How to Home-Brew Ethanol (But Don't Do It!)
by Matthew Sparkes, London, UK on 07.25.07
Ethanol, the fuel, is similar to ethanol, the social lubricant. It just has some gasoline added for extra kick. Don't ever get them mixed up - it's not good for you, or your car. Ethanol is a contraversial fuel - at the moment it's a very intensive process that may require more energy to make than is released in it's use. New developments are changing this, but it's certainly not the silver bullet that many people claim.
We previously covered the differences between biodeisel and ethanol, where we stated that, "if you're a do-it-yourselfer, biodiesel can be made at home." The same is also true for ethanol though, which Pop Sci prove with their recent how-to. The only thing is that it's very dangerous, and illegal. You could also run into problems with not paying tax on the fuel you use. In short, you can read how to do it, but please, don't.
It's actually a very easy process, "To make it, whether in home stills or factories, cornmeal is put in vats with water and enzymes that convert some of the corn to sugar. Yeast added to the "mash" converts the sugar to alcohol. In a few days, the alcohol concentration tops 10 percent and the yeast goes inactive, having, ironically, rendered its own environment toxic. Distillation increases the alcohol concentration: 50 percent is vodka, 95 percent is fuel." ::Pop Sci
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- US Farmer’s Incomes Now Tied More to Ethanol Than Food, Economist Says
- 40 Corn Ethanol Plants Could File For Bankruptcy by Early 2009
- Ethanol Industry Still Dodging Blame For Role In Global Food Crisis
- Cambodia’s First Ethanol Plant Will Use One-Fifth of Nation's Cassava Crop
Ethanol can work.. why everyone is focusing on Corn derived alcohol is beyond me... fuel grade ethanol can be made from allot of other bio-mass.. look at the production from sugar cane bagasse in South America... I personally plane to produce it from waste wood dust... this can be done region by region based on what is available locally... this is not a silver bullet.. but a way to turn the current autos to a greener fuel while the an all/mostly EV system can be established. The current infrastructure will support this fuel.
Actually 100% is fuel, you don't want that 5% water in your engine. The distillation process can get it to 90-95% and then you have to use an H2O absorbing substance to "dry" the rest of the ethanol. It is also perfectly legal to manufacture FUEL ethanol, but in order to qualify as fuel ethanol it has to be denatured by adding a chemical that makes it toxic (yes, even more toxic than pure alcohol). Benzene is the most common denaturing additive used. I was actually wondering if there are any additives anyone knows about that are environmentally benign?
the oil people are saying it takes more energy to produce ethanol than the ethanol itself provides. I guess if you use petroleum or fossil fuels to distill the ethanol from raw ingredients this would be true. But the technology is now available to use solar power and wind power to distill ethanol. the ethanol itself is very clean burning as compared to gasoline or diesel. we have to do this if we don't want to breathe gasoline/diesel exhaust concentrated in the larger cities. Brazil has an ethanol infrastructure that has worked for 20+ years. are the oil people saying Americans aren't as smart as Brazilians?