Ethanol production/steam powered battery charging and misc projects finally under way
Jan 24, 2011, 09:26 AM
#1
Ethanol production/steam powered battery charging and misc projects finally under way
I've been waiting to make this post for nearly 4 years.
I got interested in making my own ethanol 4-5 years ago. I did some research, filed for the federal permit to make it and bought most of what I needed.
This is the still I purchased from Mile Hi Distilling:
http://www.milehidistilling.com/Phot...ductCode=16110
There are plans available on the internet to build your own and you could actually build your own reflux column still for as little as $200 using PVC pipe. I had originally bought the plans to build one from copper and just decided to take the easy way out and buy a high quality still all made of stainless.
About the time I got everything ready I built a new house. In the regulations for producing ethanol it states that you can not produce the fuel in your home or a building attached to your home. This put everything on the back burner. I have become more and more self sufficient, growing a lot of my own food, raising some animals etc. and I needed some extra room. So this fall I decided it was time to put up a small barn to store some of my farm related stuff in. Construction was started:
This was the framing stages of the barn, it's small 16'x24', I just wanted it large enough to do the job. I didn't take a finished picture, it's red steel siding, white steel trim, black steel roof. Inside has a white steel ceiling in it, nice loft area for storage with flooring.
I have a growing desire to be less dependent on "the world". So my interest in using less utilities has grown too. When I finished the barn I needed electric but refused to tie it into the electrical grid. I had quite a few used EVO batteries here that customers never wanted. I wired them all together and installed them in the barn. I also installed all 12v lighting, radio etc. I wired in a 3000 watt power inverter for when I need 120v. This system has proven to be just kick ***. I run a 1/2 hp electric motor off the inverter to grind feed in a feed mill/feed bin I also built. It has worked flawlessly and I can't help but smile every time I'm out there knowing it's all running for free. in the spring I'll be putting in some solar panels I got from VWJeff that they use on VW's, this will keep the battery bank charged and should produce some extra power. For now I use a trickle charger to boost the batteries and I built a steam powered alternator set up I use to charge them too.
Next in order to heat the building, boil the wash to produce the ethanol and make power for steam/electric generation I had to build a wood burner/boiler. Here's a picture of what I built:
This was a 24" diameter 1/4" thick pipe casing they generally bury under ground. I had 24" dia. 1/4" thick round plates cut and welded them in. There's a burner box/clean out on the bottom. Then the water tank which holds about 60 gallons on top. I used an 8" diameter, 1/4" thick section of pipe for the chimney that runs from the burner box through the tank which adds considerable heating to the tank. It then runs out the roof of the building, obviously.
While I was getting everything ready to make the ethanol I started messing with the boiler/water tank. On the top I used a 3.5" piece of stainless tubing and a Vband clamp for the fill section. This piece ended up housing a pressure/temp gauge, pop off pressure relief valve and two 3/4" pipe outlets. One runs to the still and the other side is used for steam output.
If anyone's interested in how I produced electric with steam let me know and I'll answer, otherwise I won't get off on that topic any further right now.
I plan to produce my ethanol from corn. Everything to do with the production of ethanol is temperature dependent. From the enzymes needed to break the starches down to sugars in the corn, the yeast activation, the boiler and the column temp. So for now I was so eager to get started I had a local winery make me about 40 gallons of wash. Wash is the "beer/wine" clean liquid that you cook the actual alcohol out of. So picture 40 gallons of Bud Lite, that's "wash".
No I needed to transfer this 40 gallons of wash from the barrel it was fermented in to the top of my boiler. I bought a submersible 12v bilge pump and used that. This entire operation is set up so I don't have to rely on any outside power to run it. I pumped the 40 gallons of wash into the boiler and filled the wood stove section with wood. The fire was lit and then we waited. In less than an hour the wash was up to temp:
That is the gauge on top of the boiler.
Then shortly after the still got heat in it from the alcohol vapors:
As soon as the gauge on the still hits 172 degrees the ethanol starts to flow:
The white bucket is what I was using to hold the ethanol, the silver bucket on the ground catches the low proof run off.
Next I pulled a sample to see what kind of content we were getting:
I was disappointed to see only about 83%. This is 166 Proof if you were to drink it, which I have no desire to do. That means I was getting about 17% water. Ethanol has been successfully run down to about 60%, leaving the other 40% as water. I've read of guys who have run 96-98% but as hard as I tried throughout the process this weekend I couldn't get better than about 90%.
The ethanol started out a brownish/yellow color which I blame on the boiler being rusty inside. Using a stainless boiler would be best but the expense kept me from building it all out of stainless. I may look into it further now that it's running as I have some other things I need to do, like dry the Zeolite and old corn mash, so I need a "cooking" surface for drying purposes.
