Submitted by Phil099 (not verified) on March 25, 2008 - 10:43am.
In the mid 70's after selling my manufacturing business and taking up autoracing using alcohol powered Champ cars, I purchased a small farm and set up a portable ethanol plant which produced 500 gallons/day. More than enough for my racing and to sell the surplus to Beacon Oil Co for addition to gasoline in California. My feedstock was jerusallem artichokes which could produce roughly 700gallons per acre and are easy to grow. We gound them up in a tub grinder and fermented them in batches using brewers yeast. The still we constructed used (laughing gas, ethyl ether) under 100 psi pressure which causes alcohol to separate at 140F so that we could use an ordinary electric hot water heater as a heat source and water coils in the still. The ethyl ether is very flamable (explosive at about 700F. The still was an upside down U shape with both feet in a tank at the bottom. The spent water after fermentation was recycled back into the fermenting process. The plant was disassembled when I retired from racing.
Currently I have a self built biogas generator which can cleanly burn agricultural wastes, or wood chips or chunks and provide hot water for heating my house and shop (7200ft) and generate electricity thru my tri-fuel generator when needed. The little biogas generator fits in a ordinary 55 gal barrel. The biogas will run my generator either with or without gas or propane and will also run my large diesel generator if the diesel is left on idle so to ignite the gas. Both generators have fuel injection so they automatically regulate whether and how much fuel to supply depending on if the biogas is present.
In the mid 70's after selling my manufacturing business and taking up autoracing using alcohol powered Champ cars, I purchased a small farm and set up a portable ethanol plant which produced 500 gallons/day. More than enough for my racing and to sell the surplus to Beacon Oil Co for addition to gasoline in California. My feedstock was jerusallem artichokes which could produce roughly 700gallons per acre and are easy to grow. We gound them up in a tub grinder and fermented them in batches using brewers yeast. The still we constructed used (laughing gas, ethyl ether) under 100 psi pressure which causes alcohol to separate at 140F so that we could use an ordinary electric hot water heater as a heat source and water coils in the still. The ethyl ether is very flamable (explosive at about 700F. The still was an upside down U shape with both feet in a tank at the bottom. The spent water after fermentation was recycled back into the fermenting process. The plant was disassembled when I retired from racing.
Currently I have a self built biogas generator which can cleanly burn agricultural wastes, or wood chips or chunks and provide hot water for heating my house and shop (7200ft) and generate electricity thru my tri-fuel generator when needed. The little biogas generator fits in a ordinary 55 gal barrel. The biogas will run my generator either with or without gas or propane and will also run my large diesel generator if the diesel is left on idle so to ignite the gas. Both generators have fuel injection so they automatically regulate whether and how much fuel to supply depending on if the biogas is present.