ALCOHOL can be a GAS and Biofuels
Started by 1NRG24Seven · · 15 posts
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#1 ·
This thread is for those would like to explore how you can easily make alcohol and other bio-fuels to run internal combustion motors, cook with and heating systems etc, the possibilities are endless.
Also the use of waste oils for the same purpose.
I have been a bio-diesel producer and user for over 6 years and have made all my own processor and bio diesel making equipment from scrap junk, a few pipe fittings and hardware parts were bought new. But the over all costs were low being I have a well equipped shop with much welding equipment and tools. The techniques for making bio-diesel I use are not as of yet been revealed on the internet to my knowledge. The technique is much easier I believer as it eliminates the need for pretesting the oil for proper oil to methanol/hydroxy ratios. I have made lierally thousands of gallons to date and have put on over 100,000 additional miles on a 96 Dodge 1 ton duely with the Cummins turbo diesel engine and running 100% biodiesel.
In the quest to make bio-diesel cheaper by recovering some of the alcohol from the glycerin biproducts I came up with a novel Idea for a simple alcohol still made from steel drums. These stills could also make ethanol or ethyl alcohol from funky wine you can brew from all sorts of stuff including some garbage.
My newest still is currently in the process of being completed and is made from a used 300 gallon diesel fuel tank. I am at the final stages of the build making the babington style burner to fire it with waste oil or glycerin, glycerin being the more difficult to burn. May have to use a combo burn head with waste oil and glycerin both being used on separate babington burner heads side by side. My drum stills use propane fired burners used for cooking deep fried turkeys. These were purchased on sale for 20 bucks each new. I made 3 drum stills that hold 30 gallons each and three turkey cooker stands. These three stills were then daisy chained together for the cooling copper coils. I will post some pics of the drum style stills anyone can build for under $100.00 USD. in future posts.
Alcohol production is the worlds 2nd oldest profession and is a well known science and easy for anyone to do.
In this post I will be quoting David Blume from his book "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" one of the USA's leading authority on this subject. David is a Bio systmatist and permaculture system expert. I highly recommend his book and companion DVD for anyone wanting to gain their energy independence. There is nothing to reinvent and or try and duplicate of some mysterious nature which can lead to much money expended on research and experimentation, these are all fine if you have deep pockets. These technologies here you can do NOW and are easy to do with a little help from someone like me who is doing it. I will be happy to assist anyone who is interested in going in this direction. With these systems you can light much more then a couple of LEDS or a CFL, I am talking serious amounts of real power in any quantity you wish to produce by just scaling up or down your system using renewable resources all around you. This is NOT free energy but does help bring one closer to self sufficiency TODAY, so that you can get away from your dependence from the big tit gas pump you been sucking from. There is a time when babies need to be weened and that time is NOW if we are to bring the powers that be into check mate. Take it from me one who has not bought fuel at the pump for over 6 years now, If I could do it so can you.
Please let me know by responding to this post if your interested in this thread, if I don't get enough response will not waste my valuable time, will instead make a video and sell the information as some people believe unless you buy it it must be worthless.
The Bio-diesel process I use and equipment I built is capable of making 25 gallons of bio-diesel every 15 minutes, using very few components to do it. I also have a method of separation of glycerin from the bio-diesel product that used to take 8 hours for the initial settling and now I do this in less then 5 minutes. This is done using a neon transformer and some resistors between the ground lead and the case to then transfer 7000 volts through Stainless Steel rods into the solution, will post pics of this and more later.
Let me know if there is any interest here and we will continue soon if there is.
Good Day!!!...24Seven -
#2 ·
I'm interested in your biodiesel. I want to brew biodiesel for my tractor. I have got some litrature on the proccess but you have somthing newer and easy I'm game.
If you don't go with the thread PM so we can get in touch.
Cheers
Matt -
#3 ·
Agree with Matt here; please do post your info!
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#4 ·
Hi Matthew and Shamus...that was a fast two responses.
We have two brave souls now stepping up to the plate, so I suspect there will be many more.
On a side note anyone who can instruct me here on posting pics directly into the thread to be veiwed without clicking on a link would be of great help how this is done. I am still green on all the ins and outs of using these threads. I know its a little off topic but can later delete this in the event Moderators chose to clean it up, but am thinking it might help other newbies to do likewise if they wish.
Thanx...24 -
#5 ·
You can upload them directly to board but you will run out of personal space quikly. But if you have to....
