New forum for Ethanol

[Maxwell Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maxwell]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Hi All!
My list of dumb questions:
1. Does anyone know what apples would produce per ton?
2. How do you obtain breeds of yeasts for Ethanol production?
3. What if you decanted off a percentage(say25%) of the mash distilled it then put it back in would this increase the overall ethanol produced?
4. Can a constant flow fermenter be made in this way?
5. Does the alcohol produced (like salt and fresh water) rise to the top or is it distributed throughout the brew?
6. Does ethanol need to be Anhydrous to mix with petrol?
Cheers
Maxwell

[dagwill Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dagwill]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

ethanol
methanol
byutanol[ now how do you spell that stuf]
propanol etc etc is there anything wrong with simply buying methanol at around 90 cents a ltr and blending that as a cost reducer? no knowledge.
or are we talking about ethanol at a cost of a few cents/ltr?

[Healthy Earth Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Healthy Earth]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

OH Man!! Am I cheesed off, I spent heaps of time writing an artfully contrived response for this thread a few days ago, clicked the spellcheck button.......and it dissapeared into cyberspace ...never to be seen again!!!! Gone, vanished.... dont laugh its not funny and I had some really nice compliments for Chris and Sauman for the excellent and professional contributions here.

A thought for the farmers re materials and waste.
I have seen the huge piles of grape mark (compost) left over from the processing plants.
In short (cause I am not going to type it all out again) with leftover organic matter it is easily disposed of on individual farms by spreading it thinly over the top of the ground, it will not then cause a negative nitrogen or oxygen effect. If it produced on farm freight is not a problem.
If the farmer has spoilt or excess crop he can turn it into ethanol, it doesnt really matter if it is grapes or corn or potatoes etc; huge quantities for extremely low cost.
Because harvest is at the end of the work season labour and time is not a problem. Water is usually in abundance on farms and providing that any waste water has no nasties, it can be recycled with no net loss.
The main thing the farmer wants to see is; How easy is it to make 1,000 ltrs, how much time, how much cost, Is there equipment he can purchase to do the job?

I want to be able to supply the farmer with his needs for biodiesel and ethanol, equipment, parts, instructions/hand book and any chemistry products. I allready look after many farmers in Australia with sustainable agriculure, i see this (biofuels) as a natural extension to help the environment and our Australian farmers. I have been invited to China at the end of the month to help with their farming practices, it will be great to introduce this concept to them as well.

Anyone interested? I mean really interested, capable of getting involved,putting working equipment together. Send me a private email hearth@1earth.net

Peter

[Healthy Earth Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Healthy Earth]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

The ethanol discussion is heavily covered in the media at the moment especially ethanol.
One of the (negative) comments regarded the calorific value. The announcer reported that much higher amounts of ethanol were required per kilometer meaning a normal sized fuel tank will not go very far.

Does anyone have a comparison of ltrs per 10 klm of ethanol verses petrol?

Thanks
Peter

[Maxwell Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maxwell]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Hi All!
Just a thought!
Has anyone tried freezing rather than distilling?
What percentage would you get?
Would it be more energy efficient?
Cheers
Maxwell

[geewizztoo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close geewizztoo]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

The announcer reported that much higher amounts of ethanol were required per kilometer

Here are some general energy values for comparison:

BTU/Gal MJ/Litre

Diesel 140000/ 39.0
Kerosene 135000/ 37.6
Biodiesel 130000/ 36.2
SVO 130000/ 36.2
Petrol 125000/ 34.8
LPG 95000/ 26.5
Ethanol 84000/ 23.4
Methanol 64000/ 17.8


Biodiesel is around 7% less than diesel and Ethanol is about 33% less than petrol.

[Healthy Earth Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Healthy Earth]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Thanks Geewizztoo that is great information, so we can say that ethanol is just slightly less efficient than LPG. That makes it much clearer and easier for the lay person..and Biodiesel is only marginally less efficient than Diesel.
Good work!!!

[veghigh Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close veghigh]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Any one knows about ethanol filtration?????

[TroyH Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close TroyH]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Water is usually in abundance on farms and providing that any waste water has no nasties, it can be recycled with no net loss.

Geez, you must be in a different Australia to me, because at the moment, we are in the middle of one of the worst droughts we've ever had...


Ethanol cannot be seperated from water by freezing. you must distill it. Unfortunately due to water forming an azeotrope with ethanol, distillation under certain conditions will form a vapour with the same composition as the liquid. To get high ethanol yield in the vapour, you need to reflux distill your mixture. To find out more information on that, click Reflux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is HEAPS of information about building home stills on the web. I'm pretty sure there is some quite detailed information on the journeytoforever website.

you can get brewers yeast from a home brew beer shop. It will only brew up to a certain alcohol content, beyond which the yeast cannot survive. The ethanol will not float to the top, as it is 100% soluble in water (which means you can have a water/ethanol solution in any composition between 0% ethanol to 100% ethanol.

Decanting off some of the mash will not increase yield, however adding some extra water should. IIRC yeast usually dies around the 10-14% ethanol v/v (by volume).
You could potentially design what is known as a CSTR (constantly stirred tank reactor) where you have a constant output of reacter material, and constant input of raw materials. I dont know how effectively it would work for a reaction with yeast however, as sucessive generations of yeast develop mutations (but this may only be a factor in taste for the wine and beer industries, it may not affect ethanol production as much.)




ethanol does need to be dry to mix with petrol iirc.

hope this helps

[wheeloftime Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close wheeloftime]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Hello,
My son and I are experimenting with ethanol fuel for his car. Now we have been reading up on the process and we have some questions.

to our understanding, ethanol/water solution is produced by mixing sugar, water, corn, and yeast and allowing the fermenting process to occure.

our question is what type of yeast is needed for the highest ethanol content?

