Re: [Biofuel] Methanol - was Re: neoprene gloves good enough protection?
Thanks to all for the thorough responses to my queries about methanol and gloves! Y'all rule... What's your views on my addition of 0.5-2% addition of gasoline to my veggie oil prior to biodiesel production during cold/damp weather? It seems to take care of the moisture factor which had me occasionally making glop soup during damp times. It seems like a small amount to feel guilty about, and it seems to work consistently. Kenji Fuse ___ 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] Methanol - was Re: neoprene gloves good enough protection?
Better to be over-cautious than under-cautious. I know what you're saying Mike, but I don't agree. Maybe you wouldn't either if you saw all the emails I've had from people shying away from brewing biodiesel because of all those dreadful chemicals. Maybe if the playing field was level, without the constant attempts to stir it up by various parties mainly in the SVO-PPO) camp, but I think even then I'd stick to due caution, neither under nor over. I wish we could set up a training series and teach interested parties how to brew safely. I dread the thought than someone will make an avoidable error and taint the home-brewing scenario. We've all had that fear for years, and biofuels doesn't have any shortage of enemies who'd make the most of it. Yet in all that time nobody's been hurt that we know of, and I think we'd have known. Tom Leue famously burnt his shed down, for entirely avoidable reasons, and was slightly injured, and that's it. Extraordinary. Which doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow. If I wrote a quick safety punchlist would the greybeards on the list look it over - if approved maybe Keith would post it on the website? Sure, but have a look at these first: Safety http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#safe Hazards http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_processor.html#haz Best Keith I have some informal points in my biodiesel notebook that could probably be expanded. -Mike Keith Addison wrote: We're veering between incaution and overcaution. There've been some other messages pooh-poohing safety in general. I'd agree too much safety is dangerous, but so is too little. What's required is *due* caution, which needs good information. Here it is: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#moremeth More about methanol Question: Just how dangerous is methanol? Fact: Methanol is a poisonous chemical that can blind you or kill you, and as well as drinking it you can absorb it through the skin and breathe in the fumes. Question: How much does it take to kill you? Short answer: Anything from five teaspoons to more than half a pint, but nobody really knows. Fact: Human susceptibility to the acute effects of methanol intoxication is extremely variable. The minimum dose of methanol causing permanent visual defects is unknown. The lethal dose of methanol for humans is not known for certain. The minimum lethal dose of methanol in the absence of medical treatment is put at between 0.3 and 1 g/kg. That means it's thought to take at least 20 grams of methanol to kill an average-sized person, or 25 ml, five teaspoonsful. Or it might need more than three times as much, 66 grams, 17 teaspoonsful, or maybe more, and even then it'll only kill you if you can't reach a doctor within a day or two, and maybe it still won't kill you. But it definitely can kill you. If you drink five teaspoonsful of pure methanol you'll need medical treatment even if it doesn't kill you. Yet people have survived doses of 10 times as much -- a quarter of a litre, half a pint -- without any permanent harm. But others haven't survived much lower doses. Getting rapid medical attention is crucial, though the poisoning effects can be slow to develop. Authorities advise that swallowing up to 1.3 grams or 1.7 ml of methanol or inhaling methanol vapour concentrations below 200 ppm should be harmless for most people. No severe effects have been reported in humans of methanol vapour exposures well above 200 ppm. Out of 1,601 methanol poisonings reported in the US in 1987 the death rate was 0.375%, or 1 in 267 cases. It might have been only 1 in more than a thousand cases because most cases weren't reported. Most cases were caused by drinking badly made moonshine, which is a worldwide problem. Fiction: Methanol is ... a very active chemical against which the human body has no means of defence. It is absorbed easily through the skin and there is no means of elimination from the body, so levels of methanol dissolved in the blood accumulate. That's from a British website trying to sell Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) solvent additives by frightening people with the alleged perils of biodiesel. See The SVO vs biodiesel argument Fact: 30 litres of fruit juice will probably contain up to 20 grams of methanol, near the official minimum lethal dose. Methanol is in the food we eat, in fresh fruit and vegetables, beer and wine, diet drinks, artificial sweeteners. Not only that, methanol occurs naturally in humans. It's a natural component of blood, urine, saliva and the air you breathe out. It's there anyway even if you've never been exposed to chemical methanol or its fumes. Methanol is eliminated from the body as a normal matter of course via the urine and exhaled air and by metabolism. Getting rid of it takes from a few hours for low doses to a day or two for higher doses. Some proportion of a dose of methanol just goes straight through,
Re: [Biofuel] Methanol - was Re: neoprene gloves good enough protection?
