sawdust = fuel?

maze48 · Post by **maze48** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:12 am

Awhile back there was some discussion about using sawdust to make ethanol. I did alittle research to find out how to do this. Alot of info stated to use sulfuric acid (Mother Earth News and others). It seems that if you are not an educator of some school, the chemical house's will not sell you that acid, at least here in the U.S..
I know that breaking down the cell structure to get it ready to ferment is quite a task. I would like to try as an experiment, on a small scale.
Does anyone here know of another chemical, that is easy to obtain, to use instead of sulfuric acid?

Post by **Uncle Jesse** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:51 am

you can buy muriatic acid. not sure why you cant buy sulphuric. maybe it's more concentrated.

Post by **Husker** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:09 am

(auto) battery acid is sulfuric acid. I am pretty sure this can still be purchased (separate from purchase of a large battery). I have seen it in 1lb and 5lb (hard) rectangular bottles. However, this was years ago when actually worked on cars. It is possible that regs have been put up to avoid this, but I would not see why.

Not sure why sulphuric acid is "banned". Nitric acid is what is more used for things like making boom boom components.

H.

DrunkMonkey · Post by **DrunkMonkey** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 12:09 pm

Husker is right -- you can buy sulfuric acid at the local auto parts store. Some stores carry it, some don't. You'll have to look around. But, I did buy some from AutoZone recently.

Big H · Post by **Big H** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 1:07 pm

there is an old trick in the car business if your car has a bad transmission then put in saw dust it will work for about a month then bam she is deader than a door knob

it is not a good site seeing me pissed off when my new car did that right off the lot

boy I was pissed

maze48 · Post by **maze48** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 2:25 pm

In this article http://www.green-trust.org/sawdust_ethanol.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow it said that using less than 91% would not work. I googled battery acid and found it has about 33% acid. The 95-98% is what I would need. I guess that this post 911 era, alot has changed.
I read another piece on a web site that says hydrogen peroxide will work, but doesn't give a strength amount. Looking at different sites to find out what is the most % that they sell. and it appears that is 70%. I'm going to give it a try just to see.

markx · Post by **markx** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:49 am

Yea....70% is the upper limit that you can concentrate sulphuric acid by boiling off water. It is also slightly below the limit to make sulphuric acid work in nitrification reactions (as in the production of explosives like TNT or any other unstable compound containing a NO2 group).

pyrobrewer280 · Post by **pyrobrewer280** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:52 am

markx wrote:Yea....70% is the upper limit that you can concentrate sulphuric acid by boiling off water. It is also slightly below the limit to make sulphuric acid work in nitrification reactions (as in the production of explosives like TNT or any other unstable compound containing a NO2 group).

How does Sulfuric acid (H2SO4) nitrate anything? TNT is made by Tri Nitration of Toluene(C7H8) using fuming nitric acid (HNO3)

LeftLaneCruiser · Post by **LeftLaneCruiser** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 6:56 am

I saw 94 % sulphuric acid on sale at a DIY department of a hardware store. It was sold to dissolve sewage from clogged-up drainpipes.

Didn't buy it then [was gonna try it for mentioned reasons

] because i thought it ws quite expensive.
8,something euro's for half a litre (500ml.)

KJH

pothead · Post by **pothead** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 2:12 pm

I don't know the truth to this,
BUT...I heard at one time that there are distilleries that use hydrogen peroxide, but I was never told how or for what....

kinda got me wondering though...

maze48 · Post by **maze48** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 3:23 pm

I know that hydrogen peroxide is used in controlling biogrowth in some water/cooling systems.

hornedrhodent · Post by **hornedrhodent** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 7:46 pm

="pyrobrewer280

How does Sulfuric acid (H2SO4) nitrate anything? TNT is made by Tri Nitration of Toluene(C7H8) using fuming nitric acid (HNO3)

Conc H2SO4 removes the H2O given off, and which would stop the reaction.

AllanD · Post by **AllanD** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 8:33 pm

In nitration reactions the sulfuric is added first BEFORE the Nitric,
but that really another subject...

Sulfuric is sold in concentrated form at hardware stores
for drain cleaner.

There are all sorts of chemicals that are now listed as "pre-cursers"
in the manufacturing of various drugs and some retailers are no longer carrying them as a result...

AD

pintoshine · Post by **pintoshine** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:37 am

I have done this experiment and the amount of sulfuric is small. It is mostly a catalyst. The whole problem with acid sacchrafication is the pressure and temperature required. Good conversion takes place at 5 atmospheres, and requires just at 350°F of 15 to twenty seconds ending in an explosive discharge. This is a bit beyond a home setup unless you are a larger farm with a lot of spare cash and plans to do it forever.