And to what extent does the fermenting time play in it?

if we add more yeast per mix will it yield more ethanol?

thanks in advance and look forward to any input

[TroyH Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close TroyH]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

I suggest you try your local brewing/winemaking supplies shop. they usually have stills and setups for alcobase (Australian Home Brewing - Make full strength liqueurs and spirits at home) and will be able to answer fermentation specific questions.

most beer yeasts will only handle about 12% ethanol before they die off, so no, adding more yeast will not likely produce more ethanol (unless you are under the 12%, but there are other factors at play here). The yeast are actually bacteria, and they reproduce in your sugar solution. It's possible alcobase supply a yeast with a higher alcohol tolerance, I've only played with beer yeast and homebrew.

Also remember that you really need your ethanol to be quite dry when using it as a fuel if you are mixing it with petrol. You MAY be able to use ethanol with a higher water content if you are using it neat (say 85% or so) but I'm not really sure about that. Doing so I would imagine would require significant fueling adjustments.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Hello Troy

Ethanol cannot be seperated from water by freezing. you must distill it.

That is not an entirely accurate statement.
Freeze Distillation - The process of concentrating the alcohol in a fermented beverage by freezing the beverage, then removing the ice crystals, either by skimming or filtration. Since water freezes before alcohol, this process removes disproportionately more water, leaving behind a solution which has a higher concentration of alcohol.
Eisbock Beers, high in alcohol content, were traditonally made using this technique.
This site shows an interesting experiment with Freeze distillation.

Unfortunately due to water forming an azeotrope with ethanol, distillation under certain conditions will form a vapour with the same composition as the liquid. To get high ethanol yield in the vapour, you need to reflux distill your mixture.

Just a clearification on this point. If you run your water/ethanol mixture through a well designed pot still several times you will end up with virtually the same alcohol content as you would achieve out of a well designed Reflux still, namely about 96% ethanol and 4% water W/W.

There is HEAPS of information about building home stills on the web. I'm pretty sure there is some quite detailed information on the journeytoforever website.

Other than a few links to other websites, there does not appear to be any significant information on the JTF website about building home stills.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Hello Wheeloftime

The yeast that will produce the highest alcohol content is called Turbo yeast. Up to 23% ABV is claimed. Cost for a packet of Turbo Yeast is $8- $10 and is sufficent to react 6kg of Dextros mixed ino 21 litres of water.

[TroyH Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close TroyH]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Perhaps not strictly correct (but mostly because you cant really easily do it with distillation either), but you cannot "seperate" ethanol from water by freezing it. yes you can concentrate it a bit, but you will find it has still far too much water for use as a fuel. When I said seperate, I meant you cant freeze it and expect to pour ethanol off the ice. But yes, the ice crystals will have a lower concentration of ethanol (thus the concentration will increase slightly in the liquid.)

There is also a phenomenon known as freezing point depression, which means that any freezing that takes place, will occur at below the normal freezing point of water.

One of the main reasons for freezing beer in a commercial plant (not many do this here) is to remove impurities, as the ice crystals are seeded by the microparticles in the beer, and thus can be filtered out.

Aha whoops, I've got some wierd wording in there. 96% ethanol and 4% water is the point at which the azeotrope is formed. You wont be able to get higher than that, even with a reflux still (unless you mess around with pressures and other chemicals to move the azeotrope). I've just had a look at the max water content in ethanol for fuel, (as I wasn't sure before, but know they use 1% max when mixing with petrol. It is usually anhydrous.) and came across this.

Ethanol fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So you probably will need something dryer than 4% v/v water. I would suggest molecular sieves (3A powder works best, provided you can filter it out.)


Actually Tilly your right, it probably was just a link I had followed from JTF to someone elses site. It was a long time ago. Regardless, there is heaps of information about on the net. Alternatively you could buy a unit from a home brew store.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: New forum for Ethanol

Hello Troy

Perhaps not strictly correct (but mostly because you cant really easily do it with distillation either), but you cannot "seperate" ethanol from water by freezing it. yes you can concentrate it a bit, but you will find it has still far too much water for use as a fuel.

With your definition, a still does not seperate ethanol from water either, it just Concentrates the ethanol in the water.

When I said seperate, I meant you cant freeze it and expect to pour ethanol off the ice.

From what I have been reading you can expect to be able to pour off a liquid of more concentrated ethanol leaving mostly water behind, which is pretty much exactly what happens in a still.

But yes, the ice crystals will have a lower concentration of ethanol (thus the concentration will increase slightly in the liquid.)

From what I have read you can increase the alcohol content to around 28- 30% using "Freeze Distillation"

Aha whoops, I've got some wierd wording in there. 96% ethanol and 4% water is the point at which the azeotrope is formed. You wont be able to get higher than that, even with a reflux still (unless you mess around with pressures and other chemicals to move the azeotrope). I've just had a look at the max water content in ethanol for fuel, (as I wasn't sure before, but know they use 1% max when mixing with petrol. It is usually anhydrous.) and came across this.
Ethanol fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So you probably will need something dryer than 4% v/v water. I would suggest molecular sieves (3A powder works best, provided you can filter it out.)

After our discussion last week I think we need to be clear that the 96% ethanol 4% water azeotrope is a W/W measure. That becomes 97% Ethanol, 3% water V/V

Actually Tilly your right, it probably was just a link I had followed from JTF to someone elses site. It was a long time ago. Regardless, there is heaps of information about on the net. Alternatively you could buy a unit from a home brew store.

The last I knew a few years ago, you can only own a still of 5 litres pot capacity without registering your still with the government and It is never legal to distill ethanol.