This is our frequently asked questions (FAQ) on making and using FUEL ethanol and questions covering the Charles 803 still. It will be regularly expanded and updated.
Version 1.5 Sunday, October 15, 2006
Q 1. Where can I get plans for an ethanol still?
A. BeUtilityFree sells plans starting from 1 GPH. These are NOT toys for making drinking alcohol. Most plans come in hard copy blue prints (24" x 36") but some also come in electric PDF format. We also have complete palns for farm sized stills.
Q 2. Can I make these stills myself?
A. Yes - if you are handy with copper plumbing tools and techniques. You'll find the blueprints to be quite thorough in helping you through all parts of assembly. The instructions are very precise and well drawn to show you the whole assembly process. But it does take an experienced hand to solder the pipes properly. The plans contain the complete list of materials, detailed drawings of the construction procedures, and some alternative methods of heating and running the still. The plans for the Charles Still have been updated.
Q 3. How much will the materials for a 3" column still cost to build?
A. It will cost you about $500 to $600 for materials for the still (not counting the cost of your labor), or less if you're good at scavenging parts and components, such as hoses, etc.
Q 4. How long will it take to build a 3" column still?
A. Once you have all the parts (which can take up to a month to get) it will take 1-2 days depending on your plumbing skills.
Q 5. What is the production rate of a your stills?
A. Production rate of a fuel ethanol still depends on many aspects of the still operation. For example, if you have ten (10) gallons of beer at a 10% alcohol content (which is about what you get working with barley or wheat) you end up with a little over 1 gallon of high proof (10% ethanol content x 10 gallons of beer / 0.9 = 1.1 gal of 180 proof). You can see that to be efficient you will want to start with a minimum of 50 gallons, hopefully at a 10% ethanol content, to get 5 gallons of fuel. If you run the still at full capacity (it is designed to handle up to a 100-gallon boiler), you can produce up to 4 gallons per hour of 180 proof fuel. You can also run two stills in parallel if you want more output per hour. The higher the ethanol content in your liquid you distill the higher flow rate of your still. If you have the boiler and still set up to run automatically as a continuous operation then you can produce quite a bit of ethanol. Most people making fuel ethanol on a small scale do it in bathes and not continuously.
Q 6. How much does it cost to produce 1 gallon of ethanol?
A. If you do this on a large enough scale, it will cost about $1.10 to $1.50/gal to make the alcohol. ON a smaller scale it can cost more or less. It varies so much depending on where you get your feedstock, what fuel you use to boil your beer (solar energy is the cheapest, electricity the most expensive usually) and if you use a vacuum or atmospheric still. It is always best to use a waste product for fermentation to get your beer (liquid that contains a certain percentage of alcohol). You will also have animal feed by products which you can sell to reduce the total cost to about $0.85/gal. or if you use feedstock like wheat you can use the distillers dried grain (DDG) to make healthy by products. There is NO reason why one cannot make fuel alcohol MUCH cheaper that gasoline bought at your local gas stations if you have the time to do so and you can get inexpensive feedstock and use solar power or a co-generaton system to power the operation. Last their is currently a Federal tax credit for each gallon of ethanol produced and used by an end user which futher lowers the cost per gallon of fuel ethanol.
Q 7. What do I do once I have a still set up?
A. First you need a good steady source of feedstock which is the raw material used to produce ethanol. Feedstocks most often used to make fuel ethanol: corn, juices, cellulose (newspaper) as are sugar beets, Jerusalem artichokes, rotten apples, grape skins from a winery, and much more. Find one or two source of inexpensive or FREE feedstock and learn n how to ferment them well. Each person should do what works best for their area. If corn is the best to get inexpensive or paper works better then that is what you should use
As for fermentation, this is basically the same process as for making beer or wine, except that you don't have to worry about the taste, since you aren't going to drink this stuff. Fermentation involves the use of enzymes and then yeasts to turn the sugars into ethanol and CO2. When using grains you turn the starches in the grains into sugars that the yeasts can use to turn into ethanol and C02.
Ethanol production is basically a four step process. You obtain feedstock. You prepare the feedstock. You ferment the feedstock that works best for you. You distill the "beer" that you get from the fermentation process to get ethanol to use as fuel.
Realistically, it's best to do all this on a farm where you have access to hammer mills, large tanks, and various means of handling large amounts of feedstock (and the resultant by products which can be waste or a valuable by product) but it can be done anywhere as long as you have the room for fermentation tanks and the still. One can set up a totally automated process as long as you have the room for it. A typical suburban home can produce their own fuel provided they have the space and will to do so. A city dweller is at a disadvantage but then if one lives in the city the need for fuel will be far less or not needed at all!
A. It's not rocket science, but there is quite a lot to learn. Running a still does require some knowledge of the whole process. You really need to read a couple of books on the subject, which may or may not be out of print. Check your local libraries (including University Libraries).
Q 9. How corrosive is ethanol to fuel system parts and how have you addressed this problem?
A. Ethanol is corrosive to certain rubber and cork materials found in old-time carburetors and cars. Generally since the introduction of ethanol in gasoline in the mid 1990s all gas tanks, fuel injectors and fuel pumps are all ethanol tolerant. If you are concerned about this then you need to check with each component on your fuel system and find out form the manufacturer of each component.
Q 10. How do you combat the problem of hard starting on cold days with carborated engines?
