Fuel From Sawdust

by Mike Brown
(from Acres, USA, 19 June 198!
NOTE: There is no set measure for how much sulfuric acid is needed per how much
sawdust -- there are too many different kinds of sawdust, and its condition and water
content vary widely. To determine the right amount for the sawdust you're using, make
small, racketed test-atches first, varying the amount of acid used until you get the est
result.
This is the old way of making ethanol from cellulose. !t works, ut it's not efficient, and
not economical.
The new ways of doing it get a lot of pulicity, ut they aren't "uite there yet -- see
"t#anol from cellulose.
Ordinary distillation works well, using starch or sugar crops -- or wastes. There's a #OT
of good waste going to waste$
There are do-it-yourself ethanol manuals online at the Biofuels library, and more how-
to's here:
"t#anol resources on t#e $eb
-- %ourney to &orever
CAUTION
This procedure uses ha'ardous materials and anyone who attempts it does so entirely at
his or her own risk. (ulfuric acid is an E)T*E+E#, -.N/E*O0( 12E+!1.#.
Take full safety precautions, wear safety goggles, gloves and apron. Take the advice of
your chemicals supplier on industrial-standard protective e"uipment that meets the
re"uired safety specifications. 2ave running water neary. -on't inhale fumes$ The
workspace must e thoroughly ventilated. No children or pets allowed. Try small test-
atches first to familiari'e yourself with the process.
The conversion of cellulose, such as sawdust, cornstalks, newspaper and other
sustances, to alcohol is a fairly uncomplicated and straightforward process. .t the
moment, it is a it e3pensive4 ut that is hardly a prolem that needs to e addressed
here. %ust a few years ago the idea of running a car engine on alcohol was preposterous
-- it was too e3pensive. Of course, ack then gasoline was less than 56 cents a gallon.
7hat might e uneconomical at this writing might e a argain y the time you read
this.
#et's say you want to make alcohol from sawdust. There are two types of alcohol you
can otain from wood -- methanol and ethanol. +ethanol can e otained from wood y
high temperature destructive distillation. +ethanol is also known as wood alcohol. The
other method used to otain ethanol involves converting the sawdust to simple sugars,
the usual fermenting y yeast, and the usual distillation of the fermented solution. There
are a couple of other steps involved prior to distillation that are distinct from the
standard processes almost everyone is familiar with. To save you the troule of trying to
rememer whose ook you read last week or where in this one you need to rummage
around in for the supporting information, ! will provide the usual cookook instructions.
The first step involves otaining our standard piece of chemical engineering e"uipment
-- the discarded 55 gallon drum. ,ou will need more than one.
The sustances you will need to conduct the chemical phase of this operation are
sawdust 8for e3ample9, sulfuric acid, water, and possily some sodium hydro3ide,
NaO2.
&or the mechanical segment, you will need standard window screens you can uy at the
hardware store, pluming pipes, elows, couplings, nipples, flanges, and a welding
outfit.
! will descrie this :ust the way my partner and ! did it in the la with the e3ception of
some of the pluming connections. This is necessary ecause you can't pick up a 55
gallon drum etween your thum and forefinger the way we do a test tue or eaker in
the la.
;e sure that you read all the way to the end efore you put your hands on the chemicals.
,ou might e unpleasantly surprised.
S%"&'B('S%"& &)*+",U)"S
<our the sawdust you intend to convert to alcohol into the drum. -on't fill the drum
more than one-third full or you will e taking a chance on part of the process slopping
over the sides of the drum.
Ne3t, pour what chemists refer to as => +olar 2?(O@, sulfuric acid, over the sawdust.
The commercial designation, if you order it from a chemical supply house, would e
=66A sulfuric acid. 2owever, as low as B=A will work. 7e tried B.? +olar, or 5=A, in
the la and it simply didn't work. !t :ust sat there and looked at us.
+ake sure that you put the sawdust in first. !f you don't, the sawdust will float on top of
the acid -- unless you pour in more sawdust than the acid can asor. !n that case, you
will simply have to pour in more acid anyway. !t's easier to do it right the first time.
7hen you pour the sulfuric acid on the sawdust, the reaction is almost immediate. The
sawdust and acid react in such a fashion as to turn lack almost immediately. !t
resemles an ugly collection of coal tar or oitch. ;ules rise up through the solution.
The uling is primarily due to air pockets inside the sawdust. Even though the
reaction appears to e instantaneous, you should let the mi3ture sit for a day or two to
allow whatever reaction doesn't take place at once to proceed at its own leisure.
Once the reaction is complete, you can simply dump in yeast and e3pect the mi3ture to
ferment. The p2 of the mi3ture is so low, that is the sustance is so acidic, that any
microorganism such as yeast that you dump in is simply going to e3plode. Of course,
they will e very tiny e3plosions.
