Producing Ethanol At Home

[GF]

I was wondering if anyone is making there own ethanol for personal use?

[Dan_Shade]

isn't that illegal  :-[

[leweee]

Did I hear someone saySTIHL : : ;D

[GF]

There is a form you have to fill out for the ATF and there is a section in the form that states it will be used as fuel and that you will not produce more than 10,000 gallons annually. 

[Fla._Deadheader]

That permit is pretty easy to get. You have to have a locked tank, record all the amounts of "run" ya make, and some Fed will visit ya on a regular basis and pour some gasoline into the tank.

  I wish we had carried our permit with us, from Arkansas. I made a 500 gallon still from a propane tank.  ;) ;) ;D ;D

[DouginUtah]

What are you planning to make it from? And how?

-Doug

[GF]

I would to try making is using sawdust (Cellulose).  Here is an article on it.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/bioethanol_marketplace.pdf

[ronwood]

GF,

I been looking at the following website. With the cost of gas it might be worth looking into.

http://www.alcohol4fuel.com/index.html

This website has plans for a still. Was thinking about ordering the plans. Does anyone else know of other plans that might work.

Ron

[GF]

Ronwood,
   I seen the same site also, I ordered the plans to see what they are like.  Will let you know the quality of the plans when they come in.  With the price of fuel something is going to have to change.

[Bro. Noble]

I got a farm supply catalogue the other day that had several stills advertised from a gallon or so up to several hundred gallons.  I think it was a 'Farmteck' catalogue.

[Tom]

I'd sure like to hear some of you experience fellows talk about the difference in Ethynol and Methynol.  I know the chemical difference and that Methynol is a deadly poison, but could you produce Methynol thinking that you had a jug of ethynol?   Stuff like that, you know. :-\

[Bro. Noble]

Tom,

If you aim to sip on it,  filter it through charcoal to get the fusil oil out (also called bardle grease)  that's what causes the condition called 'pop skull'  I don't know about methonol or ethonol,  I suppose you could use a car radiator for a condensor (worm),  but you don't want to for the sipping kind.  Well maybe you could use these new plastic radiators?

If I was going to go to a different fuel,  I would get ahold of my neighbor www.greasel.com.  I can tell whenever he or any of his family drive by the milkbarn-----smells like McDonalds :D :D

[GF]

"If you aim to sip on it,  filter it through charcoal to get the fusil oil out "

Bro Noble is this from any type of past experience?   :D

With the price of gas if it dont burn one may have to start drinking it to dull the pain at the pump.

[Bro. Noble]

GF,

I think I read that in a book onetime :D :D

I probably shouln't have made light of distilling.

Years ago,  everyone in this area was involved in the trade one way or another.  The oldtimers laugh that the only one that made any money at it was C.....W..... and that was because he didn't drink it.

I've known several that were directly involved and heard a lot of their stories.  Usually we hear the comical stories and it is romanticized,  but most of the whole stories are sad to tragic.  We have a similar situation in the area now although fortunately in involves a very small percent of the population and most of them are outsiders------meth production.   Lots of lives will be permanently damaged from it.

[GF]

Tom,
  My understanding is that methanol is more corrosive to metal than ethanol is.  Methanol will eat away at aluminum which a majority of the later vehicles use as the blocks and heads.  Here was an interesting comment that involved the Forestry Forum Well Know Topic of Grits:

"If there's ethanol in the gas you buy at your local filling station, there's a slight chance that it was filtered through corn grits, using a technique developed at Purdue University. When the corn grits get saturated with water you just make more ethanol out of them! "

[Fla._Deadheader]

For all practical purposes, METHANOL is WOOD Alcohol derived.

  ETHANOL is GRAIN  Alcohol derived.

  I ain't no chemist, but RACE cars use Methanol. If it's all that corrosive, why do they use it in $50,000.00 race engines ??? 

  Lots of the info out there, is conjured up, and NOT scientifically accurate.  The Oil companies DO NOT want alternative fuels developed, until the Govt. issues THEM the rights and patented process to dominate the market.

  I could be wrong, though.  ;)

[OneWithWood]

About this time every year I start thinking of ways to supplement the wood heat for the boiler.  Methanol from sawdust sounds promising.  What would it take to fire a boiler with it?  Maybe WVO would be a better alternative??