After a few gallons had run through the color of the ethanol turned to a gorgeous blue:
I wanted to see how well it burned and put some in a pan, instantly lit, real nice odorless blue flame:
I'll use this in my camp stove instead of dry gas or camp fuel now.
There is a low proof outlet on the still, this is where the water drops out. You end up with quite a bit of this low proof and it can be distilled again to get the alcohol out of it.
When I was done I ended up with about 5.5 gallons of good ethanol and another 3-4 gallons of low proof that I can run again. I had estimated when I started that I'd be able to get about 8 gallons of ethanol, that was of course in perfect conditions and being able to capture every single ounce of alcohol available. There is no perfect world! haha
The still has a cooling inlet, this inlet is made for a garden hose, typically someone takes the garden hose from their house, runs it to the still and turns the water on. The top section has a steady stream of water running through it 100% of the time. The lower section is controlled by a heat dependent valve. I didn't want to waste a bunch of water or be tied to needing a garden hose. I took a 10 gallon square tank I had (old fuel jug holder for a car trailer) and put an outlet on it. I ran that to a 12v Surflow RV pump and then out of the pump to the still. The discharge out of the still I ran back into the tank. This worked really good for about the first hour we ran the still. After that the water got too hot and would no longer cool. At that point it was a fight to keep bailing the hot water out and adding new fresh cold water. We ended up using snow and just kept dumping snow in the tank to keep it cool.
Let me back track a bit. When building the boiler/wood burner section my biggest concern was that regulating the wash temperature in the boiler was going to be a HUGE FIGHT. I thought I'd end up constantly opening/closing the damper door to regulate the temperature. Well I'm happy to say that an engineer couldn't have done the calculations on this and come out better. I filled the wood box when I started, got the wash up to 190 degrees and then closed the ash door/damper completely. Over the next 3 hours the fire was never touched nor was the damper. The water stayed at exactly 190 degrees, I don't think it moved 5 degrees either direction. I'd say I used less than 50 pounds of wood and I had perfect control over the temps of the boiler at all times with NO input.
Now let me skip back forward. The cooling of the tower was no so easy, as I was explaining. It's obvious I need either a better way to keep the water cool or simply a much larger storage tank. I am going to first try to take one of our mini radiators and fans and run the water out of the still into the radiator and cool it and then run it back into the storage tank. If that doesn't work perfectly I will simply bury a large tank, 250 gallons or so, under ground and fill it, with that much water the temp won't change very much. That 10 gallons was just too little volume to regulate easily.
I just bought a 200 bushel grain wagon, waiting to pick it up. This summer I'll be putting my own corn in and from here out I will use corn only to produce the ethanol. For me, personally, there is no better choice than corn as I can grow it, harvest it, grind it all by myself. I can then get ethanol out of it, dry the mash after it's been used and it then becomes DDGS (distillers dried grains and solubles) and I can use it for feed for animals or sell it off. The beauty of that is the DDGS is worth as much as the initial corn price, about $5 per bushel.
It's a very interesting project and I've enjoyed the hell out of it from the beginning. I hope you guys find it interesting. Feel free to ask any questions you may have, it may spark an idea on my end or lead me to investigating something I haven't learned yet.
I got interested in making my own ethanol 4-5 years ago. I did some research, filed for the federal permit to make it and bought most of what I needed.
This is the still I purchased from Mile Hi Distilling:
http://www.milehidistilling.com/Phot...ductCode=16110
There are plans available on the internet to build your own and you could actually build your own reflux column still for as little as $200 using PVC pipe. I had originally bought the plans to build one from copper and just decided to take the easy way out and buy a high quality still all made of stainless.
About the time I got everything ready I built a new house. In the regulations for producing ethanol it states that you can not produce the fuel in your home or a building attached to your home. This put everything on the back burner. I have become more and more self sufficient, growing a lot of my own food, raising some animals etc. and I needed some extra room. So this fall I decided it was time to put up a small barn to store some of my farm related stuff in. Construction was started:
This was the framing stages of the barn, it's small 16'x24', I just wanted it large enough to do the job. I didn't take a finished picture, it's red steel siding, white steel trim, black steel roof. Inside has a white steel ceiling in it, nice loft area for storage with flooring.
