Didn't we decide somewhere that you can't "distil" anything without a licence and a 400gallon still ?
We decided you cannot distil spirit, but you can distil methanol. HMRC use a different word for it, I forget what.
Plus I think it is not a true distillation (hence quote marks), but a pyrolytic decomposition.
dpack
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i recon it might be that and birch trees im thinking of
if methanol would come off as a product along with (or before ?)birch tar (waterproofer ,medicine etc ) and leave charcoal for smoke free cooking that would be ideal for sticking two up to the einsatzgruppen in the forests of Byelorussia,
methanol is a reasonable fuel for robust internal combustion engines (fuel of choice for some speedway bikes )
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Hairyloon
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methanol is a reasonable fuel for robust internal combustion engines (fuel of choice for some speedway bikes ) |
Dreadful mpg, nowhere to fuel up and no easy way to dual-fuel, whereas I'm led to believe that gas will burn in almost any engine without much modification.
But now we are talking at cross purposes again: I think we'd established that for vehicular use, gasification on the hoof was the way to go...
Shane
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One big downside with methanol, especially for the amateur producer, is that it burns with an almost invisible flame, so it can be very difficult to tell that it's on fire except by observing the effects (or getting caught in them).
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Mistress Rose
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In theory it should be possible to obtain methanol, other alcohols low boiling point organic liquids, wood tar and charcoal. Would need very careful pyloric decomposition and collection of all the fractions at the right temperature though. Good for very small quantities, or industrial amounts, but difficult in the middle without more investment than it is worth.
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Hairyloon
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I'm thinking to insulate a big steel drum and roast it as hard as possible: see what comes off.
I've also wondered about doing it at reduced pressure to lower the bp of the volatiles. That was one reason for asking about puming gas, although that one had slipped my mind.
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Mistress Rose
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Don't think you need to insulate the drum, and no need to reduce the pressure. Methanol has a low enough boiling point anyway; it is breaking down the wood enough to obtain the various chemicals that needs heat, and not sure how reduced pressure will affect that.
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Hairyloon
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Don't think you need to insulate the drum, and no need to reduce the pressure. Methanol has a low enough boiling point anyway; it is breaking down the wood enough to obtain the various chemicals that needs heat, and not sure how reduced pressure will affect that. |
I was thinking of the reduced pressure distillation for the methanol recovery from biodiesel, so I'm planning to set the kit up anyway, but it was a passing thought in respect of the pyrolysis.
I think you'll waste a lot of heat if you don't insulate: it is bad enough on a straightforward distillation.
Mistress Rose
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You need to be able to control the temperature and we certainly don't have any trouble keeping the temperature up on the kiln. The main problem is to ensure it doesn't overheat anywhere.
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Hairyloon
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What happens if you overheat it?
The difference is that you are trying to make charcoal, which you do by burning or boiling off everything else: it doesn't matter how much of the eelse that you burn to keep it hot enough.
Whereas I am trying to harvest the eelse, and I think I'll be needing to use an external heat source: every joule that escapes is a joule that I'll have to replace.
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dpack
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would a kiln drum inside a slightly bigger(insulated) drum that is heated in a rocket stove style by a combustion chamber with a choke valve to control the airflow and a chimney to drive the airflow be a place to start ?
if the "remains" in the pyrolosis drum is charcoal that could be at least part of the fuel for the next batch
ps another option might be a "hot tube" (or tubes)in a drum of woodchips again powered like a rocket stoveand insulated on the outside
i recon play about at the 25 to 50 ltr scale and see what works then refine method then try bigger ,too small will have too many heat losses etc
50 gall oil drum scale might be a better experimental size
clay is cheap and mixed with fibreglass makes fairly a good fire cement for filling gaps etc
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Mistress Rose
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If it gets too hot the metal of the kiln glows red and distorts; we are talking about those sorts of temperatures. Using a retort kiln, which is pretty well what Dpack is talking about, you can in theory take the gasses you are producing and cool them to use the various chemicals coming off. The only time we have ever had problems with getting the temperature high enough was when we were trying to make wood tar and we had a container that was about a foot or so cube. it just wasn't really large enough to hold the heat, and it wasn't made so we could increase the pressure as we should have done.
To break down wood by pyrolysis needs quite a high temperature, and even with no or very little air, you are still talking about things getting pretty hot once it get going. The initial burn is usually carried out using wood to get the whole thing up to temperature.
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dpack
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the "tubes"thing i tried to describe is a bit like a steam engine boiler but with woodchip where the water would be .
having thought about it the problem of removing the residue from between tubes might require a bit of experimentation and planning to work well.
another slightly different option would be to pipe the hot combustion gasses( balanced or slightly reducing flame)directly through the wood chip a bit like air into a forge fire in a box
i want to play now ,but i cant see it being popular in a city terrace yard
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Hairyloon
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the "tubes"thing i tried to describe is a bit like a steam engine boiler but with woodchip where the water would be . |
Yes, I had had a similar idea.
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having thought about it the problem of removing the residue from between tubes might require a bit of experimentation and planning to work well. |
The residue /should/ be charcoal. It shouldn't be too hard to tip out if the drum is not too big. Few big tubes rater than many small ones.
Quote: |
another slightly different option would be to pipe the hot combustion gasses( balanced or slightly reducing flame)directly through the wood chip a bit like air into a forge fire in a box |
Instinctively, I feel that would not work, but logically, I cannot think why not.
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i want to play now ,but i cant see it being popular in a city terrace yard |
If you've got a condensor on the exhaust, then you shouldn't be producing much smoke... perhaps also bubble it through something? I was thinking biodiesel soap: see if anything reacts with anything.
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