While you posting a thread roll the screen down towards the bottom and you see a little box and a button called "Attach Files" the button is titled
"Manage attachments". You can either directly upload from your computer or add a URL (Which is the better option). The board will do the rest.
Matt -
#6 ·
Thanx Matt...will see how it works...much appreciated....24 -
#7 ·
Matt, How big is your tractor and what would be your annual estimated fuel consumption needs be for it? This way I may be able to give you more input on how many restaurants you might need if your using a waste veggie stock to work from and what to look for in picking the right places for your stock. Also would like to know if you farm or just have a small place as new oil from canola crops is another option.Matthew Jones wrote:
I'm interested in your biodiesel. I want to brew biodiesel for my tractor. I have got some litrature on the proccess but you have somthing newer and easy I'm game.
If you don't go with the thread PM so we can get in touch.
Cheers
Matt
24Seven -
#8 ·
Biodiesel Production
Hi
My son and myself have also been producing our own biodiesel for six years. I am very interested in how you separate the glycerin so quickly. My son has developed a very simple wash system for cleaning the fuel that works very well. Maybe you would be interested in that. You said you have not bought any fuel for six years so does that mean you live in the south or have you found a way to use biodiesel in cold weather? I read about a process some time ago where a university was doing something to the biodiesel so that it didn't gel in cold weather any worse than regular diesel. Maybe you know something about that. Well enough of my rambling. Just to let you know we definitely are interested in what ever you can share.
Looking forward to your thread, Carroll -
#9 ·
ok lets see if I can post a pic directly into the thread.
This is a pic of the bio-diesel oil heating tank set up I built from a discarded electric hot water heating tank. Two additional heating elements were added and welded in and 2 separate 110Vac light switches to turn off or on both sets of elements separately.
I cut two elements from another discarded electric water heater around the mounting area in a square pattern allowing about 1 inch from element mounting holes. Then cut holes next to existing elements in tank and welded them in. Elements were orientated so they are going into tank and staying on a horizontal plane. Reason for this is if they pointed down they might come into contact with water and oil at same time and burn them out prematurely, if pointing up they might extend above oil line and burn them out. Elements must always be submerged while on or they will instantly get too hot and have a melt down. This can also create a fire if unattended, so I chose to simply mount the tank inside of the angle iron frame with elements positioned directly on one side going straight into the tank....this also makes it easy to pull them out if they burn up. Expect to pay between 9-20 dollars per element if they burn out. My elements have a high amperage and wattage rating as I wanted to heat the oil as fast as possible. This unit runs at 5,000 watts on two elements or 10,000 watts on 4. I use a 50 amp breaker in the electrical panel for this circuit. Do not run anything else (at the same time) that uses 220VAC off this circuit unless you want to throw the breaker. You will notice in the pic an outlet is also wired beside one wall switch so I can plug in my two mixer motors of 1/2 hp each. I have run this and two mixers with no problems and have processed 1000's of gallons of bio-diesel with this simple heater.
Top of the tank is equipped with an opening so oil can be poured in from jugs or pumped in to fill tank. The metal flanges extend into the tank and are welded to the tank on all sides to prevent leakage of oil, all seams are welded also. I just cut 4 plates of steel from 16 gauge sheet metal from a old appliance or car body flat panel like hood or top or deck lid. The angle Iron was from a cattle gaurd side rails that were discarded. They are 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" x 3/16" wall thickness angle irons.
The tank at the front had a two inch bung welded at the bottom for water trap and exit port fitted with a molassis valve for quick filling of a 30 gallon plastic drum with top cut out leaving at least a one inch lip for mixer to sit on. Chose used plastic drums with the flattest tops as they work best. I cut the tops out of ten drums for my process. I get all the drums I want for free at local farm co-op that were used and had glysophate herbicide in them. The chemical is water soluable and is easy to rinse out. The stuff is toxic so wear good protection and dump out where you need weeds killed or save solution for a sprayer, most the time they have already been rinsed before you get them. I cut the tops out using a 1/4" angle die grinder with the thinnest 3" ceramic cutting disk. Will post a pic of a cut drum in a later post.Attached Files -
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#10 ·
I use about 5 - 10 gallon a weak (In the summer). For the most part its just a big lawnmower. I do have bucket and rake and backhoe attachment but they are only used for general maintenance.
I can get cooking oil. Its a problem here, everybody deep fries but there is no place to dump it except in the trash. The land fill and trash processing plant are looking for solution.
I could also grow whatever I needed.
