I just found out that dessicants like silica gel only work in humid air (because of their high surface area, low vapor pressure pores).
Osmosis would work to selectively separate water from ethanol. The process uses a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membrane developed in Japan. The process consumes very little energy, requiring only a certain amount of pressure. i've also found a gov't website on the conversion of whole plants (leaves, stem, roots) into fermentable sugars for ethanol production. Here it is... http://www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels/understanding_biomass.html It's an interesting read. Particularly important because starchy granules comprise a very small percentage of plant material, and so by throwing away plant fiber, we're wasting 99 percent of the potential chemical energy available in plants, and hence also 99 percent of the solar energy that went into growing the plants in the first place: Component Percent Dry Weight ----------------------------------- Cellulose 40-60% Hemicellulose 20-40% Lignin 10-25% Apparently Lignin is the hardest component to hydrolize into fermentable sugars, and the ability to do this is critical to making biomass ethanol a consumer product. Something like a 10-fold reduction in the cost of lignin-to-sugar enzymes is required, and intense research is ongoing to try to achieve this. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Looking for a more powerful website? Try GeoCities for $8.95 per month. Register your domain name (http://your-name.com). More storage! No ads! http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info http://us.click.yahoo.com/aHOo4D/KJoEAA/MVfIAA/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/
