Far as I know it is legal also.

I used to bend glass for various projects. You can seal a thermocouple into a glass tube for a probe, for example.

Isopropyl won't work, it does not burn clean and leaves lots of soot. Ethanol burns very clean, with a nice blue flame. I've never tried methanol.

 

Your probably going to be farther ahead to have some type of thermostatically control on the still. The problem when I tried this, was keeping the pot at allow enough temperature to vaporise the alcohol and not create steam from the water. The excess water as steam means you have to distill a second or even third time to raise the proof.

the fuel for the fire (whether I decide to go with propane, natural gas, or aerosolized ethanol) will need to flow through a control valve. Proportional valves are expensive so I was thinking about using an ordinary on/off valve and heating via a scheme similar to PWM. I have a Eurotherm 808 PID heater controller which I can use to control the valve. I can set a minimum 'on time' to prevent excessive cycling of the valve.

I am counting on the latent heat of my tank + the fuid within the tank to 'average out' intermittent blasts of heat. I thought this would work well, considering how much thermal mass a tank of water must have, but last night while boiling eggs, I noticed that the water in the pot stops boiling instantly when I remove it from the burner. So I fear I may be completely wrong about how latent heat & thermal mass works with a body of water. Will my idea work? Why does the water stop boiling when I remove the heat source?

Is ethanol even the best form of alcohol to make for a engine? Methanol is the stuff used for racing. And methanol can be made from waste, plant stems, wood chips and such. No higher expense for corn or wheat that can be sold as food.http://www.consumerenergyreport.com...ol-technical-merits-and-political-favoritism/

The oil to gasoline is more efficient do the use of catalysts in the production process. And all distillation I think follows any "industrial" process - the bigger the scale the cheaper the individual product.

I briefly looked into methanol (wood gas) a couple of years ago. It seemed my internet searches always returned results from people who were also preaching about HHO & magnet overunity generators. So, I figured it was a scam. The fact that you're suggesting it lends it some credance, so I will give it a second look. It just seems counterintuitive to me that you could throw a bunch of dry logs & grass into (basically) a still and have it pump out a fuid fuel that will run a car. It's something I would need to try out. I've already ran an engine on ethanol so it's proven itself to me, while methanol hasn't. But like I said, I will look into it. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

I am counting on the latent heat of my tank + the fuid within the tank to 'average out' intermittent blasts of heat. I thought this would work well, considering how much thermal mass a tank of water must have, but last night while boiling eggs, I noticed that the water in the pot stops boiling instantly when I remove it from the burner. So I fear I may be completely wrong about how latent heat & thermal mass works with a body of water. Will my idea work? Why does the water stop boiling when I remove the heat source?

It's to do with the different energies involved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_heat_of_vaporization
To make water at 100 degrees C into steam you need over 2000 kJ per Kg
To change the temperature of liquid water from 99 degrees to 100 degrees you only need about 4 kJ per kilo and iron only about 0.5 kJ per kilo.
You would therefore need a huge mass of steel to keep boiling going (assuming the steel is just over 100 degrees as it would be if it's a thin container).

An electric hotplate keeps a pan of water boiling for quite a while when turned off (a constant source of annoyance) because the plate itself is maybe at a couple of hundred degrees C and takes a while to drop below the point that it keeps the pan boiling.

 

good info, thanks. Maybe I could submerge chunks of iron in the tank, and put a thick iron plate underneath. Also considered surrounding the whole thing with a barrier of perlite to keep the heat in.

 

The wood gas (also know as producer gas) is a proven technology and was used in the early days of the automobile. But the Ford model "T" was also a very low compression engine that could use it. But thats not what I was talking about.

I was talking about the actual fermentation of plant stems, leaves and wood chips. Then distillation of what liquid.

But Markd77 does bring up a good point. You need to do some kind of a spread sheet analysis of the energy expended verses the energy made, before going into any type of real life production.

While this type of project is a good to know type thing, the only time I can see it being practical is in a worse case scenario. Like "Mad Max". Just what I found in my time trying it.

