Re: [Biofuel] Ethanol and cold starts
Still in need of practical experience. My dad threw out an old lawn mower i was going to experiment on, but i'll find something, just need to find the time and effort. The trimmer for one, adjustable carb and all. Changing or drilling jets is easy, it should work that way, make fine adjustments with plug color and piston wash. Ignition timing is what i've been pondering about lately. Not necessary, but would get better results. If i could figure out how to electronically delay the trigger signal for CDI i'd be set. That would make dual fuel possible. Cold starting is a major issue. A resistor in the float bowl is probably the best thing, though my snowmobile has no battery, but that's a matter of installing one. I think the electrical system would have no problem with that, since an electric starter is an option for the sled. A fire in a soup can and some tubing isn't out of the question either. I'll figure that out once i have fuel. And the suspension sorted out, damn thing keeps bottoming out constantly... I've got 2 pieces of steel tubing next to my garage waiting to be welded into a column. I'd want to make a continuos feed still, it seems a bit more flexible to use, no need to heat the whole 200l batch or whatever i'd be working with, just do a bit at a time. If i could do it inside and incorporate it into part of the heating system the energy for distillation wouldn't be an issue, need it to heat the house anyways. Being a student just coming home for weekends does put restrictions on my plans, although most of it is just inherent laziness. Need to get over that. Arttu ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Ethanol and cold starts
Methyl ethyl ketone is at least the solvent of choice in the aviation industry. The general rule of thumb in those circles being that everything's more toxic than in the automotive department: leaded AvGas, high sulfur jet fuel(not to mention the additives they throw in), hydraulic fluid which they at least strongly discourage from ingesting. It does vaporize quickly, dissolves most glues and paints and all grease, much better than acetone. Considering the bother we go through to put on gloves and masks when dealing with it, i wouldn't use it as fuel. Block heaters do take a bit of electricity, but they do save enough fuel in cold weather to justify their use; 1/2h in 5 C to -5 C, 1h down to -15 C, then 2h for below that. There are fuel burning ones too, no cord or plug necessary, but they are more expensive. Electrically heated carburetors do exist, they shouldn't take much power at all considering the small mass of a carburetor. Even less if you just heat the fuel in the float bowl directly. It takes 1 minute to heat 1 dl of ethanol 40C (-20 to 20C, for example) using the power of your low beams (not USING your low beams of course, but the same amount of electricity). If your battery can't take that, get a new battery, you won't be able to start an engine on gas at -20. I'm inclined to think that an EFI engine would start quite well in freezing weather, at least down to the point where block heaters are recomended anyways. But a heating around the fuel lines wouldn't be impossible either. Winter's coming late this year, no snow on chirstmas! And this is Finland we're talking about! I'd like to try out my snowmobile on ethanol, but the large batch production's the hard part, it being illegal in Finland and all... So if the cops ask i didn't distill a test batch of around 3dl with a steam juicer with the top sections flipped around and the middle filled with glass plates. It might have burned had i done so :) Not to mention i can't use the snowmobile on any fuel with no snow around! ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] A heat Engine for the house.
I'm used to heating with wood anyways, so a wood gasifier is the first thing that comes to mind. An old car engine with nothing to lose and the capacity to have it's output at peak torque (peak efficiency) halved would be just about the thing for any DIY:er. In box with noise insulation and 3 times the sound surpression on the exhaust. The wood gasifier produces a lot of heat itself, it'd make sense to make use of it. Some sort of auto-feed hopper would be great, and with space being less of a factor with startionary power production than in trasnport it's possible. The main issue here is safety. The engine would run on carbon monoxide, although the noise of the whole system would most likely condem it to the outdoors anyways. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Methane Snowmobile
Walking around at the snowmobile expo in Jyväskylä, Finland yesterday, a Lynx Yeti 1300 caught my eye. Great work sled, yes, but what I really was looking at were the 2 scuba tank type bottles peeking out from under the seat. This wasn't NOS, I was sure. Later on I had the privilidge to talk to Gasum's Arto Riikonen, the man with answers to my questions. What I was looking at, as it happened, was a methane powered sled! This was apparently one of four prototypes in Finland. The tanks capable of storing 5 kg of methane at 200 bar, the equivalent of 7.6 liters of gasoline, the sled had a range of 50-60km on gas. Being bi-fuel equipped, the full stock range on gasoline was also available on demand, the only drawback being the extra 35 kg brought on by the tanks. It doesn't sound like much, but it is when you're stuck by yourself in deep powder. Targeted at ski resorts and grooming trails for the pickiest of cross country skiers, this wasn't a practical snowmobile for personal use, but one that was clean burning and wouldn't cause problems in crowds with it's emissions. Having been around traditional carburated 2-stroke sleds my whole life, I can hardly understand anyone complaining about the injected 4-stroke V-2 engine on the Yeti on gasoline, even if it has no catalytic converter, but a great idea never the less. Although intended for natural gas, I can imagine most of y'all thinking, as was I, can anyone say biogas? The technical stuff : high