Ethanol fuel, how can I make it in my backyard to use in my car?

Question

I want to make ethanol fuel in my backyard in small batches from wood or cardboard. Does any one have a simple step by step process for me to follow? I know I need a federal permit first.

Answer 1

Using wood or cardboard is a difficult way of making ethanol. Essentially you need an enzyme to break down the cellulose in the wood and cardboard to simple sugars which can be fermented to alcohol.

I recommend if you have never done this before, start with something with simple sugars such as fruit. You will find it to be much easier.

If you live in an agricultural community where fruit is grown you can often buy what is called windfall fruit. That is fruit that fell off the tree before it could be picked for market.

The windfall fruit is damaged and does not make appealing fuit for stores, however much of it is sold to wineries to be fermented to make a cheap filler for wines.

For example cheap wines such as Thunderbird are fermented from windfall fruit.

You can generally buy windfall fruit for about $100 per ton.

One ton of fruit will generally produce 20 to 25 gallons of ethanol depending on the sugar content.

The materials that you will need to ferment the fruit can be purchased at any store that sells winemaking equipment.

You will need yeast and a container to ferment the fruit.

When you have completed the fermentation you need to distill the alcohohol.

You will need a container with a tight fitting lid and a fitting for a tube to carry the steam away from the container. Then you will need to cool the tube that contains the steam. You can do this with water or cloth soaked in water.

The alcohol will come off first bacause it has a lower boiling point than water.

You will get a mixture of approximately 95% alcohol and 5% water. Unfortuantely some water distills off with the alcohol. you cannot prevent it.

For the alcohol to have optimal performance in an engine, you will need to dry it.

Fortunately table salt is very good at drying alcohol.

Add a cup of table salt per gallon of alcohol and filter the liquid so that it is free of salt. The table salt will clump when it mixes with the water in the alcohol.

Now test your alcohol to see if it is dry. Take a sample of the filtered alcohol and add a tablespoonful of salt to it. If it is dry the salt will not clump. If the salt clumps that means that it still has some water in it.

Repeat the procedure of adding a cup of salt per gallon and filtering until any added salt does not clump.

Your alcohol is now dry and ready for your gas tank.

If your vehicle is not designed to run on alcohol do not add more than one gallon of alcohol foer every ten gallons of gasoline.

Have a wonderful trip! you have just made your own fuel!

This is actually nothing new. When the first Model T Fords came out, gasoline was not readily available. The model T was designed to run on alcohol that farmers could ferment and distill on their farms.

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Answer 2

You can't cheaply. You see an ethanol/water mixture will not purify to 100% ethanol through distillation alone (which isn't exactly cheap to begin with).

You would need an azeotrope "breaker" to actually achieve near 100% ethanol. Then, you'll be left with many gallons of potentially toxic, and definitely not good wastewater which you will have to dispose of. So your quest to be "good to the environment" would definitely be not accomplished. Or your quest to save money wouldn't be accomplished either.

Or you could use the advice above and end up with alot of alcohol salt and some $8 per gallon ethanol and a ton of wasterwater.

I would wish you good luck but I would prefer you didn't try this fool's errand.

Answer 3

There is no simple process. And, you can't make it from cardboard. It's made from fermentation. You simply add yeast to corn and allow it to ferment for a few weeks. Then, you distill off the alcohol from the fermented corn. The result will be a mixture of 95% ethanol and 5% water ... your car should run on this.

Answer 4

Forget it, ethanol cannot be made efficiently at a small scale, and wood is the wrong feedstock anyway. It would cost you more than gasoline and will pollute more than gasoline, so it's a total lose.

Biodiesel, on the other hand, CAN be homebrewed from very cheap raw materials. http://www.journeytoforever.org/
So sell that gas car and get a diesel.

Answer 5

Ethanol? Ever made moonshine boy? same recipe

Answer 6

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh2.html

Here is some info....

http://www.whatprice.co.uk/advice/travel/ethanol-fuel-distillation.html

good luck

Answer 7

Unless you like an expensive hobby and fuel that would cost way more then if you bought it at a station, find something else to tinker with.

Answer 8

Just get your nano detonators and get rich ( www.first-molecule.com ) By the time you spent all the money on permits and supplies you could have gotten 10 dealerships and all you need is one to make you rich . I purchased 2 i want to be filthy rich once in my life maybe the cops will start treating me like Paris Hilton

Answer 9

See your cousin in Alabama and ask him how he built his still.
That is how you would do it.