[Ron Wenrich]

I looked into ethanol back in the '70s.  The government doesn't like it because it would be too hard to collect road taxes off of a lot of people. 

The problem with wood is the breaking down of the cellulose into sugars.  It is a lot tougher than going to your local bakery and getting all the sugar that they discard.  There are easier methods.

[karl]

Knew a guy who made alcohol from ground news print back in the '70's. had a huge still on a trailer that he demoed.
Too bad he crossed the fine line from excentric to raving lunatic and all his stuff (and wisdom)was scrapped.
I had been thinking along the lines of methane production rather than ethanol. After forking over a c note for gas for the one ton the other day and it wasn't even FULL, I have become more serious.

[Don_Papenburg]

Karl, You need some pig or cows, BIG Poopers ,  to make that methane digester profitable . Then you could sell or butcher the ones that don't produce mounds O poop a day .

I was thinking of investing in a corn burning water furnace for my shop. Since I have a lack of timber and an abundance of cheap corn . 

[Gary_B]

 Seems like when gasoline was selling for a buck a gallon it just wasnt practical to manufacture ethanol from corn, not quite enough profit, but now with gas prices running 2.60 a gallon I cannot believe  why they cannot go with a alternate fuel source. The price of a bushel of corn hasnt trippled, in a few years. But I guess we have our oil company's to thank not to mention our goverment. If only our wages would continue upwards as the cost of living....just my two cents.....
                                                                 Gary

[Dan_Shade]

race cars that run methanol typically run a blend, mainly so you can see if you have a fire...

methanol is extremely corrosive, it will eat up carburetors and gaskets and o-rings and all of that.  most race cars after they are done racing, they run gasoline through the system until it flushes out most of the alcohol.

also, you need about 3x as much alcohol to have the air/fuel ratio correct than you do gas, gas is like 14:1 and alcohol is 5:1` or 6:1 or somethign like that, i can't remember the details.

if you do swap over, you need a new carburetor, or if you are fuel injected, probably new injectors, and definately a computer chip.

It could be done, i'm gonna have to think about this one

[Don P]

I think the simple way to run an engine off wood waste is to use woodgas  ???. During WWII  cars in gas starved countries were fitted with a burner and hopper that basically ran the car on the carbon monoxide that was produced by burning wood waste in a closed container and feeding it to the engine after cleaning it as best they could. It was bulky and tough on parts from what I've read.
Methane requires pretty tight temperature, carbon/nitrogen and ph control to keep the bacteria happy and bubbly.

[Tom]

I keep looking up the difference in ethynol and methynol because of the poison aspect and because methynol isn't methane.

Here is an interesting link
Fuel Cell technology

I became interested in the difference when it was suggested that sawdust was to be distilled.  I wanted to know if that would produce Ethynol (a non-poisonous fuel) or Methynol (a deadly poison).

I'm still looking for sites that would describe  the manufacture of Methynol without too much luck.   I have found some that indicate that the "wood Gas" subject discussed earlier might be a methynol-like producer since methlynol can be produced by burning carbon monoxide in the presence of Hydrogen.

This link is the best that I've found so far.  I can understand a little of it anyway. :D

[DonE911]

I read up some on this ... I bet we all have with gas prices going up over $3 a gal.

Just going by whats on the site you would be spending aprox 1.50 a gal to produce the fuel.  If you build what is on the plans you can produce aprox 5 gal's per hour, but thats a hands on per hour rate.

I use aprox 2 tanks of gas in each vehicle every week. Aprox 85 gal's a week give or take 5 gal's. 
It would take aprox 16 hours to produce my fuel for the week.

85 gal @ $3 a gal = $255

85 gal eth @ 1.50 = $128

That sounds like a good savings and worth doing if you don't account for your labor or lost earnings for those 16 or so hours per week you spend producing fuel. Or you could double your investment and make a bigger still or maybe 2 of the units they sell the plan for and cut your time down.

I guess you could grow your own corn and have an addition savings.  I'm not a farmer.. for those that know how many acres of corn would you need to grow?? Then you'd have the expense of the corn and someplace to store it I guess.



I'm rambling.... sorry.