Hi Keith, You're probably right. I just have the fear that someone will kill/blind/maim themselves making BD and it'll be seized on by the forces of darkness. If training were available, or we could setp an serious non-profit (that is NOT the National Biodiesel Board) and do training, like The Motorcycle Safety Institute does, it would be a real service. I have toyed with the idea of a non-profit geared to and supported by the home-brew and smaller brew gang, to keep and an eye on legislation, provide the truth to the media and Congress and other Goverments, and to lobby to counter the anit-BD and biofuels people. This group could also provide training courses and certify trainers. Maybe to outreach to farmers and fleet drivers. I don't get the feeling the NBB is our friend. In no way do I mean to challenge your knowledge and instincts; you have far more experience and standing than I do. I guess I'm a Nervous Nellie sometimes. I am always careful to tell newbies coming by to learn what I do and why. Then I make a small batch with SVO, so it works, then move on from there. As for my safety when brewing, I do what I'm comfortable with. I spent years as a mechanic and have a bit of clue as to what to wear and when. That said, have I whipped up a small batch without gloves? Yup. I don't brew inside anymore, though. I finally built a shed for that, with good ventilation. Your JTF pages are good. I wouldn't add much. I have a punch list I give to people but you pretty much cover everything. Thanks, Mike Keith Addison wrote: Better to be over-cautious than under-cautious. I know what you're saying Mike, but I don't agree. Maybe you wouldn't either if you saw all the emails I've had from people shying away from brewing biodiesel because of all those dreadful chemicals. Maybe if the playing field was level, without the constant attempts to stir it up by various parties mainly in the SVO-PPO) camp, but I think even then I'd stick to due caution, neither under nor over. I wish we could set up a training series and teach interested parties how to brew safely. I dread the thought than someone will make an avoidable error and taint the home-brewing scenario. We've all had that fear for years, and biofuels doesn't have any shortage of enemies who'd make the most of it. Yet in all that time nobody's been hurt that we know of, and I think we'd have known. Tom Leue famously burnt his shed down, for entirely avoidable reasons, and was slightly injured, and that's it. Extraordinary. Which doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow. If I wrote a quick safety punchlist would the greybeards on the list look it over - if approved maybe Keith would post it on the website? Sure, but have a look at these first: Safety http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#safe Hazards http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_processor.html#haz Best Keith I have some informal points in my biodiesel notebook that could probably be expanded. -Mike Keith Addison wrote: We're veering between incaution and overcaution. There've been some other messages pooh-poohing safety in general. I'd agree too much safety is dangerous, but so is too little. What's required is *due* caution, which needs good information. Here it is: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#moremeth More about methanol Question: Just how dangerous is methanol? Fact: Methanol is a poisonous chemical that can blind you or kill you, and as well as drinking it you can absorb it through the skin and breathe in the fumes. Question: How much does it take to kill you? Short answer: Anything from five teaspoons to more than half a pint, but nobody really knows. Fact: Human susceptibility to the acute effects of methanol intoxication is extremely variable. The minimum dose of methanol causing permanent visual defects is unknown. The lethal dose of methanol for humans is not known for certain. The minimum lethal dose of methanol in the absence of medical treatment is put at between 0.3 and 1 g/kg. That means it's thought to take at least 20 grams of methanol to kill an average-sized person, or 25 ml, five teaspoonsful. Or it might need more than three times as much, 66 grams, 17 teaspoonsful, or maybe more, and even then it'll only kill you if you can't reach a doctor within a day or two, and maybe it still won't kill you. But it definitely can kill you. If you drink five teaspoonsful of pure methanol you'll need medical treatment even if it doesn't kill you. Yet people have survived doses of 10 times as much -- a quarter of a litre, half a pint -- without any permanent harm. But others haven't survived much lower doses. Getting rapid medical attention is crucial, though the poisoning effects can be slow to develop. Authorities advise that swallowing up to 1.3 grams or 1.7 ml of methanol or inhaling methanol vapour concentrations below 200 ppm should be harmless for most
[Biofuel] Methanol - was Re: neoprene gloves good enough protection?
