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"Greenest" distillery?


PeteB

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3 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

...............Very few people know about syn gas............

Ask any baby boomers who remember their school chemistry lessons. I clearly remember trying to untangle the different chemical reactions of wood gas, water gas and producer gas, coal gas etc. They all seem to be lumped together now as syngas.

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PeteB,

I'm gen x.  I missed being a baby boomer by 1 year.  I never had high school chemistry, as I did not go to high school.  I completed the 8th grade and dropped out in the 9th to help my dad at our sawmill.  Grade school and middle school bored me to death anyway.  My IQ is over 140 and I was reading at a 2nd year of college level when I was in 3rd grade.   

 I don't remember anything about wood gas in my college chemistry courses and I took college chemistry up through organic chemistry.  My wife is a boomer and she says she doesn't remember anything like that in her high school or college chemistry courses.  Here in the states running vehicles etc from wood gas is not common knowledge, even among the boomer generation.  I remember listening to Click and Clack the tappet brothers on car talk, when a guy called in who mentioned seeing someone who was running a truck using wood gas and they didn't have a clue what he was talking about and those 2 guys were some of the best mechanics in the US and both were MIT graduates.  The caller explained how the Japanese and Germans ran their cars from producer gas during WWII, but Click and Clack had never heard of that.  It does not surprise me that syngas is common knowledge among baby boomers down under, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_and_Ray_Magliozzi

I have been reaching out in all directions trying to figure out something different and new. That's why I've been looking at alternative heat sources and distilling methods such as wood gas and vacuum distillation etc.  I have also been looking closely at the limitations that exist because of the azeotropic equilibrium barrier and we have been playing around with achieving 200 proof  through filtration, and of course we have always worked at coming up with a better column and still design.  Something that seems like it may lead somewhere is our development of column stills that operate under vacuum which are completely automated.  We'll see where it all goes, I guess.  Distillation has been around a long time, so coming up with something new and revolutionary is a daunting task.

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PeteB,

 

After thinking it over, I do remember college chemistry labs where we were working with wood gas and coal gas etc.  My statement should have probably been more specific.  Something like:  Very few Americans know about the history and uses of syn gas, especially producer gas (wood gas), such as its use in internal combustion engines and as an alternative to natural gas, in heating applications. 

There are several alternative energy sources that are green, that can be used in distilleries, but I think most distillery start ups don't see them as viable options for 3 main reasons.

#1 They get the idea that the complexities that are involved in dealing with inspectors and the government rules and regulations will be multiplied, because the powers that be, may not be familiar with that particular, alternative energy source or delivery system.  Most of these inspectors have never seen a distillery and are already unsure about what they are looking at anyway, which makes them overly cautious to begin with.   

#2. It is something different, that they don't see very many people doing, so they are unsure about the viability of it

#3 No equipment manufacturers offer green distilling systems, as an affordable, viable and safe alternative.

I think the last reason is the main reason that we don't see more distilleries utilizing alternative energy sources.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The gases coming off burning wood do contain some flammable gases but if the wood is being burnt reasonably efficiently it would not contain a high enough percentage of flammable gases to run a gasoline engine. I am assuming it would be possible to concentrate those gases but the cost of doing so would not be cost effective.

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4 hours ago, Hudson bay distillers said:

thanks pete for info what type of fire would generate the most gases smouldering fire or burning hard .  

smouldering but you would be better off running wood burner at high temperature burn and making wood gas in separate device

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