A. Our most common method is to install a windshield washer pump and rig it up so you can push a button on cold mornings to squirt a small shot of gasoline into the carburetor. With fuel injection systems (all cars made today) they usually do not require any gasoline during the cold weather starting process to fire the engine up. Since the fuel is injected under pressure, the alcohol fuel is sufficiently vaporized to ignite easily within the combustion chamber! So 99.9% of the time if you have fuel injection a cold start assist is NOT needed at all.
Q 11. What is the octane rating of 180 proof ethanol?
A. 180 proof ethanol is equivalent to 105 octane.
Q 12. What engine modifications are required?
A. There are three main types of situations in gasoline internal combustion (IC) engines you will run into: 1. Carburetor 2. Non carburetor engines 3. Fuel injection engines.1. The main modification required to run a carburetor engine on ethanol is drilling out the jets or installing larger jets. Because there are almost no carborated cars on the road anymore we will not discuss this further.
2. A non carborated machine like a lawn mower, motorcycle, stationary back up generator, etc. can be run with a minor adjustment with the fuel needle or just pull out the choke a little bit. This is the simplest conversion. You may also need to add a little oil with the ethanol for lubrication since some of these engines have no oiling capabilities.
3. With a fuel injection engine you have three choices: 1. Buy a bi fuel converter (Flextune) 2. Do nothing to the engine and use straight gasoline/alcohol mixture like E85. 3. Buy or own a flexible fuel vehicle (FFV) that comes from the car manufacturer already designed to run on gasoline or ethanol already. We sell a full line of Duel fuel converters and once installed you can use your car on straight ethanol, or any mixture of gasoline and ethanol. But if you use gasoline and ethanol combinations you have to use 200 proof ethanol in your gasoline.
Q 13. Does ethanol have a shelf life and will it lose its octane level like gasoline does?
A. If it is sealed tightly it will last for years if stored in steel, SS or ethanol tolerant plastic.
Q 14. Does ethanol go rotten in time like gasoline and produce varnish?
A. No. Alcohol is what preserves your wine.
Q 15. How difficult is the US licensing process for making alcohol?
A. Getting a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) is not difficult, and only takes about a month. To get the proper forms call 800-389-2282 or 513-648-7150 (number of address in Cincinnati, OH). Ask for the package for the Small Fuel Alcohol producer (under 10,000 proof gallons) There is only one ATF office that deals with FUEL alcohol permits now and their office is Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 550 Main St., Room 8002 Federal Building, Cincinnati, OH 45202-3263.
Q 16. What is the fee for a Small Alcohol Fuel Producer permit? (Under 10,000 proof gallons /year)
A. There is no charge at this time for a small at this time.
A. Yes. That said there is no need to run a car off 100% ethanol. It is more expensive to do so and 170-190 proof ethanol works fine to run an internal combustion engine.
A. Yes. There have been people who have done this by mixing 140% proof with their Diesel fuel with no problems. In Brazil Mercedes-Benz have been running on straight ethanol for several years with little or no problems. After all a Diesel engine is just a dumb engine that works under compression and does not really car what type of fuel is used. One thing for certain is that the metering pump has to be with a pump that does not need lubrication from the fuel. Also to be safe the injectors should be replaced with stainless steel injectors.
A. About 10 years ago the industry switched to a man made product called Zeolite. You can either pour the water laden ethanol directly into the Zeolite and out comes 200% ethanol on the other end. You can also inject your vapors from the distillation operation directly into the Zeolite. Typically you have a minimum of two columns in an operation, one that is drying the ethanol and one that is being dried of the moisture that is removed form the ethanol. When the Zeolite drys the ethanol it creates heat and when you remove the water from the Zeolite you have to heat the Zeolite up to remove the water from the Zeolite. The heat can be provided by solar energy, a combination of solar energy and fossil fuel energy.
A. E85 is a fuel that has 85% dry ethanol and 15% gasoline. You can use this mixture in almost and new vehicle in a 50%/50% mixture with regular gasoline. It can be used 100% in vehicles from the factory that are designated Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFV).
A. This is ethanol that is made from cellulose feedstock instead of starch (grains) or sugar (sugar cane, fruits) based feedstocks which currently makes up the waste majority of how ethanol is made today. Examples of sources for cellulosic ethanol include corn stover (the stalks and husks left over after harvest), wheat and barley straw, sugarcane or rice bagasse, sawdust, paper pulp, cardboard, cotton, newspaper, small diameter trees and dedicated energy crops such as switch grass and other fast growing grasses. Study is still going in making cellulosic ethanol more viable. BeUtilityFree is currently testing various enzymes that will turn cellulose into sugars.
A. The least expensive energy source. We recommend the use of renewable energy sources which cost more up front but they have NO fuel expense unlike buying energy from a local utility company. If you have to purchase your energy then you need to buy the less expensive on a million BTU basis in general. Most people who live in the country have access to propane, electricity but also have access to producing 100% of their own power with wind power, solar power or building a methane digester to produce methane gas (natural gas) to run a ICE to produce all your electricity and heat.
A. We offer consulting, turn key systems, either manually operated or full automation and all component parts for a smalll ethanol system. Please visit our store at our web site for a complete product line for your production of on site fuel ethanol plants. Conatct us for futher information and prices. Tool free 888.320.9211.