Keith -- I can see alcohol distillation as a by product of a boiler vapor cycle.
But not at the present low temps. With butane as working fluid -- for example -- it would be nice to be operating at 400 F. Now -- here is the plan -- condense alcohol at higher temperature under pressure! Verbal flow diagram. Think of a pressurized distillation column. You could direct fire or steam heat the mash. Which would boil up through the column. Condensers at the top -- with redirects for the effluents. Water would return to the pot -- alcohol separated and out of this system. I would have to look up the vapor characteristics of alcohol -- but just to "guess" Water would be condensing at 445 F at 400 psi pressure. Alcohol would not! First stage is condensing the water out at 445 F -- second stage would be condensing the alcohol out by further reducing its temperature -- higher up the same column. In both cases temperature reduction for condensation is accomplished by boiling butane -- which in turn produces power using an Ormat style device. You now have a power plant that distills alcohol as a side line! Greatly reducing heat requirements/losses. Further -- if you can get the vapor tables for alcohol -- you may find a larger spread in condensing temperatures exist at these pressures -- which would mean better extraction efficiencies. Has anyone used pressurized stills yet? Directly introducing high pressure/temperature steam to the mash pot would accomplish this purpose - A 400 psi -- 445 F boiler is a simple -- old fashioned -- fire tube boiler. Cheap and easy to acquire. In the sugar cane example -- these are more or less the style boilers they have now -- burning bagasse. So there you go -- the bagasse would then be supplying steam for power and distillation -- but all in one pass. Hey - this could really change the way people are looking at this process. Peter Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