The system is problematic in that is is hard to control. Most manufacturers that have implemented this use explosive discharge to cool the stuff and stop the reaction. If the reaction is not stopped correctly the glucose decomposes to fufural(non-fermentable and slightly toxic to yeast, can you say plasticiser?) if the conversion is cut short there is lot of xylose or zylotol which is fermentable by specialized yeast. The punch line is that the reaction is not very efficient.
This system is being used in Russia to make alcohol. I might have some links to some PDF files that gives a better explaination.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5378e/x5378e03.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id37.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/dilute_acid.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Intergalactic Captain · Sat May 05, 2007 5:08 pm

You managed to run that catalytically? Damn...I wish I knew that could be done last summer, I was focusing my research on bacterial digestion to fermentable sugars. The only writings I could find on H2SO4 used a massive amount of it, close to quantitative with the amount of sawdust used.

Personally, If I were going to devote the time to this, I'd go the bacterial route. Run a google search on "cellulosic ethanol" if anyone's interested. I'm pretty sure the bacteria are anaerobic, but that type of environment shouldn't be overly difficult to acheive for someone who's already set up for distilling.

Butanol, though, is where it's at...Clostridium Acetobutylicum and friends are capable of forming varying amounts of n-butanol, ethanol, and acetone with butanol as the major fraction...Unfortunately, little development has been done since WWII, and the strains availible from Carolina Biological Supply can only ferment to around 8% total solvent volume.

As for finding sulfuric acid, If you're in the U.S., the hardware store (the smaller the better) is the best place to find it. Last time I checked (I use a lot of the stuff), it was $9 a quart for 96+% under the name "Rooto" - It's the stuff in a white bottle emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, sealed within a plastic bag. Wal-Mart carries a brand called "Liquid Lightning," which is upwards of 80%, but it's dirty as hell and has some sort of detergent/foaming agent in it... Both are about the same price, but the Rooto is pure with the balance being water, while Liquid Lightning openly brags about its 12 extra mystery ingredients.

Finally, on the note of nitration, H2SO4 is NOT necessary. It all depends on the process you're using. For instance, with RDX (the explosive in C-4), any trace of the sulfate anion will completely destroy the product. Granted, heterocycle chemistry is different from aromatic which is different from straight-chained hydrocarbon chemistry, but I'm pretty sure I've already forgotten the point I was trying to make. TNT needs it, as do most nitrations, for two reasons: First, the nitronium ion that does the actual nitration, is formed from an initiating reaction between H2SO4 and HNO3. Second, the reaction slows exponentially as the concentration of water (a byproduct of the nitration process) increases, the H2SO4 binds it and essentially dehydrates the mixture allowing the reaction to proceed. Nitric esters, like nitroglycerine, need H2SO4 for reason 2 only, as the nitronium ion does not come into play. It is also used as somewhat of a moderator, as straight nitric acid has a bad habit of turning polyols and simple sugars into black tar and toxic fumes - Too low a HNO3 concentration and no reaction proceeds, too high and you destroy your substrate before it gets nitrated...Use the standard mixed acid nitration, and you're good to go...

I know that last part has nothing to do with alcohol, but it really pisses me off when people spout chemical bullshit whithout knowing what they're saying...Esepecially when it comes to explosives, as little kids + internet + wrong information = Bad news for everyone, especially them.

karlfinn · Post by **karlfinn** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 6:14 am

AS to butanol, which is an advantageous way of getting good alt. fuels and other marketable by-products, as it does not require any distillation and thus government permits as far as I know. I have in the past aquired my culture of clostridium acetobutylicum #657. from Presque Isle Cultures , in Pa.
I beleive it's, http://www.picultures.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
and their culture prices are about $5 ea.
I have worked several cultures in research for a mutant strain which will give the, to date, largest returns. and the same goes for development of trich. viride and Aspergillus oryzae,et al, aspergillus variants utilized in the same type processes, many self-aquired from wild strains,
just plain and simple agar-dish work looking for that perfected hybrid.
I have also worked, some time ago, with a mutated strain of trichoderma viride..the "dreaded green mold" for taking cellulose to cellulase and thus into ethanol via distillation. This was from the old US Army Natick research with this organism..but results are or were favorable and used no acidic hydrolysis methods. Currently, I am back at work putting a good clost.aceto.strain together and setting up my seperation tanks in the garage..for butanol , alkys and acetone and see where I can "drive" it.
Raw materials are from bakery wastes and "dumpster diving" at present, and seasonal uses of sugar beets, honeysuckle vine, sorhgum grasses,municipal and manufacturing wastes..etc.
and so glad to see others are on the same trail of necessity..
I would like to know if anyone knows which strains Iogen in Canada is working with for their cellulose-ethanol productions?
Perhaps we can all start sharing some strain-cultures..within this community. We have to get this country too away from Corn-economics based ethanol as there as so many "weeds" and garbage to supply all needs. imo.
Really glad to have found this forum too...
ya'll take care...
just an old moonshiner from west virginia.

Home Distiller

sawdust = fuel?

sawdust = fuel?

hmm