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Need help making methanol

FaisonMars

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FaisonMars
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Dec 1, 2006
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A few years ago I saw an episode of "Rough Science" (an awesome TV show, BTW) in which the scientists made methanol from wood chips (as part of an attempt to make an evaporative-cooling refrigerator). I was thinking about that today when I heard a discussion of biofuels on NPR's Science Friday, and I was wondering if I could make my own methanol from whatever cellulose I could find lying around to power my alcohol camping stove.

My googling this afternoon has not returned any good resources on home-made methanol, so I thought I would ask the amateur and professional chemists on this board for resources. Is there a good book that anyone can recommend? Do I need to buy a still?
 
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mfaison said:
My googling this afternoon has not returned any good resources on home-made methanol, so I thought I would ask the amateur and professional chemists on this board for resources. Is there a good book that anyone can recommend? Do I need to buy a still?
Click to expand...
Go to a major library and look in the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. The process is known as "destructive distillation" so I guess you will need a still.
 
Just build a camp fire with the wood chips - much easier
and 100% "natural" :p
 
TX50 said:
Just build a camp fire with the wood chips - much easier
and 100% "natural" :p
Click to expand...

It's a pain to cook over a wood fire, and at some camp sites you can't make a fire. A light alcohol stove is really useful thing to have (you can make one from a soda can) for biking and backpacking. Plus, I'm experimenting with this for educational purposes. :)

It looks like I can get something called a "retort" from a chemical equipment supply company and use that to experiment with distillation. However, I don't have a bunsen burner, so I might have to use my stove to heat it up, which kind of defeats the purpose of making fuel for the stove. But it might be fun.

There's a site called www.moonshine-still.com that shows you how to make a better quality, production-level still for about $100.

Before I started doing this research, I hadn't realized how toxic methanol is.
 
I know. I was just trying to be facetious. Cooking on a wood fire is fun
though. Very "Dan'l Boone"!

On a tangentially relevant note; I recall my father (as a policeman) had
once to go onto a North Sea oil rig because some of the oil workers had
been making and consuming "wood alcohol"; ie. methanol made from
cellulose. :eek:
 
I've got a drab of knowledge, rubbed off from my homebrewing hobby. Mthanol, "Wood Alcohol" is the poisonous kind, made from the fermentation of the sugars while still in the husk. It can be avoided by straining the husks out during/after the mashing process. I guess it's one short cut that moonshiners take. I guess that beer brewers don't concentrate it by distilling either. But back on track, even the gasohol is ethanol, because it is easier to make in quantity. So I would go with the big guys, and brew corn, rice, fruit, whatever, into the sipping kind, ethanol. Why not have a dual purpose product? Save weight in your back pack.

Um, 10 pounds of malted grain = 5 gallons beer, at 7% abv, = 40 oz alcohol? Costs about $10 at the homebrew supply store. Or $1.50 at the feed store, but that wouldn't be malted, so loses efficiency....

Hmm, are there yeast strains that LIKE husks? But even horse's intestinal fauna leave a lot of cellulose un-converted, if you ever cleaned a stall you would know that.

But I guess distilling to 95% alcohol is pretty tough too. You'll always get some water...
 
True about ethanol being a better option for drinking, but as a evaporitive chiller, methanol will work better. It's got at least twice the vapor pressure compared to ethanol over the range of interest (4-25degC) and have near equivilent heat of vaporization.

Now if you want to break the azeotrope, you can try a adsorption process. I've heard that dessicated corn cobs will prefferentially adsorb water from a vapor feed. The nice part is you can regenerate the column by heating it with a stream of dry air/nitrogen.
 
mfaison said:
A few years ago I saw an episode of "Rough Science" (an awesome TV show, BTW) in which the scientists made methanol from wood chips (as part of an attempt to make an evaporative-cooling refrigerator). I was thinking about that today when I heard a discussion of biofuels on NPR's Science Friday, and I was wondering if I could make my own methanol from whatever cellulose I could find lying around to power my alcohol camping stove.

My googling this afternoon has not returned any good resources on home-made methanol, so I thought I would ask the amateur and professional chemists on this board for resources. Is there a good book that anyone can recommend? Do I need to buy a still?
Click to expand...

I looked into this myself not too long ago, but got hung up on the syngas stage, the expensive equipment involved to separate out CO2, water vapor, etc.

I've heard stories that German farmers made home-brew methanol back in WWII to power their tractors, but haven't been able to find any relible production methods.

I'll be checking in from time to see if any methods are found. Myself, I think ethanol is way easier to make.
 
Just curious, don't you lose a lot burning whatever fuel to run the still to make the methanol to use for fuel?

Is there any way to make something usable with just fermentation and not distillation?
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Just curious, don't you lose a lot burning whatever fuel to run the still to make the methanol to use for fuel?

Is there any way to make something usable with just fermentation and not distillation?
Click to expand...

My understanding is that yeast can't survive past about 9% alcohol-- it just gets too toxic.

I just want to make methanol from breaking down (otherwise useless) cellulose... I don't really want to get into brewing.

Ethanol does burn cleaner in an alcohol stove, but pure ethanol is bloody expensive. I usually use "denatured alcohol," or "Methylated spirits," which is ethanol poisoned with some methanol and/or acetone to make it undrinkable and avoid excise taxes. Methanol is intoxicating, so some alcoholics drink it, but it breaks down into formaldehyde and other nasty things that will destroy the optic nerve and lead to blindness, hence the endless moonshine jokes about "who turned out the lights?"

[Oblig. Simpsons Reference]
"Hey, this ain't no 5X whiskey... I can still see! That bartender is a cheat!"
[/OSF]
 
Esperdome said:
I've heard stories that German farmers made home-brew methanol back in WWII to power their tractors, but haven't been able to find any relible production methods.
Click to expand...

Wood gas maybe? Simple heap wood chips into sealed vessel, and heat the bottom. The gas that is given off can even run autos. And the waste is just charcoal. That you can burn to heat the next batch Efficiency can't be good, what with burning fuel to make the gas come off. But I don't know what the gas is, perhaps it is hot methanol, and can be condensed? More portable than wood. Not efficient, but do-able?
 
Champagne yeasts can do up to about 20% ? It's the type brewers use for Barley Wines. But that just means you'd need twice as much sugars to make twice as much alcohol, in not quite twice the time.

Perhaps some day we will have a catalytic or enzyme based process. In the meant time, you can't beat the economies of scale of the big production plants. Just buy gasoline.
 
mfaison said:
[Oblig. Simpsons Reference]
"Hey, this ain't no 5X whiskey... I can still see! That bartender is a cheat!"
[/OSF]
Click to expand...

Homeopathic liquor?!

Actually, I remember the episode. It was followed by a wild shoot out with those tiny little Derringers and the pea-sized bullets clinking harmlessly off even the glassware.
 
mfaison, If you do set up a still, remember appropriate fire precautions.
You wouldn't be the first to burn your house down.
There may also be legal implications. Certain authorities take a dim view of citizens who distill wood alcohol- even for the most scientific and eco friendly reasons.

This link will take you to an unusual source of home distilling data- Saudi Aramco, the Arab oil company, whose employees have long pioneered the production of biofuels...
http://www.aramco-brats.com/museum/bf_cover.htm
 
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