We're veering between incaution and overcaution. There've been some other messages pooh-poohing safety in general. I'd agree too much safety is dangerous, but so is too little. What's required is *due* caution, which needs good information. Here it is: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#moremeth More about methanol Question: Just how dangerous is methanol? Fact: Methanol is a poisonous chemical that can blind you or kill you, and as well as drinking it you can absorb it through the skin and breathe in the fumes. Question: How much does it take to kill you? Short answer: Anything from five teaspoons to more than half a pint, but nobody really knows. Fact: Human susceptibility to the acute effects of methanol intoxication is extremely variable. The minimum dose of methanol causing permanent visual defects is unknown. The lethal dose of methanol for humans is not known for certain. The minimum lethal dose of methanol in the absence of medical treatment is put at between 0.3 and 1 g/kg. That means it's thought to take at least 20 grams of methanol to kill an average-sized person, or 25 ml, five teaspoonsful. Or it might need more than three times as much, 66 grams, 17 teaspoonsful, or maybe more, and even then it'll only kill you if you can't reach a doctor within a day or two, and maybe it still won't kill you. But it definitely can kill you. If you drink five teaspoonsful of pure methanol you'll need medical treatment even if it doesn't kill you. Yet people have survived doses of 10 times as much -- a quarter of a litre, half a pint -- without any permanent harm. But others haven't survived much lower doses. Getting rapid medical attention is crucial, though the poisoning effects can be slow to develop. Authorities advise that swallowing up to 1.3 grams or 1.7 ml of methanol or inhaling methanol vapour concentrations below 200 ppm should be harmless for most people. No severe effects have been reported in humans of methanol vapour exposures well above 200 ppm. Out of 1,601 methanol poisonings reported in the US in 1987 the death rate was 0.375%, or 1 in 267 cases. It might have been only 1 in more than a thousand cases because most cases weren't reported. Most cases were caused by drinking badly made moonshine, which is a worldwide problem. Fiction: Methanol is ... a very active chemical against which the human body has no means of defence. It is absorbed easily through the skin and there is no means of elimination from the body, so levels of methanol dissolved in the blood accumulate. That's from a British website trying to sell Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) solvent additives by frightening people with the alleged perils of biodiesel. See The SVO vs biodiesel argument Fact: 30 litres of fruit juice will probably contain up to 20 grams of methanol, near the official minimum lethal dose. Methanol is in the food we eat, in fresh fruit and vegetables, beer and wine, diet drinks, artificial sweeteners. Not only that, methanol occurs naturally in humans. It's a natural component of blood, urine, saliva and the air you breathe out. It's there anyway even if you've never been exposed to chemical methanol or its fumes. Methanol is eliminated from the body as a normal matter of course via the urine and exhaled air and by metabolism. Getting rid of it takes from a few hours for low doses to a day or two for higher doses. Some proportion of a dose of methanol just goes straight through, excreted by the lungs and kidneys unchanged. The normal background-level quantities of methanol in humans are eliminated and replenished all the time as a matter of course. Fiction: It's largely biodiesel's methanol content that's being blamed when the same British SVO website charges that biodiesel is wasteful and environmentally irresponsible. Fact: Methanol is readily biodegradable in the environment under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions (with and without oxygen) in a wide variety of conditions. Generally 80% of methanol in sewage systems is biodegraded within 5 days. Methanol is a normal growth substrate for many soil microorganisms, which completely degrade methanol to carbon dioxide and water. Methanol is of low toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial organisms and it is not bioaccumulated. (It's toxic mainly to humans and monkeys.) Environmental effects due to exposure to methanol are unlikely. Unless released in high concentrations, methanol would not be expected to persist or bioaccumulate in the environment. Low levels of release would not be expected to result in adverse environmental effects. Fiction: A European SVO fuel website using similar anti-biodiesel tactics claims: Biodiesel is a chemically altered plant oil. However the process to chemically change the structure of Pure Plant Oil is a very costly operation and requires a lot of energy, as it removes the glycerine substituting it by methanol as well as adding other
Re: [Biofuel] Methanol - was Re: neoprene gloves good enough protection?
