Methane Digester Powered Still

Little or nothing to do with distillation.

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Misneac
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Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Misneac »

I'm into self sufficiency and I was thinking that it might be possible to run a methane digester on the solid leftovers of runs, and make enough methane to eventually fuel a run. It would be pretty cool to "close the loop" and use corn you'd grown to produce whiskey and enough energy to distill that whiskey, then use the compost to fertilize more corn. From what I can tell most of us could probably build a digester from extra still and brewing parts we have laying around. I haven't built one, but if anybody has any experience with digesters I'd love to hear about it. On another note they could be built to look a lot like a still, and they produce odd smells and gasses; might be a handy thing to have around if the revenuers need to be bamboozled. The link below isnt the most informative, but check out the pic. Look familiar?
Misneac
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Misneac »

Link which I neglected to add before...
http://readynutrition.com/resources/how ... _12102014/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
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Sungy
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Sungy »

I have worked on a large digester gas boilers and have seen large scale digerster gas farms that feed the boilers. There are easy to tell if there is a fuel leak cause it smells like crap. The fuel has a lot of contaminants and loads of moisture that has to be addressed if using it with any type of regulator or gas valve. The gas has to be pressurized to flow with some sort of pump. The sulfur content of the fuel will leave white powder all over the inside of the boilers and require much more maintenance. The efficiency of the boilers is decreased from the contaminants in the digester gas.
Misneac
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Misneac »

I was thinking that if I had an outside still setup in the country somewhere with a stream fed cooler, then I could use the stream water to pressurize the gas as well. Where I'm from the smell of liquid shit is one of the signs of spring, so I'm not real sensitive in that department. I didn't know about the sulfur content being an issue, but I wonder if copper I would help catalyze it in that application, as it does in a still. You could run it through a worm to cool it and precipitate out the moisture, perhaps catalyze the sulfur, and compress it by merely by adding water to a sealed vessel full of gas. Maybe not a very high speed / low drag version, but if works it would be pretty cool. It would only have to run a turkey fryer or equivalent, so nothing too fancy.
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Sungy
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Sungy »

here is a link to info regarding digester gas.
http://www.mi-wea.org/docs/Session%206% ... ode%5D.pdf
600 btu/ cubic foot. Your gonna need a lot of crap to make that kind of volume.

30,000 btu burner = 50 cubic feet per hour.
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bearriver
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by bearriver »

It's unlikely that you will store enough of it for fuel in a gas state to run a still. The container required would be monolithic. For practical application it needs to be in a liquid state like with a propane tank.

Keeping NG in a liquid state at home isn't practical either however. To keep it a liquid, it requires almost 40 times as much pressure compared to propane. (Propane = 850 kPa NG = 32,000 kPa.) That's why you don't commonly see anyone selling bottled natural gas, or why natural gas is delivered directly to homes via pipelines, while propane is delivered to backyard storage tanks via tanker trucks. You would need highly specialized vessels and processing equipment to get enough on hand to run a still.
Misneac
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Misneac »

Good info. Thanks very much. I guess its not practical, but I appreciate the knowledge. Looks like I might have to go wood fired if I ever decide to move into the boonies.
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Nutmegmooner »

Soooo, back in the 70's I went to an all boys boarding school, and creativity was encouraged. The farm that became the school was still operating, a bit, an old apple orchard, a pen full of pigs, some cows and we grew our own corn and potatoes.
Soooo, since it was the height of the first energy crisis we boys decided to see what we could do to help the world, and built a small scale digester using plastic milk jugs. A little pig shit, a little cow shit, and a lot of human excrement. (Did I mention it was an ALL BOYS school?) Anyway, we got it percolating away in the back of the chemistry lab and, funny thing, it blew up! Who would've guessed! After many hours of cleanup we pressed on regardless. This time it was 55 gallon drums and no human fecal matter. As I remember the first drum contained the biomass and was plumbed to the top of the second drum which was full of water. The methane produced displaced the H2O from the bottom into a sealed 3rd drum (I believe) creating air pressure which allowed us to open a valve on the middle drum and release methane into a balloon. As the chemistry teacher was explaining to us how "all the early product would be carbon dioxide blah blah blah" the kid with the balloon let a little slowly escape and lit it with a Bic lighter. It shot a blue flame about 18" long. Beautiful blue! then the rubber on the balloon caught fire and we had a brief little rocketry experiment going on right there in the dining room.
And that's about all I know about making methane.
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john2674
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by john2674 »

Misneac wrote:I was thinking that if I had an outside still setup in the country somewhere with a stream fed cooler, then I could use the stream water to pressurize the gas as well. Where I'm from the smell of liquid shit is one of the signs of spring, so I'm not real sensitive in that department. I didn't know about the sulfur content being an issue, but I wonder if copper I would help catalyze it in that application, as it does in a still. You could run it through a worm to cool it and precipitate out the moisture, perhaps catalyze the sulfur, and compress it by merely by adding water to a sealed vessel full of gas. Maybe not a very high speed / low drag version, but if works it would be pretty cool. It would only have to run a turkey fryer or equivalent, so nothing too fancy.
Not trying to get too far off topic here, but in the outside stream scenario wouldn't a small hydro electric setup be a lot more practical?
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Sungy
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Sungy »

just finished watching an episode of "Yukon men" where they where installing a small hydro electric system to power the lights ect. Was pretty smart.
Misneac
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Misneac »

Hydroelectric is something I've been investigating for a while. There are some really nifty turbines that you can suspend in a stream and don't require any sort of "head" to turn them, just current. I'm waiting on getting too far into off grid electricity right for the moment, since both solar panels and batteries are on the verge of becoming much more efficient in the near future. I'm also looking into thermo-electric; paired with a still I think it would go together like gravy and potatoes if done right.
Misneac
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by Misneac »

This thing (http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?pat ... 6&id=60370" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) kind of intrigues me also. Not that it would be efficient for running a still at only 7k BTU, but if you saved your foreshots maybe you could utilize them as fuel for a slow pre heat? At $100 a whack it's worth is doubtful, but I'm always on the look out for ideas. Even if the tool may not be right that doesn't mean the concept is flawed.
findlaym
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by findlaym »

Every time you convert energy you loose a bunch of it. If I where trying to do anything with biomass it would be to straight up burn in- no storing or compressing. It is also be possible to build a solar still if you where willing to wait a long time for your batch. There's a contentious discussion on here somewhere about someone doing some kind of passive still with a cooler full of mash in a plastic bag. If you are thinking off grid, wood is the most energy dense fuel source you will get. Unless you have your own coal mine or something.
findlaym
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Re: Methane Digester Powered Still

Post by findlaym »

Have you considered gasifying wood? In theory you could add your biomass into the process.
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