DIYbanter - View Single Post

On 23 May 2006 11:01:03 -0700, wrote:

This CAN be done, but on a small scale, you are going to be putting a
lot more energy into it that what the alcohol coming out of it will
give you. 200 proof takes special circumstances and a lot more energy
to attain. Also unnecessary if all you're going to do is burn the
stuff. About 180-190 is the best you can do with straight distillation
and you'll have to have a hell of a column and control to do it. If
you can get your inputs, heat, starch, water and yeast, for free, it
might be worth messing with. For corn, you need some method to convert
the starch to sugar, usually using an enzyme, before it can be
fermented. This stuff is old tried and true technology, you can find
descriptions of how it's done in chemical engineering texts. Around
the first oil crisis, there were a lot of articles in the
back-to-the-earth rags on ethanol production, might be a trip to the
library will turn up something.

In this country, BATFE WILL have a finger in any pie that includes
ethanol, there's exemptions for fuel production but you have to apply
for them and get approval before commencing anything and you WILL
produce and denature as they decree. Otherwise, it's a fast trip to
the federal pokey and a slow wait to get out. It's a tax thing,
penalties for shooting people are less. At one time, they used to have
some details on their web site on exempted alcohol production but when
they moved, it all changed. Might be worth googling up, though.

Stan

How about turning the job around...

Burn the corn to produce heat for the destructive distillation of the
cellulose in the cobs and stalks into methanol. No problem with the revenuers
since drinking methanol is a self limiting addiction, no bloody great
fermenting vessels and no smelly residues to get rid of. Would it work?

Mark Rand
RTFM