 

Chunks of unheated iron surrounded by water will make things worse. They won't be hotter than boiling liquid because they are surrounded by it and have lower heat capacity than the water around them.
The thick iron plate is a good idea, actually if whatever you use has low thermal <ed> conductivity </ed> it's better because there will be more temperature difference between the two sides. Copper or aluminium would be bad choices. Possibly a stack of plates would be good because the thin air gaps will allow more temperature difference.
Maybe even a steel plate with a layer of sand with the tank on top of that. The steel plate could get really hot (storing lots of heat) and although the sand is a poor conductor of heat, if there is enough temperature difference between the bottom and top of the layer it will transmit enough power.

 

But Markd77 does bring up a good point. You need to do some kind of a spread sheet analysis of the energy expended verses the energy made, before going into any type of real life production.

While this type of project is a good to know type thing, the only time I can see it being practical is in a worse case scenario. Like "Mad Max". Just what I found in my time trying it.

It isn't practical, using stuff that you have to buy. I've proven that already in my previous experiments. Since 2009 I have gotten a lot of feedback regarding growing your own crops vs buying the raw materials. People are telling me if you have land & can grow a crop such as switchgrass, you can make ethanol at a much more reasonable return. I'm not really convinced but thought it might be fun to try. My suspicion is that using an acre to grow switchgrass to turn into ethanol to run your car would be less of a profitable venture than using that acre to grow strawberries, selling the strawberries, and buying gasoline. Reason being, as your link mentioned (several times) the only reason why the market has found it profitable to make ethanol is because of heavy government subsidy. In the absence of that, it would not be profitable to do so. I won't be getting any government subsidy, so something tells me it won't be worth my time. In any case, I think it's a good thing in a mad max situation. Ethanol doesn't have a shelf life like gasoline, if you seal it airtight. I might make a few hundred gallons and seal them away in airtight drums for the apocalypse . That's why I want to make it ethanol-fueled, so that I don't need much else to run it.

 

The storage thing is another reason for methanol over ethanol. Ethanol is hygroscopic( absorbs water) and methanol is not. This is why the 'old car' guys hate E-85, it destroys gas tanks and fuel lines from the inside. Along with fuel pumps carburetor and the rubber hoses. The newer cars have fuel systems built to handle it.

Seen something on "how do they make it" the other night that might interest you. It was a company making a 'radial steam engine' for cars boats and even a front end loader.

It had a flash steam boiler that got up to pressure in 5 seconds and could burn anything from ethanol to used motor oil for heat. Had the same high torque at low RPM as an electric motor and was a sealed system that condensed the steam and refed to the boiler.

 

Strantor have you considered using electrolysis to make hydrogen and storing that as a compressed gas, and using that to run your "apocalypse proof" vehicle?

You can use solar power to generate the hydrogen and it will run an engine reasonably easy, easier than trying to generate 95+% pure alcohol which is not easy.

I know googling for hydrogen is a minefield of scams and idiots, but in the midst of that there are reputable people (professors, etc) with working setups of solar generated hydrogen and using it to run vehicles. It's a faily easy science and best of all it's almost an entirely electric process (so you can monitor, chart, test etc).

 

The storage thing is another reason for methanol over ethanol. Ethanol is hygroscopic( absorbs water) and methanol is not. This is why the 'old car' guys hate E-85, it destroys gas tanks and fuel lines from the inside. Along with fuel pumps carburetor and the rubber hoses. The newer cars have fuel systems built to handle it.

Seen something on "how do they make it" the other night that might interest you. It was a company making a 'radial steam engine' for cars boats and even a front end loader.

It had a flash steam boiler that got up to pressure in 5 seconds and could burn anything from ethanol to used motor oil for heat. Had the same high torque at low RPM as an electric motor and was a sealed system that condensed the steam and refed to the boiler.

Radial steam engine, sounds awesome! I believe I can watch the episode online, I'll try to find it. i didn't know that methanol was storage-proof. I've got a lot of homework to do on the topic.

