Before the catalytic reaction process, methanol was made from the
destructive distillation of wood, or making charcoal and distillation /
condensing of the gasses given off in the process.   A very time consuming
and un-efficient process, I think that it was on the order of 1 gal of mixed
liquid ( mostly methanol ) for every 100 lbs. of wood, and cost about $10.00
a gal. ( before the catalytic process ) when reasonably pure.

The catalytic process is doable on the village level, but, is still
expensive compared to the large scale production. I was checking into this
when I first joined the list, and there was a book that I had some
information from (about a farmer that made a farm scale plant ) that I
mentioned, it should be in the list archives.

Greg H.


----- Original Message -----
From: "girl_mark_fire" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 00:14
Subject: [biofuel] biomethanol Re: Methanol Production


> This is all very interesting to me- I just spent part of last night
> looking for diy methanol info, with no success. My interest was in
> looking for info on turning methane (from a digester, digesting
> glycerine and other waste) into methanol. I now know more about fuel
> methanol (yuck) and no more about making the stuff. But google
> searches for biomethanol turn up that Smithfield Farms hog-waste-to-
> biomethanol-to-biodiesel-elsewhere plan. It was in the news a few
> months ago- and they hadn't at that point decided on where the
> biodiesel itself was going to be produced- and I;m kind of curious
> now about where that project has gone.
> Someone who was a list member turned up a plant that made industrial
> ethanol whose 'waste product' was quantities of methanol of
> questionable purity (contaminated with ethanol)- which the plant
> didn't know what to do with. something to definitely investigate in
> california- we can work with it if it's part ethanol and we're using
> good oil.
> If I remember correctly, I think that making methanol out of wood is
> pretty challenging and energy intensive- you have to heat it with no
> oxygen or something like that. It's pretty different than fermenting
> waste for ethanol production.
>
>  I'm curious about biomethanol from methane, though- is it doable on
> a village (small business?) scale?
>
> mark
>
>
>
> In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Icarus Solem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I've been trying to find technical info on the use of ethanol in the
> > biodiesel manufacturing process, with no luck.  I've been
> discussing the
> > possibility of a small-scale plant that produced both biodiesel and
> > ethanol, using agricultural raw materials (we are lucky in
> California -
> > lots of raw materials).  It seems that there would have to be an
> internal
> > production of methanol to feed into biodiesel production- perhaps
> not hard
> > to do if you are making ethanol at the same time?  Apparently any
> woody
> > material can be used for methanol production.  I don't know of any
> yeast
> > that churn out methanol, although there may be some bacteria that
> do.  You
> > would need some good distillation equipment, in any case.
> >
> > On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Bryan Brah wrote:
> >
> > > Since it is so difficult to make BioDiesel with ethanol, how hard
> would
> > > it be to make methanol at home?  I know that methanol is a by-
> product of
> > > ethanol distillation of fruits containing high concentrations of
> pectin,
> > > is there a way to exploit this fact and make just methanol?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -BRAH
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> > >
> > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
> > > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
> > >
> > > Biofuels list archives:
> > > http://archive.nnytech.net/
> > >
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>
>
>
> Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
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