Continuous Ethanol Distillation

[andrewbenfell]

Well done ! you are from a fine breed of men who actually do stuff ;)

[Allenmakestherules]

aside from the questions about the still, my main question is what are you using as a sugar source cheap enough to make it worth the effort?

[janssens18]

u should try to run the still off of the ethanol ur producing it would prob be cheaper in the long run

[lukemich12]

@janssens18 2nd law of thermodynamics says that idea will fail...

[markivan56]

Doug, it looks like you should lay off the doughnuts some,stop drinking the moonshine, bin the chainsaw and use the bowsaw. Mark.

[Zvesda]

Can we drink the alcohol?

[drmiller100]

@Zvesda No you cannot drink the alcohol. This system does not separate the methanol, butanol, propyanol and other nasty things which will kill you.

[sailor1986]

@drmiller100

offcourse you can. nothing in the mash will kill you as of its low consentration.

its not as pure as proper fractionated ethanol with foreshots, heads and tails removed. so the hangover would be quite nasty ;)

but properly cleaned through both an ozone treatment and activated charcoal i would not have any second thoughts about pouring it in me :)

you said you used beer for mash. wouldent you get a higher output with a sugar-turboyeast mash ?

[amnonholland1]

Its unfortunate that electricity is used. This will have a more harmful effect on the environment from and ghg emissions perspective. Could you use alcohol produced to run the boiler? Yes, overall production would maybe be half of your current, but your creating CLEAN fuel. I suppose the problem is that a fuel burner doesn't give you the same amount of control that a electric thermostat does

[drmiller100]

@amnonholland1 you should quit typing on your computer as it uses electricity and produces green house gasses.

if you do some basic, simple, fundamental math, you will discover a gallon of ethanol makes 80,000 btus, and i can distill it for about 5,000 btus. so if you were to use ethanol to distill it, your return would be a lot better then half.

[amnonholland1]

@drmiller100 Is it a reflux column still? I am experimenting with a small 2kVA geneset with an exhaust heat exchanger to vaporize the mash, then admit to a reflux column. The hardest thing will be trying to control the amount of heat transfer to the mash. Does your the boiler end up vaporizing all the mash? or just the majority of alcohol in the mash?

[drmiller100]

@amnonholland1 Here is a huge hint for you. Assume you have 10 percent alcohol. Assume you have 40 liters of mash.

2kva can be converted easily into btu's per hour.

Go do the math to learn how long it will take to "vaporize" 40 liters of water using 2kva.

[panzuman]

@drmiller100 why would you vaporize water?

[trkiehl]

A worthy effort for sure. I just don't like the fact that this is turning the highest grade of energy (electricity) into the lowest one (heat). We in the biochar movement are wondering what to do with all the waste heat from pyrolysis. One very good fit would be to combine a biochar-making stove (examples: TLUD stove, Dr. Paul Anderson; or Adam Retort) with an alcohol distillery. This combined device would pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere while cheaply creating an important biofuel.

[drmiller100]

Build your own still, and use your own fuel.

If you want help DOING something, drop me a line.

When all done, I am still making ethanol for 50 cents a gallon.

[drmiller100]

@trkiehl you should try doing something rather then complain about the efforts of those who DO.

[pudodrewculous]

other than going through a literal ton of mash a day.... pretty sweet idea man!

is it all stainless steel? just curious

[drmiller100]

@pudodrewculous

it is actually made from exhaust tubing. Total cost to build the entire unit including pump, exchangers, piping, ect. is under 500 dollars.

[drmiller100]

the web address and contact info is on the video.....

[saima0717]

Hey can you explain how it works more detailly? Including how to make your still.

Many thanks!