[Bioconversion] testing

[Jeff Davis]

Dear Thomas,

You will want to look into retorts and maybe making charcoal in a retort. A 
simple method would be to load your wood in a 55 gallon drum. Close the lid. 
Build a fire under the drum. The drum would have a pipe screwed into it. The 
vapors will travel out of the drum through the pipe and into a condenser. The 
non-condensable gases could be burned under the drum. You will also have 
other toxic products to deal with (could also be burned).

I think you will find out that there will be vary little methanol for the 
amount of wood processed! It's vary low, maybe as bad as 5 gallons per cord 
of hard wood (do not quote me on that). In other words it is a waste of time 
to try but is NOT a waste of time to learn about.

The way to make methanol is with a gasifier, heat, pressure and a catalyst. 
The gasifier should be oxygen blown, not air. Check out:

http://woodgas.com
and
http://woodgas.com/bookstore.htm
for books and information.

The problem with this methods is that you need to be a big time operation. Not 
for the back-yard operator. I wish someone could prove me wrong!

Hope this can be of help...

Jeff



On Wednesday 10 May 2006 02:19 pm, Thomas Pirotte wrote:
> I'm brand new to this.
> Can anyone tell me a home-based, low-tech method for destructive
> distillation of wood to produce methanol? I have enough organic chemistry
> background not to need the basics explained to me. I have wood, and I have
> space.
> Sincerely,
> T. Pirotte, M.D.
> Missouri

-- 
Jeff Davis
Somewhere 20 miles south of Lake Erie, USA
http://www.velocity.net/~jeff0124