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Pumping gas...
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Hairyloon



Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 15 7:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

dpack wrote:
a charcoal fueled steam wagon would be another transport/haulage alternative.until to the axle weight laws changed in the 1930's they were quite common and with a modern materials etc the chassis , box and pistons could be light so they could be made quite sporty.

I'm told it was quite a close run thing that could've gone either way: if we'd put as much effort into developing external combustion engines as we've put into the infernal ones, then they'd probably have comparable performance... if they don't anyway: I've read some promising stuff on modern steam...

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45375
Location: yes
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 15 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

big oil = a few easy bought brown chaps and a few technicians

big coal= lots of local dirty pink chaps with unions

a few well placed peeps did the maths and we have the results (refs available )

the tech could go either way but is probably evens for joules per mile or whatever the common units should be

Shane



Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 15 5:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

dpack wrote:
iirc there is a way to distill trees into a fuel that will run a cossack or a t34 or a 1940's russian lorry.

Yep - it's called the Fischer–Tropsch process. Invented in Germany and further developed by the Nazis during WWII to produce liquid fuels to run their war machine. It works by gasifying a feed stock, producing "syngas" and then converting that into liquid fuels. Same process is used all over the world today for various gas-to-liquids plants, with Shell and Sasol being two of the biggest players, each having their own proprietary technology.

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45375
Location: yes
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 15 11:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

ah ha ,with that type of strategy at least the fuel storage and transport is similar to petrol etc and all the risks of gasses are contained in the production facility

i sort of remember a strait distillation to a liquid fuel for brutally simple engines but i might be wrong

Hairyloon



Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 15 11:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

You can "distill" methanol out of wood. That is another experiment that is on the agenda...
But methanol is not nice, and I don't think it's great as a fuel either: if the experiment is successful, I'll probably use it in biodiesel.

Falstaff



Joined: 27 May 2009
Posts: 1014

PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 15 12:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Hairyloon wrote:
You can "distill" methanol out of wood. That is another experiment that is on the agenda...
.


Didn't we decide somewhere that you can't "distil" anything without a licence and a 400gallon still ?

Hairyloon



Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 15 12:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Falstaff wrote:
Hairyloon wrote:
You can "distil" methanol out of wood. That is another experiment that is on the agenda...
.


Didn't we decide somewhere that you can't "distil" anything without a licence and a 400gallon still ?

We decided you cannot distil spirit, but you can distil methanol. HMRC use a different word for it, I forget what.
Plus I think it is not a true distillation (hence quote marks), but a pyrolytic decomposition.

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45375
Location: yes
PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 15 12:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

i recon it might be that and birch trees im thinking of

if methanol would come off as a product along with (or before ?)birch tar (waterproofer ,medicine etc ) and leave charcoal for smoke free cooking that would be ideal for sticking two up to the einsatzgruppen in the forests of Byelorussia,

methanol is a reasonable fuel for robust internal combustion engines (fuel of choice for some speedway bikes )

Hairyloon



Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 15 3:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

dpack wrote:
methanol is a reasonable fuel for robust internal combustion engines (fuel of choice for some speedway bikes )

Dreadful mpg, nowhere to fuel up and no easy way to dual-fuel, whereas I'm led to believe that gas will burn in almost any engine without much modification.
But now we are talking at cross purposes again: I think we'd established that for vehicular use, gasification on the hoof was the way to go...

Shane



Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.
PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 15 3:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

One big downside with methanol, especially for the amateur producer, is that it burns with an almost invisible flame, so it can be very difficult to tell that it's on fire except by observing the effects (or getting caught in them).

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 15 7:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

In theory it should be possible to obtain methanol, other alcohols low boiling point organic liquids, wood tar and charcoal. Would need very careful pyloric decomposition and collection of all the fractions at the right temperature though. Good for very small quantities, or industrial amounts, but difficult in the middle without more investment than it is worth.

Hairyloon



Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 15 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I'm thinking to insulate a big steel drum and roast it as hard as possible: see what comes off.
I've also wondered about doing it at reduced pressure to lower the bp of the volatiles. That was one reason for asking about puming gas, although that one had slipped my mind.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Wed Jan 28, 15 7:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Don't think you need to insulate the drum, and no need to reduce the pressure. Methanol has a low enough boiling point anyway; it is breaking down the wood enough to obtain the various chemicals that needs heat, and not sure how reduced pressure will affect that.

Hairyloon



Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
PostPosted: Wed Jan 28, 15 10:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Mistress Rose wrote:
Don't think you need to insulate the drum, and no need to reduce the pressure. Methanol has a low enough boiling point anyway; it is breaking down the wood enough to obtain the various chemicals that needs heat, and not sure how reduced pressure will affect that.

I was thinking of the reduced pressure distillation for the methanol recovery from biodiesel, so I'm planning to set the kit up anyway, but it was a passing thought in respect of the pyrolysis.
I think you'll waste a lot of heat if you don't insulate: it is bad enough on a straightforward distillation.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 15 7:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

You need to be able to control the temperature and we certainly don't have any trouble keeping the temperature up on the kiln. The main problem is to ensure it doesn't overheat anywhere.

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