Better to be over-cautious than under-cautious. I wish we could set up a training series and teach interested parties how to brew safely. I dread the thought than someone will make an avoidable error and taint the home-brewing scenario. If I wrote a quick safety punchlist would the greybeards on the list look it over - if approved maybe Keith would post it on the website? I have some informal points in my biodiesel notebook that could probably be expanded. -Mike Keith Addison wrote: We're veering between incaution and overcaution. There've been some other messages pooh-poohing safety in general. I'd agree too much safety is dangerous, but so is too little. What's required is *due* caution, which needs good information. Here it is: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#moremeth More about methanol Question: Just how dangerous is methanol? Fact: Methanol is a poisonous chemical that can blind you or kill you, and as well as drinking it you can absorb it through the skin and breathe in the fumes. Question: How much does it take to kill you? Short answer: Anything from five teaspoons to more than half a pint, but nobody really knows. Fact: Human susceptibility to the acute effects of methanol intoxication is extremely variable. The minimum dose of methanol causing permanent visual defects is unknown. The lethal dose of methanol for humans is not known for certain. The minimum lethal dose of methanol in the absence of medical treatment is put at between 0.3 and 1 g/kg. That means it's thought to take at least 20 grams of methanol to kill an average-sized person, or 25 ml, five teaspoonsful. Or it might need more than three times as much, 66 grams, 17 teaspoonsful, or maybe more, and even then it'll only kill you if you can't reach a doctor within a day or two, and maybe it still won't kill you. But it definitely can kill you. If you drink five teaspoonsful of pure methanol you'll need medical treatment even if it doesn't kill you. Yet people have survived doses of 10 times as much -- a quarter of a litre, half a pint -- without any permanent harm. But others haven't survived much lower doses. Getting rapid medical attention is crucial, though the poisoning effects can be slow to develop. Authorities advise that swallowing up to 1.3 grams or 1.7 ml of methanol or inhaling methanol vapour concentrations below 200 ppm should be harmless for most people. No severe effects have been reported in humans of methanol vapour exposures well above 200 ppm. Out of 1,601 methanol poisonings reported in the US in 1987 the death rate was 0.375%, or 1 in 267 cases. It might have been only 1 in more than a thousand cases because most cases weren't reported. Most cases were caused by drinking badly made moonshine, which is a worldwide problem. Fiction: Methanol is ... a very active chemical against which the human body has no means of defence. It is absorbed easily through the skin and there is no means of elimination from the body, so levels of methanol dissolved in the blood accumulate. That's from a British website trying to sell Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) solvent additives by frightening people with the alleged perils of biodiesel. See The SVO vs biodiesel argument Fact: 30 litres of fruit juice will probably contain up to 20 grams of methanol, near the official minimum lethal dose. Methanol is in the food we eat, in fresh fruit and vegetables, beer and wine, diet drinks, artificial sweeteners. Not only that, methanol occurs naturally in humans. It's a natural component of blood, urine, saliva and the air you breathe out. It's there anyway even if you've never been exposed to chemical methanol or its fumes. Methanol is eliminated from the body as a normal matter of course via the urine and exhaled air and by metabolism. Getting rid of it takes from a few hours for low doses to a day or two for higher doses. Some proportion of a dose of methanol just goes straight through, excreted by the lungs and kidneys unchanged. The normal background-level quantities of methanol in humans are eliminated and replenished all the time as a matter of course. Fiction: It's largely biodiesel's methanol content that's being blamed when the same British SVO website charges that biodiesel is wasteful and environmentally irresponsible. Fact: Methanol is readily biodegradable in the environment under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions (with and without oxygen) in a wide variety of conditions. Generally 80% of methanol in sewage systems is biodegraded within 5 days. Methanol is a normal growth substrate for many soil microorganisms, which completely degrade methanol to carbon dioxide and water. Methanol is of low toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial organisms and it is not bioaccumulated. (It's toxic mainly to humans and monkeys.) Environmental effects due to exposure to methanol are unlikely. Unless released in high concentrations, methanol would not