pressure gas was routed to an engine coolant heated pressure regulator, pressure dropped to 2.5 bar for the injectors, controlled by the ECU. I didn't get an answer to wether it uses the stock ECU or if there's another black box for use with methane, but I'll follow up on it. The principle is the same as EFI, the injectors are different to be suitable for gas, but being a stoichiometric burn engine on methane, the lambda sensor was common and its use identical, so I see no problems with just routing the injector signal to whichever fuel is in use, just adjust the injector or pressure. The engine is started and warmed up on gasoline to provide warm coolant for vaporization, which could otherwise be problematic in subzero temperatures (when else do you operate snowmobiles?), unless it's preheated by grid power like cars in wintertime. In general about methane use, apparently ignition can be a problem, since the catalytic converter can only take so much misfire in operation and methane is harder to light. This requires higher voltage ignition which takes its toll on spark plugs, which either need to be changed often or switched to iridium spark plugs. Not the NGK's that cost 5-10 times as much, but apparently about 50 times as much. This isn't a problem with non-catalyzed exhaust, like the snowmobile. Methane does apparently require a catalytic converter to meet the same emission requirements as modern gasoline engines, it's still not THAT clean, so for new cars, it's a must. Cylinder head temperatures also rise due to lost burning efficiency, which lead to faster warm up time and a greater chance of overheat in hot weather. Although generally not a problem in snowmobiles, natural gas busses take this into consideration with larger radiators. It is possible to raise compression to take advantage of methane's higher octane rating, but this eliminates the possibility for use with gasoline. He mentioned that the methane needs to be at least 95% pure for compression to 200+ bar, which wouldn't be a problem for a biogas home brewer bottling it at lower pressure, but complicates its commercial use. In snowmobile use high pressure is a must because of limited storage space and way high fuel consumption. The absence of CNG fuel stations out in the boonies up north really does turn one back to liquid fuels in personal use. I'm planning on bugging this guy some more via e-mail, and he offered to send some more material. www.gasum.com is the company behind the prototype http://www.brp.com/en/Products/Lynx/Showroom/Yetiv1300.htm the sled it was made from ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] HHO for welding running your ca
I'm reminded of a thing called Brown's gas that i read about. http://www.eagle-research.com/browngas/whatisbg/whatis.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Daniel Kammen on Ethanol
I've understood that it's some rubber or plastic parts that start to degrade, not the metals. I'm thinking it's just a new chip or reprogramming the ECU injection/ignition curves and an ethanol/gas ratio sensor, since you can tank either (hence the term flex-fuel). They probably slap in ethanol compatible pumps and hoses from the factory, since they do have to be gasohol compatible anyways. Just what came to mind, nothing based on cold hard evidence.The price does seem a little low.On 2/1/06, Darryl McMahon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:I'm not aware of after-market E85 conversion kits, but it's not something I have researched.I was under the impression that highlevels of ethanol could react with certain metals in the engines leadingto maintenance problems.It would not surprise me that the difference in building an E85-capable engine would cost only $100 more than theregular version in the manufacturing process.However, as a retrofit,that wouldn't cover 2 hours of shop time, let alone any parts. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Dewatering with vacuum.
You're talking about 2 different things. Talking about so-and-so-much vacuum is sort of misleading. Your 30Hg of vacuum means 0Hg (0 mmHg, 0 mbar, 0 psi) absolute pressure; the vapor pressure points were absolute pressure. Absolute pressure is measured according to how high of a column of mercury it can push upwards with a complete vacuum at the top, gauged pressure with atmospheric at the top. 29.92Hg (760 mmHg, 1013.25 mbar, 14.7 psi) is standard atmospheric pressure at sea level, so that's the maximum height you can pull up mercury with a vacuum if the other end is exposed to air pressure at standard conditions, which means the vacuum reading will vary slightly according to the weather, even if the actual measured pressure stays constant. Absolute pressure is atmospheric pressure minus vacuum. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Spreading compost
If I undestand charle's spreader idea right, would an inclined base on the trailer work to get the compost to the spreader? Then adjust the pulley ratio to control rate. Could it be that simple? If the compost doesn't flow down freely, especially when there's little of it, a simple conveyer belt out of a tarp and some turning pipes. Just my 0.0166€... Arttu ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Crude palm oil
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html The chart there says 5950 l/ha from oil palm. Googling oil palm cultivation came up with this site (among many others): http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/006/T0309E/T0309E01.htm leave 7.8 meters between rows and 9 metres between pegs. In this way you can plant 143 oil palms per hectare; this is the best density. Are you plannning on growing these things? -Arttu On 1/2/06, Courtney Blodgett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi! I'm trying to figure out biodiesel yield from palm trees. Does anyone know how much crude oil a palm tree can yield annually? How many palm trees are normally planted per hectare? Thanks! Courtney ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Efficiency and expanded possibilities.
