METHANOL can not be future fuel

Mr Bush announced that neither Ethanol nor Hydrogen will be future fuel.

Future fuel shall be Methanol.

It is well known that contamination of Methanol with water is highly toxic.

Same as MTBE, Methanol can not be accepted as future fuel.

Pls be aware of properties of Methanol and oppose the use of Methanol as fuel considering the environmental issues.

P.J.LAKHAPATE
plakhapate@rediffmail.com

the only reason ethanol will not be used is because it can be produced by the general public.

the reason solar power isn't more popular? nobody has figured out a way to charge people for sunlight.

Methanol is biodegradable (http://www.speclab.com/compound/c67561.htm)

Its toxicity is also low when mixed with water. It's not one of those compounds like agent orange that has a long halflife and high toxicity in small concentrations. Ethanol actually causes many of the same health problems that methanol does. According to the link, methanol has a short half-life in ambient air. Even a human body can metabolize very small amounts without harm.

The trouble is that making methanol is more hazardous than making ethanol. Ethanol can be produced without heating the mash. Common plumbing parts can withstand enough vacuum to run a vacuum still, which is I think the best way to home-make ethanol for fuel. Ethanol can be produced from common material such as grass clippings without too complicated a set of machinery.

Mr Bush announced that neither Ethanol nor Hydrogen will be future fuel.
Oh, when was this annouced? Links?

Any (ANY ) combustion engine will always incompletely oxidize its fuel. A certain amount of raw methanol will spew from the exhaust pipe to be then breathed in by all innocent bystanders.

Are there any known health hazards associated with the ingestion of methanol by living creatures?

Are there any known health hazards associated with the ingestion of methanol by living creatures?Yes, even small amounts ingested can cause blindness. Its much more toxic than ethanol.

....Common plumbing parts can withstand enough vacuum to run a vacuum still, which is I think the best way to home-make ethanol for fuel. Ethanol can be produced from common material such as grass clippings without too complicated a set of machinery. …I did not reproduce your wrong comments on methanol not being significantly more hazardous than ethanol,, as others have already pointed out that relatively small amounts of methanol will make you blind, cause mental disorders etc.

Perhaps some day it may be possible to make ethanol from any cellulose source but at present only a sugar source is possible. (With anything even remotely close to economically feasible).

Mainly I would like to suggest that you have never worked with simple mechanical (usually made by Welsh, as I recall) two stage rotary vacuum pumps (at least never in a small room with poor circulation.) They "exhale" significant oil fumes. I would not drink any ethanol that had these oil fumes* in it. Why would you make your claim for vacuum distillation, when thermal is cheaper, and refines instead of contaminates with oil?

Perhaps you have some other than oil-sealed vacuum pump in mind? - If yes, what is it and how does it work?
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*I really should say “micro mist” as these oils are especially engineered to have extraordinary low vapor pressure, but must release micro droplets as you can sure smell it in a closed room.

The two questions that need to be answered are:

1. How much methanol exposure is dangerous?
2. How much methanol would people be exposed to if lots of people used it as fuel?

Until you have quantitative answers to both those questions, this is all just meaningless speculation. There are a lot of very toxic chemicals that come out of the exhausts of gasoline and diesel car engines now - carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, etc. But the concentrations are low enough that they don't normally pose a serious health risk. Is there any evidence that methanol engines would be any more dangerous than what we have now?

If you consider it unacceptable to ever be exposed to any methanol, I have bad new for you: methanol is in lots of things, including virtually all fruit juice (which has around 20-40 mg/L). It is irrational to insist that you never be exposed to something, because everything is safe in sufficiently small amounts. Similarly, everything (including water - if you drink too much of it your kidneys will shut down) is fatal in excessive amounts. In order to analyze chemical exposure rationally you have to determine how much is safe and make sure that you stay under that amount. Simply saying "it's poisonous, never use it for anything!" is stupid.

If plakhapate had said anything alone the lines of "methanol engines would expose people to X ppm of methanol vapor, which is twice what the EPA says is safe" I would take him much more seriously, but as it is I see no reason to take his post seriously.

Billy, since we are talking about making ethanol for fuel, it doesn't matter if it gets some oil in it. If that is a problem there is at least one easy way to prevent the oil from getting into the liquid. I'm not talking about going that low with the pressure anyway, just low enough that the boiling point of alcohol is room temperature.

Alcohols are pretty lame as fuel. My buddy's late model dirt tracker burned methanol, and got great R's and HP, IF you like double fuel lines each bigger than your thumb in diameter.

I've had good luck with acetone. Used a gallon pure after emptying tank in my pickup to clean the carbon off the valves. Ran normal temps and the little four-banger ran better than the old "260" that a major oil company had years ago. No seal or rubber damage, no fuel system component changeovers either. Ran my lawnmower on it straight, too. Better fuel than gasoline, IMO.

Acetone is made by a fermentation process, as is ethyl alcohol. Will research more info, I understand a bacteria is used, then it gets distilled like spirits.

I wonder if exposure to low levels of methanol causes night blindness.

Billy, since we are talking about making ethanol for fuel, it doesn't matter if it gets some oil in it. ...That is a valid point. My next concern is the energy cost of pumping compared to heating for distillation, but note that almost all the heat invested to distil can be recovered with a counter flow heat exchanger, but I do not see any practical way to recover the work done to drive the pump.

