In these trying times it seems appropriate to work through some ‘what if ‘ scenarios, such as the local gas station suddenly not having any more gasoline to sell you, or said gas station ceasing to exist altogether. In that case it can be incredibly useful to be able to create your own gasoline alternative in the form of ethanol. As demonstrated by [Hyperspace Pirate] in a recent video this process is fairly straightforward once you have procured an appropriate feedstock, such as here sugar (sucrose).
Although baker’s yeast (Saccaromyces cerevisiae) is more commonly associated with the production of ethanol-laced drinks, there’s nothing that says that you cannot distill out the approximately 10-15% ethanol that results from a yeast feeding frenzy and resulting waste products.
How to do this distillation step is explained in the video, with the mixture heated and put through a self-made reflux column to deal with the fact that the water/ethanol mixture is an azeotropic mixture, meaning that a lot of water is expected to make its way out of the condenser along with ethanol without this measure to condense as much of the water vapor before it can make its way to the top of the column.
Ultimately the conversion rate of plain white sugar to ethanol is about 54%, with the rest turning into CO2. With an appropriately converted combustion engine for running on 100% ethanol, it runs pretty well, though the final cost per liter of ethanol will heavily depend on your feedstock.
With the full costs of the electric heater of the distillation column taken into account – at 2.57 kWh/L – as well as the cost of the off-the-shelf sugar, [Hyperspace Pirate] with his Florida kWh cost of $0.12 paid around $2.62/L, or $9.91 per gallon. Even with how much prices at the gas pump have shot up recently, you’d pretty much need to find a free source of feedstock and otherwise optimize the process for it to make much sense, even in this economy.
That said, it’s crazy that the world of Mad Max doesn’t run on ethanol. If tomorrow a certain bubble were to implode and the global economy fell apart as a result, producing bioethanol would seem to be a highly marketable skill.
Continuous feed vacuum distillation cam significantly reduce the energy required to separate ethanol from the other constituents.
… and solar power is pretty cheap these days, a set of panels, battery and inverter with 1kW peak output costs around 1kEUR, I guess prices are similar in the US (well…. you got tariffs, so, uh, maybe?) and could reduce your normal energy bill (when not distilling ethanol – which may or may not be legal where you are, check the rules before moonshining) by quite a bit. Essentially my washing machine, dryer or dishwasher have no energy cost (oh, and my 3d printer, too, just not all at the same time).
For this application, solar thermal troughs would be more practical and affordable. Some well shaped aluminum and properly placed pipes can produce all the heat necessary for distillation without needing to bother with electricity,
As for the legality, In the United States, you can legally produce up to 10,000 proof gallons of ethanol per year for personal use. However, you cannot legally just start distilling; you must first apply for and receive a free Alcohol Fuel Producer’s Permit through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
While producing fuel alcohol from farmed sugars is a common thing,
The real future lies in supercritical water hydrolysis of cellulosic waste into simple sugars for use as feedstock for fuel production. At a temperature of 400C and a pressure of 25MPa water depolymerizes tough cellulose directly into valuable fermentable sugars between 0.02 and 0.20 seconds seconds without needing harsh acid or enzymatic catalysts.
This process can work with everything from Corn stover, wheat straw, rice straw, bagasse, Seed husks (oat, rice, and cottonseed hulls), fruit and vegetable peels, spent grains from brewing, Sawdust & Bark, Small-diameter wood, logging slash, tree trimmings, Waste Paper, Cardboard, Textile Waste to many other waste products.
The sugars produced are not only useful for fuel ethanol, but also as feedstocks for other processes like lab grown meat and dairy production.
Thank you for chipping in with alternatives. This is why biofuels fail – nobody wants to look at things differently. Cellulosic ethanol should be at the forefront here, not subsidizing what we already know how to do.
Though, if you do it like the rum producers and South American fuel farmers, the loop closes almost completely. Raise the sugarcane, juice and ferment it, run the stills off the bagasse. Still only using the sugar, but the cellulose byproduct covers the input energy burden.
. . . And since nobody else said it yet, this whole youtube-a-day thing is getting old. I love hyperspace pirate – he actually does it the hard way, shows his work, and does the data analysis in a hilariously informative way. But come on, at least cut some preview deals or something with these guys instead of just posting what hit your feed three days ago.
While buring works for the rum producers….
Using solar troughs to produce the required heat for producing the rum would be environmentally cleaner, and free up the bagasse to be used in biofuel production to power the machinery used to plant, harvest, and process the cane.
oops
buring=burning