Fuel preheaters and other forms of gasoline vaporization were used extensively in the beginning of the 19th century, especially in tractors. This greatly increases a spark ignition engines efficiency, as only the vaporized fuel burns. Conventional engines (even your brand new EFI) vaporize about 20% of the fuel they use. The rest seems to be used to keep the exhaust hot. Vaporizing the fuel won't give you an automatic 400% increase in power, but it will enable the engine to be run as lean as a 20:1 air-fuel mixture without an increase in exhaust or combustion temperature, as it would in a conventional engine (about 16:1 is a straight road to burnt valves and piston seizure, 14.7:1 is considered optimum). It's just less fuel burning outside the cylinder. If you're intrested in getting 60-80mpg, even on a big rumbling V-8, google gasoline vaporzation to get started. The first site, Steam Engine of Australia, is extremely useful for the D-I-Y, the basic idea is there with pictures. Stuff about those old tractor engines is at the end of the page. The REALLY interesting thing i bumbed into, was the fact that those tractor engines could be run on USED CRANCASE OIL! And no, they weren't diesels, just spark ignition engines with good fuel vaporization. Here's the idea: straight vegetable oil in a modified gasoline engine. Lawn mowers, motorcycles, where a diesel just isn't theasible, could be run on WVO or SVO. Just heat the fuel and regulate it properly. QUESTION: Can plant based oils be cat-cracked like in petrochemical processes? Lighter grade fuels could increase the usability of vegetable oil. I asked a chemical enginer friend of mine, who had previously explained the whole catalytic cracking process to me, but he wasn't sure at all. But he didn't dismiss the idea entirely. Could methane, easily produced from rotting biomass, be used to make propane? It's easier and safer to handle than methane in transportation use, that's why ask. They do it in making polymers, but that's with extremely long hydrocarbon-chains. _ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee¨ Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Ethanol
Apparently ethanol has 68% of the energy content of gasoline by volume (8.9x10^7 J/gal vs. 1.3x10^8 J/gal). Therefore gasoline has 146% of the energy content of ethanol by volume. This translates to 1 liter of gasoline = 1.46 liters of ethanol. 46% more ethanol to equal a volume of gasoline. Arttu _ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
RE: [Biofuel] ethanol for 2 cycle engines
rubber parts and draw water to itself from the air. Manufacturers have taken the prior into consideration with oxygenated fuels (gasohol) becoming more widely used. Your owners manual should say something about it. They might list a maximum ethanol content (about 10%), but i think it has more to do with water accumulating in the fuel in storage. If the rubber can stand ethanol, it doesn't matter what the ratio is. To avoid problems from the latter, make sure to use fresh fuel. For storage, empty the fuel system completely and oil the metal parts(the tank, mainly), or fill it with regular gasoline with a bit of stabilizer. 2-strokes seem to be a little more sensitive to lean fuel-air mixtures, so they require richer jetting with ethanol. But if you're using stock carburetor settings, leave them in, they're set rich just be safe, and the higher octane rating will tolerate leaner jetting without knocking. If you really know what you're doing, you could advance the timing a bit to take advantage of the higher octane rating. I have never heard of any 2-stroke oils being incompatible with ethanol, use them at a normal fuel-oil ratio or leave your oil injection at stock settings. Some use ethanol in 2-stroke go-carts, they might know more about the subject. -Arttu From: Octavian Andronic [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Biofuel] ethanol for 2 cycle engines Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 16:59:23 +0200 Dear Sirs, Can anybody tell me what kind of fuel mixture (ethanol based) can be used to fuel 2-cycle engine and what modifications had to be made? Best regards and thank you in advance, Octavian Andronic www.ariascooters.com ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ _ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
