[edit: moved the word annually a few words back for clarity, and changed the spelling from anually to annually and from whine to whine]
This generator does not need extreme distillation and can work directly on the alcoholic vapor from the heated beverage at 80-90%. No storage tank.
I read that a cooler fire makes for a better running engine, so the water vapor is taking in some of the heat, but you get a cheaper and longer-lasting engine.
Since there is no storage tank and almost no pressure, how would one go about this.
I'm thinking about a continuous fire going through the engine. Then what? Is only a steam engine viable? I'm talking practical. I annually have about 1M liters of 10%+ wine. And in addition I'll have tons of biologic waste which emit ethanol, and which I wish NOT to store.
Same for cow-farm rooftop ethanol capture device.-- pashute, Jan 08 2017 One-Million-Liter Test Sphere https://en.wikipedi...n-Liter_Test_SphereA visual aid for anyone who wants to see how big a million liters is. See the photos linked in the external links section for better views. [notexactly, Jan 10 2017] About our and other animal's culture https://www.youtube...watch?v=bvBeQGbaj0EFollowing Israeli prof. Amotz Zahavi's ideas [pashute, Jan 15 2017] // I have about 1M liters of 10%+ wine annually
<sits with mouth open> You're a better man than me. I am amazed you can find the keyboard.
But seriously, I think it's quite hard work (at least for the yeast) to make the alcohol, so surely the problem would be a lack of alcohol, rather than their being too much?
Yeah, you could run a steam en (breaks off to kill the cockroach on the floor, chants 'nam myo renge kyo' 3 times for its soul) gine, or a jet engine.-- not_morrison_rm, Jan 08 2017 // jet engine //
Gas turbine ?
The most efficient heat engines are large scale steam turbine based generating plants.
// 1M liters of 10%+ //
1000 tonnes of wine, 10 tonnes of alcohol.
Spot price of JP-1 is about USD 40¢/litre.
Neglecting differences in density, and enthalpy of combustion, that's going to cost USD $4000.
Your process efficiency and ROCE is going to have to be pretty good to achieve any sort of payback.-- 8th of 7, Jan 08 2017 //// 1M liters of 10%+ //
1000 tonnes of wine, 10 tonnes of alcohol. //
BZZZZT. Shirley that would be 100 tonnes of alcohol? Unless the process is only 10% efficient?
I think I've said it before, but grapes are an inefficient way of making alcohol, if the end game is volume of alcohol, not something nice to drink. I can't help but think you're better off selling the wine as wine.
There's got to be a whine/wine pun in here somewhere.-- Custardguts, Jan 08 2017 Has nobody thought to ask [pashute] WHY HE HAS ONE MILLION LITRES OF WINE?????
[pashute], why do you have one million litres of wine?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 08 2017 I vote a crack team of halfbakers go visit pashute and see what we can do with this wine problem.-- not_morrison_rm, Jan 08 2017 "You're gonna need a bigger liver."-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 09 2017 On a separate line of thought, instead of making an alcohol fueled generator, has anyone ever considered using a vinegar/soda chemical reaction to power a turbine? It might be worthwhile to allow the original wine to turn to vinegar if the market is glutted or if the product is otherwise unpleasant to consume.-- jurist, Jan 09 2017 How does one come by 1 million liters of excess wine? I have the opposite problem, all products containing ethanol tend to dispose of themselves in my house, there isn't much of a pattern although I have noticed the gin disappears in a linear relationship with the limes.
The problem with ethanol, is that it's not that energetic. You could make vinegar out of it. This is the traditional thing to do with excess wine which tends to solve its own storage stability problems. You even get a bit of heat energy out of that, but even 1 million liters of wine is only about 450,000kJ or about 125kWhrs, so only $10-20 worth of heat. Unless you han an insurance policy AGAINST the wine becoming vinegar, then that could be... fortunate.
Getting the ethanol out of the solution is what you're asking. You've suggested running the engine on the vapor from heated wine* and that can work. If you're clever you can put together a heat exchanger which will utilize the generator exhaust heat to gasify the ethanol. Do monitor the generator if water vapor is going in the front end, oil contamination is the big problem there.
If you really want to burn ethanol, what will really help is upping the ethanol concentration in the first place. The yeast in winemaking is good for making nice beverages, but average at making ethanol. There are yeast strains with a more pronounced work ethic, that can get you to almost 30%, and some bacteria that will get higher still. Those concentrations make the whole project a lot more workable. There's no better way of driving ethanol out of an aqueous solution than increasing the ethanol in solution to start with.
This would give you a system of a: a tank/fermenter with all your waste/feedstock and a high ethanol proucing strain of microbe b: a filtered take off from the tank removing ethanol-rich liquid c: an exhaust powered heat exchanger to heat the liquid and drive off ethanol d: a return line to the tank, cooled preferably by the initial take off. The whole thing could run continuously with a nice feedback system in place. The faster you remove the ethanol, the faster the microbes make more of it because you're removing the main inhibition. Conversely, turn off the generator and the whole system slows down as it reaches equilibrium. Sort of a biological governor.
* I do hope this is crappy wine..-- bs0u0155, Jan 09 2017 I can't help feeling that we're being distracted by the science here. The question is still: [pashute] how and why do you have one million litres of wine??
