how can i get the natural gas out of my well water and use it to heat my house or use it for electricty?

Question

need 2 know where i can get equipment to collect the gas in my well water and use it for heating and/or supplying electricty to my house. a web site or any info u have 2 point me the right direction would b great- thnx

Answer 1

I wonder what is happening to the gas in the water now as it comes from the well and do you know for sure what the composition of the gas is. If you don't know that, you should start by getting it analyzed.

Assuming you in fact have natural gas (methane) in your water well, trying to collect it and used it can be a very dangerous thing for anyone who is not very experienced in dealing with natural gas systems.

The idea of using a vacuum pump and getting air mixed with the natural gas is a good example of an idea that someone one who is not experienced might have. This is can easily lead to an explosive mixture in the system and an explosion that can injure or kill people.

If you really want to follow up on this idea, you need to get a professional engineer to design a system for you, otherwise you are likely to have a very unhappy outcome.

Answer 2

The only way I can think of: pull a vacuum on the water in an enclosed vessel to pull out all of the dissolved gases. (The water will literally boil at high vacuum). There must be commercial units on the market that will process-cycle well water this way. The vacuum pump exhaust will have the natural gas, along with the dissolved air - it can be pumped straight into your furnace burner box; you'll need enough of it to heat your house (I wonder if the water will contain enough natural gas BTUs to make it worthwhile). You'll need in-line flash-back arrestor devices so you don't explode the natural gas/air mixture in the line!

The other way is to use heat to boil the water, which will drive off all dissolved gases, but this is energy-intensive so may be too expensive, unless you had another reason to boil the water, such as disinfection (sterilization) or distillation.

Activated carbon will absorb gases from the water, but would be a problem trying to get the natural gas out of the carbon.

Answer 3

Methane not very soluble in water though carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide is. Are you sure you have useful quantities of methane to extract?