Matt -
#11 ·
Hi Carrol welcome to the thread.citfta wrote:
Hi
My son and myself have also been producing our own biodiesel for six years. I am very interested in how you separate the glycerin so quickly. My son has developed a very simple wash system for cleaning the fuel that works very well. Maybe you would be interested in that. You said you have not bought any fuel for six years so does that mean you live in the south or have you found a way to use biodiesel in cold weather? I read about a process some time ago where a university was doing something to the biodiesel so that it didn't gel in cold weather any worse than regular diesel. Maybe you know something about that. Well enough of my rambling. Just to let you know we definitely are interested in what ever you can share.
Looking forward to your thread, Carroll
You want to find an old neon transformer that is rated at no more then 8000 volts, mine is 7000 volts and works fine, I tried a 9,000 volt unit and did not work.
You place a 5 watt 330 ohm resistor between the casing of the transformer and one lead coming off the unit ( I used 10 -1/4 watt 330 ohm resistors twisted together ). The wire should be shielded, its the shielding part you put the other end of the resistor to. Then you run two wires up to your two steel 1/4" rods long enough to go into your solution and rest on the bottom so that the rods don't fall into your bio-diesel and soak the wires. My wires are just wrapped around the rods and i used some electrical tape to help hold em. I am going to drill the rods with a small hole and tap and die it for a small screw to better attach the wires. The rods I use are 304 Stainless from a tank hinge I had and cut in half. both pieces were still long enough to touch the bottom of the 3o gallon drum and stand out by a few inches. I took a 1-1/2" closet hanger dowel and cut 8 inches off it for the handle, then drill two holes in it 3 inches apart from one end the same size as your rods so you can hammer them in to hold em apart. leave some rod extended from the top of the handle to attach wires. You will be amazed at how fast it separates the glycerin, like I said in under 5 minutes at 30 gallon...about a minute and a half at 5 gallon batches.
once separated then you can pump off the oil on top and place it in another tank. I then pump all the glycerin into another barrel and and zap it again to float the bio-diesel to the top, same as before. then wash your bio-diesel or let it settle an addition 21 days before burning. I do not wash my bio-diesel, never have.
As for your climate question I had a Shaffer Oil Co guy here who took a quart sample of my finished brew back to his company for testing. They said it had a gel point of 10deg.F. above zero, whereas most other bio-diesel they tested around the country had a gel point of 30deg.F above zero. I have ran my truck at 7deg.F above zero at 100%. This may change in the future as I believe the reason for it is there is still methanol in the bio-diesel and I will be recovering all of it back out. As you may know alcohol has a very low freezing point so it would help bringing the gel point down. You can burn 95% ethanol and 5% bio-diesel in a diesel engine. Methanol in my bio-diesel is not a problem It may be 5% methanol. If you wash it you will take the methanol out with the water wash. Recover it first using a distilation method, then wash it if you wish, will show you how. Methanol is getting expensive so every bit of it you can recover will mean cheaper bio-diesel production costs for you. I am hoping to get my production costs down around 15 cents a gallon for raw chemical costs.
Hope this helps....Good day!!!...24 -
#12 ·
Here is some pics of my home made mixer heads made from farm grade fans and motors I bought at a garage sale for 20 bucks each. I removed the fan blades and shroud to have just the 1/2" shaft extended and then cut a round piece of heavier gauge sheet metal that just fit inside the lip of the 30 gallon drum top and then could sit on the 1" lip you leave when cutting the top out. The motor was then mounted to the large disk, motors had holes already tapped around shaft so it could be mounted to the flat large disk. I will post more details of the mixer if people want it. It should be pretty apparent by the pics how you might build it. I used rebar for the steel pyramid shaped shaft support system.
More Oil Heater tank pics alsoAttached Files -
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#13 ·
Additional note:
Use only a sealed type explotion proof motors for mixers as your going to be mixing Methyl-hydroxide into hot oil, the fumes of which are highly explosive. Use in well vetilated areas preferably outdoors. Even with these units i have on a couple of occassions had a minor egnition explosion which raised the mixer off the barrel slightly when it poofed, luckley I started the mixer fast after adding the alcohol/hyroxy mix to the hot oil so not much fumes had built up, or could of been a little more dramatic. I isolated the problem to some lose wires on the power cord to the motor that were arching slightly when I started the motor. When I fixed the problem it never happened again. -
#14 ·
Matt...if you have a source for oil your set, if your near eastern Oregon let me know I would like more oil accounts....24 -
#15 ·
Biodiesel process
Hi again 24,
Are you using sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide for your process? Or maybe something else? Thanks,
Carroll
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