I have a growing desire to be less dependent on "the world". So my interest in using less utilities has grown too. When I finished the barn I needed electric but refused to tie it into the electrical grid. I had quite a few used EVO batteries here that customers never wanted. I wired them all together and installed them in the barn. I also installed all 12v lighting, radio etc. I wired in a 3000 watt power inverter for when I need 120v. This system has proven to be just kick ***. I run a 1/2 hp electric motor off the inverter to grind feed in a feed mill/feed bin I also built. It has worked flawlessly and I can't help but smile every time I'm out there knowing it's all running for free. in the spring I'll be putting in some solar panels I got from VWJeff that they use on VW's, this will keep the battery bank charged and should produce some extra power. For now I use a trickle charger to boost the batteries and I built a steam powered alternator set up I use to charge them too.
Next in order to heat the building, boil the wash to produce the ethanol and make power for steam/electric generation I had to build a wood burner/boiler. Here's a picture of what I built:
This was a 24" diameter 1/4" thick pipe casing they generally bury under ground. I had 24" dia. 1/4" thick round plates cut and welded them in. There's a burner box/clean out on the bottom. Then the water tank which holds about 60 gallons on top. I used an 8" diameter, 1/4" thick section of pipe for the chimney that runs from the burner box through the tank which adds considerable heating to the tank. It then runs out the roof of the building, obviously.
While I was getting everything ready to make the ethanol I started messing with the boiler/water tank. On the top I used a 3.5" piece of stainless tubing and a Vband clamp for the fill section. This piece ended up housing a pressure/temp gauge, pop off pressure relief valve and two 3/4" pipe outlets. One runs to the still and the other side is used for steam output.
If anyone's interested in how I produced electric with steam let me know and I'll answer, otherwise I won't get off on that topic any further right now.
I plan to produce my ethanol from corn. Everything to do with the production of ethanol is temperature dependent. From the enzymes needed to break the starches down to sugars in the corn, the yeast activation, the boiler and the column temp. So for now I was so eager to get started I had a local winery make me about 40 gallons of wash. Wash is the "beer/wine" clean liquid that you cook the actual alcohol out of. So picture 40 gallons of Bud Lite, that's "wash".
No I needed to transfer this 40 gallons of wash from the barrel it was fermented in to the top of my boiler. I bought a submersible 12v bilge pump and used that. This entire operation is set up so I don't have to rely on any outside power to run it. I pumped the 40 gallons of wash into the boiler and filled the wood stove section with wood. The fire was lit and then we waited. In less than an hour the wash was up to temp:
That is the gauge on top of the boiler.
Then shortly after the still got heat in it from the alcohol vapors:
As soon as the gauge on the still hits 172 degrees the ethanol starts to flow:
The white bucket is what I was using to hold the ethanol, the silver bucket on the ground catches the low proof run off.
Next I pulled a sample to see what kind of content we were getting:
I was disappointed to see only about 83%. This is 166 Proof if you were to drink it, which I have no desire to do. That means I was getting about 17% water. Ethanol has been successfully run down to about 60%, leaving the other 40% as water. I've read of guys who have run 96-98% but as hard as I tried throughout the process this weekend I couldn't get better than about 90%.
The ethanol started out a brownish/yellow color which I blame on the boiler being rusty inside. Using a stainless boiler would be best but the expense kept me from building it all out of stainless. I may look into it further now that it's running as I have some other things I need to do, like dry the Zeolite and old corn mash, so I need a "cooking" surface for drying purposes.
After a few gallons had run through the color of the ethanol turned to a gorgeous blue:
I wanted to see how well it burned and put some in a pan, instantly lit, real nice odorless blue flame:
I'll use this in my camp stove instead of dry gas or camp fuel now.
There is a low proof outlet on the still, this is where the water drops out. You end up with quite a bit of this low proof and it can be distilled again to get the alcohol out of it.
When I was done I ended up with about 5.5 gallons of good ethanol and another 3-4 gallons of low proof that I can run again. I had estimated when I started that I'd be able to get about 8 gallons of ethanol, that was of course in perfect conditions and being able to capture every single ounce of alcohol available. There is no perfect world! haha
The still has a cooling inlet, this inlet is made for a garden hose, typically someone takes the garden hose from their house, runs it to the still and turns the water on. The top section has a steady stream of water running through it 100% of the time. The lower section is controlled by a heat dependent valve. I didn't want to waste a bunch of water or be tied to needing a garden hose. I took a 10 gallon square tank I had (old fuel jug holder for a car trailer) and put an outlet on it. I ran that to a 12v Surflow RV pump and then out of the pump to the still. The discharge out of the still I ran back into the tank. This worked really good for about the first hour we ran the still. After that the water got too hot and would no longer cool. At that point it was a fight to keep bailing the hot water out and adding new fresh cold water. We ended up using snow and just kept dumping snow in the tank to keep it cool.
