Keith,
Thanks.
Not only will your reply be helpful in the matter of the diesel
generator, but may help me in my "quest" to run a gasoline car, legally, on
homebrewed ethanol.
If the water in 95% ethanol will not cause problems when I denature the
ethanol with gasoline (2 gallons per 100 gal of ethanol), I can, with a
permit, legally produce ethanol and run cars on it.
I will pass on the information you have provided, and attempt to digest
it all myself.
Best to You,
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <biofuel@sustainablelists.org>
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 10:34 AM
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] WVO in Diesel Generators
Hello Tom
>Hello All,
> On 9/25/06 Pagandai Pannirselvan wrote:
>>The small co generation of electrical energy based on the bio diesel can
>>make possible the use of pure used vegetable oil and also some e 5
>>porcent hydrated ethanol , making possible to lower the viscosity of used
>>vegetable oil in deiesel engine, removing dependence with
>>Conventional deisel.
>>Thus the blend of used vegetable oil 70 percent, hyrated ethanol 10
>>percent and biodeisel 20 porcent can be used with less problem for
>>motor maintainence in rural areas.
He says "with less problem", I'm not sure if that means "without problem"
but it might do.
> I've recently been contacted by a former student who would like to
generate his own electricity for his woodworking business. He is
considering a diesel generator and asked about biodiesel. I
suggested he look into using a BD/WVO blend rather than processing
it all into BD, as he would be using about 3 gallons (11.4 L) per
hour (120+ gal/week).
> 1. Does anyone have experience using a blend such as that suggested
by Pagandai Pannirselvan in a diesel generator?
No experience, sorry, but some thoughts might help, FWIW.
> 2. Hydrated ethanol: What % water would be tolerated?
> In the U.S. it is possible to get a permit to distill ethanol. Only
that which leaves the premises must be denatured to prevent human
consumption. 85-90% ethanol is do-able, and used on premises would
not have to be denatured
The maximum purity you can get straight from the still is about 96%,
190-proof (95%) should be doable.
This is from David Blume's excellent book "Alcohol Can Be a Gas!":
"There is a myth that anything less than 200-proof alcohol will separate
from gasoline due to the small amount of water in the alcohol. Gasoline,
alcohol, and water are miscible (stay dissolved in one another), depending
on temperature and on water and alcohol content. In fact the bottled
additive to combat water in your tank, generically known as "Dry Gas," is
nothing more than 200-proof alcohol, which causes the water to blend with
the gasoline.
"In Brazil, they pump alcohol that contains about 4% water. In warm
climates there is absolutely no problem in mixing wet alcohol with
gasoline, but all of Brazil is not warm and balmy. When I visited there, a
General Motors engineer showed me a study that accurately outlined the
physical limits of mixing water, alcohol, and gasoline. According to the
paper, published by the Society of Automotive Engineers, at about 68 deg F
[20 deg C], alcohol with as much as 45% water will mix with gasoline and
not separate. At 4% water, alcohol will form a stable mix with gasoline
down to about minus 22 deg F! [-30 deg C] This means that those of you who
live in milder climates don't have to go through the extra step of
producing dry 200-proof alcohol to get it to mix properly with gasoline.
And if you do live in minus 22 deg F, you would generally only have to use
200-proof during the winter and only if you were going back and forth
between alcohol and gasoline in a non-flexible-fuel vehicle. Flexible-fuel
vehicles will simply adjust to phase-separated fuel."
Pagandai was probably referring to 96% ethanol, 4% water, but I guess 95%
would do just as well.
David Blume also refers to farmers' tests in the US using blends of
petro-diesel, biodiesel and dry ethanol in diesel engines. Most used 50%
ethanol, and 25% each of biodiesel and petro-diesel, but Blume says they
only used the petro-diesel because it was cheaper than biodiesel at the
time and 50-50 alcohol and biodiesel should be fine. He thinks a minimum
of 20% biodiesel and 80% alcohol would also be fine, but says it needs
testing (with a dynamometer and a knock-meter).
"What % water would be tolerated?" Water in the fuel can be a Good Thing,
it improves combustion efficiency and reduces emissions - just as long as
it stays in the fuel and doesn't separate.
This EPA paper for instance, "Bibliography of Water-Fuel Emulsions
Studies", lists 23 studies, all with diesels: "Following is a list of
studies that are being considered for inclusion in work being done by EPA
to assess the effects of water-fuel emulsions on emissions of oxides of
nitrogen (NOx), hydrocarbons (HC), and particulate matter (PM)."
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/models/analysis/emulsion/emulbibl.pdf
David Blume also reports on the use in Brazil and other countries of
blends of 20% castor oil and 80% wet ethanol (4% water) as diesel fuel.
Used WVO and castor oil are not the same (and the quality of the WVO
surely matters too - higher FFA probably means more water, for one thing).
But I think Pagandai's recipe might be a good one just the same: vegetable
oil 70%, hydrated (96%) ethanol 10% and biodiesel 20%.
There's also the ACREVO study of SVO use, which mentions using 9% of 95%
ethyl alcohol with SVO:
"The overall combustion performance of the rapeseed oil are very
satisfactory in comparison with the diesel fuel while the rapeseed oil
produces almost 40 % less soot than diesel fuel. The different volatility
of this fuel respect to the diesel fuel is responsible of the different
behaviour of the sampled gas concentrations in the base of the flames
while at the end of the flames, both attain almost the same values. It has
been established that an addition of 9 % of ethyl alcohol (95 %) bring a
great benefit regarding the pre-heating oil temperature. In fact, the
presence of alcohol allows a reduction in the inlet oil temperature from
150 °C to 80 °C. Moreover, the combustion of the emulsion produces less
soot and, at the exhaust, the amount is almost one half less than that
produced by the combustion of rapeseed oil."
http://www.nf-2000.org/secure/Fair/F484.htm
Advanced Combustion Research for Energy from Vegetable Oils (ACREVO)
> 3. Could E-85 be substituted for the hydrated ethanol?
>I've heard of commercial suppliers adding small amounts of gasoline to
their diesel. Since the E-85 would only constitute 10% of the mix, the
total gasoline would only be .15 X .10 = .0150 (1.5%)
I doubt the gasoline would make a difference.
Pagandai's blend using E85 could be worth a try, IMHO, especially with a
generator, there's a case for it but no guarantees. Start and stop on
biodiesel might be safer, though from what ACREVO says it might not be
necessary.
HTH.
Best
Keith
> Thanks,
> Tom
>
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