The proper procedure here is to supply enough water to raise the p2 to the proper level
for fermenting or yeast propagation -- 5.6 to C.6. !n Dentucky, where the water is lightly
acidic, diluting the solution 56A y adding an e"ual volume of water will raise the p2
to aout E.6. !n areas where the water tends toward alkalinity 8or is asic, in chemical
terms9 the p2 will go higher. !f you don't want to keep adding water, add some sodium
hydro3ide, NaO2, to raise the p2 up to optimum conditions.
The trick here is that this mi3ture must e poured into the water used to dilute it with. !f
you pour the water onto the acid, a natural inclination, what you will get is a loud
hissing sound followed y acid vapors rising up out of the solution to attack you. !f you
add the acid to the water, the dilution factor is much greater. The same reaction will take
place ut on a much smaller, safer scale.
7hat takes place is an e3othermic reaction. That is, large "uantities of heat are
lierated. ,ou can get a good idea of how much heat is lierated y simply placing your
hand on the container during various stages of the proceedings. ;riefly put your hands
on the drum when the sulfuric acid is poured on the sawdust and you will e3perience the
same discomfort that you would if you placed your hand in the middle of a hot frying
pan. ,ou will get urned.
Once the solution has een ad:usted to the proper p2, it is time to pitch in your yeast. .
small packet of &leischman's, availale at the local supermarket, will do :ust fine. 7atch
for ules of caron dio3ide to appear. They might e hard to recogni'e coming up
through the lack gunk4 F? hours, or E days should e enough to allow it to ferment
completely.
. word of caution. ,ou might think that simply diluting the acid with half water efore
you pour it on the sawdust would save a lot of troule. !n a way it does. ,ou don't have
to worry aout distillation if you do it like that ecause 56A sulfuric acid won't convert
cellulose to sugar and the yeast won't ferment anything else. 7e tried it in the la and it
simply doesn't work.
-./0.0
;efore you run your solution into your still, you need to get as much of the lack gunk,
ig gos of it, out of the solution. *emove as much as possile. The material is lignin or
the sustance that onds sugar molecules together to make cellulose out of them. !n a
chemistry la you use a uchner funnel and filter paper. . uchner funnel has tiny holes
in the ase. The filter paper is placed on the ottom, covering the holes, allowing the
li"uid to pass and trapping practically all the lignin. &or a arnyard operation, you can
punch nail holes in the ottom of a 55 gallon drum and cover them with newspaper.
/iven the fact that the chunks of lignin in an outdoor operation will e much larger than
those in a la, you will proaly want to install a series of wire mesh screens etween
your fermentor and the eventual, modified uchner funnel. The screens toward the
fermentor should increase in mesh si'e and those toward the funnel should decrease in
mesh si'e.
The fluid that gets past the newspaper should e yellow in color. The filter won't catch
everything. !n the la, we oserved a ring of small, rown flakes that settled to the
ottom of our distilling flask. This fluid contains ethanol and it is ready to e distilled.
.t this point go ack and scrape the lignin off the screens and remove the lignin-
saturated paper from your funnel. This is the fuel to fire your still with. There won't e
enough to get the whole :o done, ut it will help and it does eliminate the prolem of
what to do with all that lack gunk. %ust e sure you give everything a chance to dry out
efore you try to light it.
The alcohol you get from distilling the yellow fluid is identical to that otained from
sugar or starch. 7e otained =B6 proof ethanol the first time through a fractionating
column. The yield-per-pound appeared to e "uite good. .ccording to most of the
chemical literature we read prior to conducting this e3periment, the commercial yield of
cellulose is far inferior to that of corn or other common feedstocks. 2owever, a ton of
cellulose 8saw dust9 is free for the asking
!n place of the sodium hydro3ide, NaO2, that we used in the la, you can sustitute
common garden variety lye to ad:ust your p2. !f you spill sulfuric acid on yourself -- it
is a strong acid and it will urn -- dilute it with water and scru with soap. 2owever, the
soap should e one that lathers very well ecause the acid is a very strong acid and the
soap is a very weak ase, or neutrali'er. #ather the soap up well and use a lot of it.
Once you have distilled the alcohol, you can raise the temperature under your column
and oil off the water. ;ecause the sulfuric acid has a much higher oiling point than
water, you are simply repeating the distillation process to recover whatever unused
sulfuric acid is availale from the ottom of your still. ,ou can't recover much of it
ecause 2?(O@ loses the two hydrogen atoms, or protons, in the initial reaction and is
no longer sulfuric acid.
!n a commercial plant, the elements involved in the reaction could e recovered in the
following fashion. !t is a process too long and involved to go into in detail here:
(6? G 2?6 ---- 2?(6@