Let me back track a bit. When building the boiler/wood burner section my biggest concern was that regulating the wash temperature in the boiler was going to be a HUGE FIGHT. I thought I'd end up constantly opening/closing the damper door to regulate the temperature. Well I'm happy to say that an engineer couldn't have done the calculations on this and come out better. I filled the wood box when I started, got the wash up to 190 degrees and then closed the ash door/damper completely. Over the next 3 hours the fire was never touched nor was the damper. The water stayed at exactly 190 degrees, I don't think it moved 5 degrees either direction. I'd say I used less than 50 pounds of wood and I had perfect control over the temps of the boiler at all times with NO input.
Now let me skip back forward. The cooling of the tower was no so easy, as I was explaining. It's obvious I need either a better way to keep the water cool or simply a much larger storage tank. I am going to first try to take one of our mini radiators and fans and run the water out of the still into the radiator and cool it and then run it back into the storage tank. If that doesn't work perfectly I will simply bury a large tank, 250 gallons or so, under ground and fill it, with that much water the temp won't change very much. That 10 gallons was just too little volume to regulate easily.
I just bought a 200 bushel grain wagon, waiting to pick it up. This summer I'll be putting my own corn in and from here out I will use corn only to produce the ethanol. For me, personally, there is no better choice than corn as I can grow it, harvest it, grind it all by myself. I can then get ethanol out of it, dry the mash after it's been used and it then becomes DDGS (distillers dried grains and solubles) and I can use it for feed for animals or sell it off. The beauty of that is the DDGS is worth as much as the initial corn price, about $5 per bushel.
It's a very interesting project and I've enjoyed the hell out of it from the beginning. I hope you guys find it interesting. Feel free to ask any questions you may have, it may spark an idea on my end or lead me to investigating something I haven't learned yet.
Jan 24, 2011, 10:44 AM
#7
how do you find the time to do all that and still pump out badass street cars?
good **** though. pretty cool to make your own ethanol. looks like it can get real expensive going with all stainless.
Last edited by 05VIII; Jan 24, 2011 at 10:52 AM.
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Jan 24, 2011, 12:20 PM
#11
The time it takes to produce it depends on a lot of things. The production is higher if you aren't trying to get the percentage very high. The cooler you run the column and boiler, close to 172 degrees at sea level, the higher the percentage will be but the lower the output is. So you can speed the process up and produce more fuel faster at the trade off of having a lower percentage of ethanol.
Keeping it running at right around 172 means the alcohol is boiling with the least amount of evaporation of the water. Alcohol boils at 172 degrees, water at 212.
With that said we tried to run it slow and it took me about 3 hours to get the 5.5 gallons. The nice thing is with a more efficient cooling for the tower it could really be left unattended. It was cool doing it and I had a few friends over, we just sat around bull****ting and drinking beer while it was going through the process.
The higher the percentage of alcohol in your wash, the more wash you have all have an effect on how long much alcohol you get out of the still.
How much corn does it take to produce ethanol? Answer is one bushel of corn makes 2.88 gallons of ethanol. A bushel of corn is 56 pounds, dry weight. Many farmers here in Ohio saw yields this year of 200 bushel per acre of corn. I am hoping to see somewhere around 150 bushel per acre and plan to plant one acre. That will give me enough corn to theoretically make 432 gallons of ethanol.
Josh'sEVO, your description actually is fine with me, as long as I don't have to be around people that would be a perfect lifestyle for me. Throw in a place I don't have to pay these cowardly crooked bastards property tax and I'm there, I'll leave my shoes here.
Keeping it running at right around 172 means the alcohol is boiling with the least amount of evaporation of the water. Alcohol boils at 172 degrees, water at 212.
With that said we tried to run it slow and it took me about 3 hours to get the 5.5 gallons. The nice thing is with a more efficient cooling for the tower it could really be left unattended. It was cool doing it and I had a few friends over, we just sat around bull****ting and drinking beer while it was going through the process.
The higher the percentage of alcohol in your wash, the more wash you have all have an effect on how long much alcohol you get out of the still.
How much corn does it take to produce ethanol? Answer is one bushel of corn makes 2.88 gallons of ethanol. A bushel of corn is 56 pounds, dry weight. Many farmers here in Ohio saw yields this year of 200 bushel per acre of corn. I am hoping to see somewhere around 150 bushel per acre and plan to plant one acre. That will give me enough corn to theoretically make 432 gallons of ethanol.
Josh'sEVO, your description actually is fine with me, as long as I don't have to be around people that would be a perfect lifestyle for me. Throw in a place I don't have to pay these cowardly crooked bastards property tax and I'm there, I'll leave my shoes here.