As for energy recovery, do you live on a hilltop? If so, pour the wine down a big pipe with a turbine in the middle. This has the advantage that you can then walk down the hill and drink the wine.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 09 2017 //I have about 1M liters of 10%+ whine annually.//
//Has nobody thought to ask [pashute] WHY HE HAS ONE MILLION LITRES OF WINE?????//
That's annually, too. How many acres does that correspond to?
Anyway, stop whining and make brandy.
And maybe vodka with the "biologic waste"..-- Loris, Jan 09 2017 //Has nobody thought to ask [pashute] WHY HE HAS ONE MILLION LITRES OF WINE????
Objection y'r honour, my client doesn't have to answer that.-- not_morrison_rm, Jan 09 2017 Anyone here have 20,000 kgs of excess cheese annually? I know for a fact that there's lots of Halfbakers who are already crackers.-- AusCan531, Jan 10 2017 Answer: A Jewish ritual, according to religious law which initially in ancient times was supposed to fund the teachers off the agricultural produce , is today used in various ways with olive-oil, wheat, and other produce, but the wine from Jewish-owned wineries is just poured out.
Wine, olives, honey, and milk are all part of a major industry in Israel, due to the nostalgic historical part they played as local produce during the biblical, Helenic and Roman periods. Exciting archaelogical discoveries confirmed this, and the returning Jews were determined to reestablish these practices.
I read that in France, every year several million liters of excess whine are disposed of due to market reasoning.-- pashute, Jan 15 2017 //whine from Jewish-owned wineries//
The clue as to the spelling of "wine" is to be found in the word "wineries".
//just poured out// Oy vey!! Now, you see, this is why (well, OK, one of many reasons why) I have problems with religion.
You start out with something sensible - like "everyone gives a share of their produce to support teachers"; or "it's a bit insensitive to cook a calf in its mother's milk".
Then, 2000 years later, these initially reasonable ideas have become transformed into "Let's pour a million litres of wine down the drain" or "cheeseburgers are a sin".
Seriously, you guys are loopy. And when I say "you guys" I mean almost everyone.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 15 2017 Oy Vey is right! Now wy did I think whine whas spellt whith a dhouble yhew?
But if I correct it, no one will understand the annos....
The book of Numbers records in detail my ancestors' whining.
And yes, I was hoping no-one would ask.
Actually, we like to think of ourselves as holding these rituals which cause us (hopefully) to raise moral questions and to try at least to sometimes care for all humans and for the other sentient beings on this earth. Oh, and with the help of Halfbakers there won't be a million liters of wine poured out anymore either.-- pashute, Jan 15 2017 //we like to think of ourselves as holding these rituals which cause us (hopefully) to raise moral questions and to try at least to sometimes care for all humans//
Yes, I get that, and it is a noble idea. But it's also very dumb. Why not try the following instead:
(a) Raise the moral questions but then (b) Instead of throwing away perfectly good wine and food, actually sell or donate it to help care for all humans?
What you're doing at the moment (and probably for the last century or so, I'm guessing) is roughly the equivalent of saying "Let's burn down houses to make us think of the plight of homeless people!"
Dumb, dumb, dumbity dumb. A century of unquestioned dumbth.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 15 2017 I had assumed the 1M was a typo of some sort.
I wonder if in a cylinder engine, as the cylinder rises it might reduce pressure or even pull a vacuum over the wine. This would facilitate evaporation of the ethanol, which then ignites driving the piston up all the way.-- bungston, Jan 16 2017 But the wine - why not let dairy cattle drink it? The water contained is of good quality and it has caloric value. As ruminants who generate loads of ethanol in their stomachs, cows are probably immune to getting drunk.-- bungston, Jan 16 2017 According to my sources (Google and Google), cows can indeed get drunk.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 16 2017 I should clarify: alcohol per body mass to inebriation is greater for ruminants than for nonruminants like cats, dogs and ourselves.
I initially read about feeding domesticated animal ethanol in the context of an innocentive challenge seeking a way to make pigs fatten up that was cheaper than corn. I am not sure what the status of pig farming might be in Israel. Cows I think are a safe bet.
I read about this in the context of trying to understand the country song where the singer requests "whisky for my men and beer for my horses". It turns out horses love beer (for the flavor) and do not get drunk.
Yet I have also read than elephants seek out fermented fruit and eat it to inebriation. It should be the most difficult of all to get elephants drunk as physiologically they are scaled up horses.-- bungston, Jan 17 2017 " I read about this in the context of trying to understand the country song where the singer requests "whisky for my men and beer for my horses". It turns out horses love beer (for the flavor) and do not get drunk."
I think your sources are inaccurate. I gave my horses beer many times, under controlled conditions, and they became visibly relaxed. If I'd made bigger doses available I could have had a thousand pound drunk, but that was not appropriate.-- normzone, Jan 17 2017 Did your horses relax for other treats - like a sugar cube or apple? Excess wine, perchance?
It makes sense that an animal with a belly full of fermenting vegetables should be endowed with an arsenal of metabolic enzymes to cope with ethanol.-- bungston, Jan 17 2017 They had no other reaction to food other than to eat it.
A horses gut might have a high tolerance for live cultures, but they are affected by alcohol just like the rest of us.-- normzone, Jan 17 2017 OK, I added some interesting material with sources about intoxication in animals to the Alcohol intoxication article on Wikipedia. I think its an interesting read (and watch, if they don't remove my youtube ref)-- pashute, Jan 18 2017 random, halfbakery