It would not surprise me to learn that the energy required for the pump to pull one gram of alcohol from natural (about 14% max) alcohol water solution is greater than the energy content of one gram of alcohol converted to mechanical energy for the pump (about 35% max of its heat content). Have you evaluated this?

...Acetone is made by a fermentation process, as is ethyl alcohol. Will research more info, I understand a bacteria is used, then it gets distilled like spirits.Please do. I think you are correct so far. Perhaps that fuel may be made from grass etc more easily than ethanol. - It is interesting to note that in the final stages of starvation (after mussle is being broken down for energy) the human body makes mainly acetone as waste product. Perhaps genetically engineered "bug" can make acetone efficiently.

For tonight, I am just figuring that if the condensor is working right, the alcohol and water vapors condense out, so they do not raise the pressure inside the still once an equilibrium is reached. Except for leakage and establishing the vacuum in the first place, the vacuum is free. I suspect that if someone worked at it a Stirling engine could do a really great job of recovering the heat from the condensor.

I had thought of a sort of "water piston" for the vacuum pump, but this article recommends a Kinney "water ring" vacuum pump: Mother Earth article on a vacuum still (http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/1981_November_December/Mother_s_Home_Scale_Vacuum_Distillery)

I knew before reading this that this arrangement would not save on the latent heat of vaporization, but it saves a substantial amount on the sensible heat to heat the mash to the vaporization temperature. This still runs about 125 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that will not cause severe burns. Another huge advantage here is that a negative pressure system does not include a pressurized boiler which requires inspection, licensing, and in my opinion a few prayers. It will not create a massive fireball if it ruptures. The heat source can be a source of hot water.

For tonight, I am just figuring that if the condensor is working right, the alcohol and water vapors condense out, so they do not raise the pressure inside the still once an equilibrium is reached. ...This is wrong. You are continuously converting liquid to vapor at low pressure, but need to deliver (and condense) that vapor to atmospheric pressure. You can use the heat of condenstion to supply heat to the alcohol/water mixture to keep it from cooling as you pump on it, but you must "pump on it" continuously, if you want any yield.

Billy, did you happen to read the part about heating the mash? I mentioned that it runs at about 125 degrees. Is there any part of that you are having trouble understanding?

The vapor is not delivered to "atmospheric pressure." It is delivered to a condensor that is cooled to a lower temperature. I gave you the link to the article. Even the condensed liquid is kept in a reservoir within the depressurized area and is pumped out.

....The vapor is not delivered to "atmospheric pressure." It is delivered to a condensor that is cooled to a lower temperature. ....Don't be silly.

There are many different possible "condensers." All are basically heat exchangers. The vapor's heat of condensation is transferred thru some metal wall to some colder external mass (water is best, but air can be used). Lets consider a simple example:

The warm liquid vapor source is connected via a copper pipe to the drum that will hold the condensed alcohol and cold water is flowing around the outside of the copper pipe.

Just to be specific (may be easier for you to understand with numbers) lets assume the warm liquid vapor source is at 0.1 atmospheric pressure. What is the pressure inside the copper pipe? (ANS: essentially 0.1Atmosphere) What is the pressure inside the collection drum connected to other end of the copper pipe? (ANS: essentially 0.1Atmosphere)

How did the pressure inside the collection drum get to be below atmospheric? (ANS: A vacuum pump was used and that required high quality energy, not low quality thermal energy.)

Summary:
You can not have one end of a pipe at 0.1 Atmosphere (to make the warm liquid boil at lower temperature) and the other end of the pipe at 1.0 atmosphere (to make it possible to open the collection drum, take out the alcohol and put it in your car), without there being a pump some where.

Again:
Don't be silly.

Billy, I think you are losing coherence a little bit here. I gave the link to the article about the design of a still that the designer has been working with for more than 20 years. I mentioned the fact that a pump was used, as the article says, to remove alcohol from the setup without opening it to atmospheric pressure. I named the brand and type of the vacuum pump that is used in this design, also from the article. I never made any claim that you could do all of this without a pump.

The still is designed to be continuous process so you don't have to run a batch, open it, take out the alcohol, then vacuum it out again. It even has a scheme for putting in new mash without letting in a lot of air.

Your statement that you have to "pump on it" continuously is at best misleading. The vacuum as to be maintained which requires some use of the vacuum pump. However, the vacuum pump does not supply the energy to "suck" the alcohol out of the mash. The heating of the mash expels the alcohol. The condensor makes the alcohol liquid again, and in a continuous process still the alcohol is pumped out of the reservoir. The vacuum is going to be fairly much self-maintaining but that process isn't going to be perfect. What you don't have is the vacuum pump running a lot just to suck the alcohol out of the mash.

The liquid pump that pumps the condensed alcohol to the outside of the system is where you deliver it to atmospheric pressure. This involves pumping a half gallon or so a minute of liquid instead of however many liters of vapor, which you don't want to remove anyway because that's the stuff you want to keep. Even common plumbing materials are up to keeping vapors sealed tight at about 10 pounds per square inch differential. If they weren't everyone's plumbing would constantly leak, what with over 40 PSI being a good minimum for everyone's kitchen faucets to work right. So we're talking about a system that is essentially free of leaks running at an equilibrium between vaporization and condensation.

So I don't know what you are objecting to, Billy. It's in my statements and in the article already. I already said that the alcohol needs to be pumped out to keep the vacuum going.

plakhapate's posting is a bit unclear. Are we considering methanol as a future food or a future fuel? Methanogens are necessary in our ecosystem. Do we have any data on the toxic effects of methanol when used as a fuel additive?