivering fertilizer-loaded biochar directly to the soil.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
KEY ADVANTAGES
✓ MOISTURE TOLERANT — Unlike TLUD and similar systems, the
RRB does not require dry feedstock. The sustained external
heat source drives pyrolysis regardless of moisture content,
making it viable for green wood, logging slash, and
agricultural waste in real field conditions.
✓ SELF-HEATING — Syngas recirculation makes the system
largely self-fueling once pyrolysis begins, reducing
external fuel requirements.
✓ DUAL OUTPUT — Produces both biochar and usable syngas
simultaneously. Syngas can heat the process, generate
electricity, or be collected as fuel.
✓ FIELD PORTABLE — Two-person deployable. Multiple units
operated by one crew. Bolt-together flat-pack design
fits in a standard pickup truck.
✓ UNIVERSALLY BUILDABLE — Designed around a standard 55
gallon drum and globally available pipe fittings, ball
valves, and sheet metal. Buildable anywhere in the world.
✓ AUTO-SAFE SHUTDOWN — Quench procedure automatically
extinguishes the base unit fire via steam backflow.
No separate shutdown procedure required.
✓ SLASH WASTE UTILIZATION — Directly addresses the problem
of logging slash burning, converting a pollution source
and fire hazard into biochar and energy.
✓ OFF-GRID CAPABLE — Designed specifically for people
living and working off the grid with limited resources.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPLICATIONS
• Logging and forestry waste conversion
• Small farm soil improvement
• Off-grid power generation (syngas to generator)
• Developing world appropriate technology
• Carbon sequestration projects
• Community biochar production
• Disaster relief and remote area operations
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OPEN SOURCE DECLARATION
This design is released freely by the inventor under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA).
Anyone may build, use, modify, or distribute this design
for any purpose including commercial use, provided that:
1. Credit is given to Jeffery Dodson as the original inventor
2. Any modifications or improvements are shared under the
same open license
No permission is required to build this device.
No royalties are owed to anyone.
This design belongs to humanity.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CURRENT STATUS
Design stage — detailed plans completed March 2026.
Prototype in development.
Seeking fabrication partners, research collaborators,
and field testing volunteers.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONTACT
Inventor: Jeffery Dodson
[Your contact information here]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This document was first published: April 2026
This publication establishes prior art for all elements
of this design as described herein.