Strantor have you considered using electrolysis to make hydrogen and storing that as a compressed gas, and using that to run your "apocalypse proof" vehicle?

You can use solar power to generate the hydrogen and it will run an engine reasonably easy, easier than trying to generate 95+% pure alcohol which is not easy.

I know googling for hydrogen is a minefield of scams and idiots, but in the midst of that there are reputable people (professors, etc) with working setups of solar generated hydrogen and using it to run vehicles. It's a faily easy science and best of all it's almost an entirely electric process (so you can monitor, chart, test etc).

No I never really considered hydrogen. I've considered methane. Spent weeks looking over the whole biodigester thing and H2S scrubbing, which is pretty sad considering how simple it is. What put me off about methane is having to compress it. I'm not sure, but I believe hydrogen is even more volatile than methane, is that true? how would I compress it? I don't want to blow myself up .

Good suggestions guys, I appreciate outside the box answers & ideas. You are making me aware of things I hadn't known previously and that's always a good thing.

 

The nice thing about bio-digester's is that you also get fertilizer/soil to grow in. The methane in my opinion is better than hydrogen. Less explosive and you can get compressors for it easier. Even a propane compressor will work for it.

Back when I was young there was a guy in my town that was trying a lot of the stuff that your talking about. He was thought of as eccentric and crazy, but he was really smart. When he would let me I would help him build stuff and listen to his ideas. One thing he showed me and I did do it, was he used a dryer vent in reverse to bring combustion air to his heating furnace. Instead of combusting heated house air it brought out side air in and used that. Didn't save much but every little bit helps.

Heres a link to the engine - http://www.cyclonepower.com/works.html

 

...
No I never really considered hydrogen. I've considered methane. Spent weeks looking over the whole biodigester thing and H2S scrubbing, which is pretty sad considering how simple it is. What put me off about methane is having to compress it. I'm not sure, but I believe hydrogen is even more volatile than methane, is that true? how would I compress it? I don't want to blow myself up .
...

I'm far from an expert, but I believe hydrogen is safe to compress as it only combusts when oxygen is present, so you would just use a gas compressor on the pure hydrogen obtained from the electrolysis.

A guy called Yul Brown did some interesting early research showing he could safely compress the hydroxy gas mixture, although that is generally considered a no-no from what I have read. One good reason (regardless of safety) is that gas is bulky as a stored fuel and compressing hydrogen alone gives much better storage.

As for methane, ever been near a methane reactor? Or had to clean one or work on one?

If you have solid fuels including crops, you might want to look at some of the stirling engines, with modern materials they might be a good area to invest some time in.

 

As I understand it, the commercial distillers of fuel alcohol use as much as possible of by-products or waste to heat their furnaces. Perhaps such things as husks, straw or leaves, or residue left behind after distillation may be used, if these things are not disposed of otherwise (e.g. as animal food). Using the final product as fuel would seem inefficient, as energy has to be expended to get to this point, and also the final yield will be reduced.

 

I gave a friend a PID heater controller a while back for his project. He is making an electric jerky smoker. His plan is to make a hotplate out of a stove element, with a dish on top full of moist wood chips, placed in the bottom of a sealed box. I told him I thought it was a good idea and that he could probably get a lot more bang for his buck (or at least more smoke from his wood chips) if he did it that way. Now I'm thinking that he essentially is just building a methanol still and filling it full of meat intended for human consumption. Is he going to be pumping his jerky full of methanol? should I stop him?

 

Until the recent internet links I had never heard of making methanol from wood smoke. Doesn't mean its wrong though, after all I'm known as "shortbus". The only thing I've ever seen about wood gas/producer gas is using it directly to run a motor, not liquefying it.

People have smoked meat for preservation/taste for millennium. Without a problem. Before refrigeration it was a common thing. As long as the smoke is ventilated from the smoker as it is being used I can't see of any problem with methanol. But research as to meat smoking/jerking wouldn't hurt.