This is all very interesting to me- I just spent part of last night looking for diy methanol info, with no success. My interest was in looking for info on turning methane (from a digester, digesting glycerine and other waste) into methanol. I now know more about fuel methanol (yuck) and no more about making the stuff. But google searches for biomethanol turn up that Smithfield Farms hog-waste-to- biomethanol-to-biodiesel-elsewhere plan. It was in the news a few months ago- and they hadn't at that point decided on where the biodiesel itself was going to be produced- and I;m kind of curious now about where that project has gone. Someone who was a list member turned up a plant that made industrial ethanol whose 'waste product' was quantities of methanol of questionable purity (contaminated with ethanol)- which the plant didn't know what to do with. something to definitely investigate in california- we can work with it if it's part ethanol and we're using good oil. If I remember correctly, I think that making methanol out of wood is pretty challenging and energy intensive- you have to heat it with no oxygen or something like that. It's pretty different than fermenting waste for ethanol production.
I'm curious about biomethanol from methane, though- is it doable on a village (small business?) scale? mark In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Icarus Solem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > I've been trying to find technical info on the use of ethanol in the > biodiesel manufacturing process, with no luck. I've been discussing the > possibility of a small-scale plant that produced both biodiesel and > ethanol, using agricultural raw materials (we are lucky in California - > lots of raw materials). It seems that there would have to be an internal > production of methanol to feed into biodiesel production- perhaps not hard > to do if you are making ethanol at the same time? Apparently any woody > material can be used for methanol production. I don't know of any yeast > that churn out methanol, although there may be some bacteria that do. You > would need some good distillation equipment, in any case. > > On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Bryan Brah wrote: > > > Since it is so difficult to make BioDiesel with ethanol, how hard would > > it be to make methanol at home? I know that methanol is a by- product of > > ethanol distillation of fruits containing high concentrations of pectin, > > is there a way to exploit this fact and make just methanol? > > > > > > > > -BRAH > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Sponsor > > > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > > > Biofuels list archives: > > http://archive.nnytech.net/ > > > > 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make Money Online Auctions! Make $500.00 or We Will Give You Thirty Dollars for Trying! http://us.click.yahoo.com/yMx78A/fNtFAA/AG3JAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ 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/
