I just saw a comment under a youtube video that mentioned making ethanol at home. I was looking and I found information that you can make ethanol at home by fermenting starches.
Out of curiosity I googled to see if dead leaves that fall on the ground in the fall have any starch in them.
I found this old article that seems to indicate dead leaves might be ten percent starch.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43476796.pdf
I found this page talking about much dead leaves weigh.
https://www.lawnsite.com/threads/weight-of-leaves.484330/
They estimate 22lbs of dead leaves per thousand square feet.
So possibly you might get 2 lbs of starch per thousand square feet of leaf covered ground.
I also found this page, talking about making ethanol from corn.
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee439/node/672
It says a bushel of corn would yield 31.5lbs of starch or 2.8 gal of fuel ethanol. So it seems that 31.5 lb of starch must be able to make 2.8 gal of fuel ethanol.
So 11.25 lbs of starch must make 1 gallon of fuel ethanol.
So being conservative, maybe we could say 16lbs of starch from dead leaves might yield a gallon of fuel ethanol.
This would be equivalent to the leaves covering 8,000 square feet.
This is 0.18 acres to get one gallon of fuel ethanol.
I know this is not very much, but given the vast amount of dead leaves in the fall, I wonder if someone could find an economical use for the leaves? The raw material is something that most people are actively trying to get rid of. There are plenty of landscaping companies that are getting paid to haul leaves away from peoples' yards.
I wonder if there is a way to get some use from all those leaves?
try sugar cane
well yeah, but people don't have sugar cane lying all over their yards in the fall for free.
>I wonder if there is a way to get some use from all those leaves?
There are plenty of uses for dead leaves. They are easily composted. You can mulch them. You can till them into your soil to provide nutrients for whatever you're growing. You can spread them around plants as a barrier to stop weeds.
Using them to make ethanol is the dumbest thing I've read on here all day. It would cost you way more to make your one gallon of ethanol than it would to go to the gas station and buy a gallon. Making ethanol at home is for farmers who have a shitload of leftover corn. Plus, ethanol only works in certain vehicles so it's not even a useful product.
>ethanol only works in certain vehicles so it's not even a useful product.
Pretty much any electronic fuel injected gas engine can compensate for alcohol.
Or just burn the leaves directly. Half the carbs are lost in fermentation.
https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/reuse-dry-leaves/
First result on the googler. Now please go share your autistic visions on some other board.
I've thought about something similar, whenever I trim down all the overgrown bushes and trees around my home.
It's quite a bit of plant matter. Other than put it in the green bin for trash removal, there has to be a use for it. Composing I suppose?
Maybe it's not economical, but it's still a good thought exercise.
Shred it up, use as mulch or compost it.
>Pretty much any electronic fuel injected gas engine can compensate for alcohol
Sure, you can convert most cars to operate off of ethanol. Most gas stations here sell it. However, as a practical matter it's pretty useless. You can't put it in any stock vehicle that isn't set up for it. You can't use it in lawn mowers or other gas-powered appliances. You can't drink it.
>can't drink it.
Erm okay...
So NTA but I run a couple of stills here for booze, and if I set my reflux up in a certain way it will produce 93-96% ABV on one pass... Yes I drink it and I have been fine...
Always wondered what would happen if I put it in my old Volvo though as they are meant to come from the factory ready for ethanol.
>You can't put it in any stock vehicle that isn't set up for it.
It's the same way with diesel or gasoline. They're pretty useless lmao
There are way more diesel and gas cars than ethanol cars.
Not without modification. Go ahead and pump ethanol into your stock gas car. See what happens.
Also have a nice day tripgay.
>There are way more diesel and gas cars than ethanol cars.
"Gas engines" originally ran on coal gas. The name was later used to included engines that run off volatile fuels such as gasoline and ethanol. In fact, gas engines ran off ethanol before they ran off gasoline.
>Not without modification. Go ahead and pump ethanol into your stock gas car. See what happens.
More power and better efficiency? I've been putting ethanol in my car for years; the ECU adjust everytime.
>have a nice day tripgay
Now you know who you're fighting.
>Better efficiency
Now I know you're full of shit, ethanol is less energy dense and you have to burn more which gives worse fuel economy. The fuel system also has to be rated for it, all the o rings and rubber lines.
Fuel Economy = Efficiency * Energy Density
>We tested a NA engine with a low compression ratio
The lower the compression ratio, the worse ethanol is going to do, because of the higher heat of vaporization.
>Doesn't say how they tested power
Did they dyno it? Ethanol hits peak torque at lower RPMs, which could also impact performance and highway MPG on a 4-speed transmission.
>Doesn't say if they were using ethanol-free gas or E10
>Quoting a cherry-picking glowmoron who believes in hydrogen power and climate change
It's literally consumer reports, you paranoid retard. And if you actually do some research everyone everywhere will back up what that says, because your fuel economy is going to go down no matter what kind of engine you have. You're stupid and you saying something with no proof doesn't mean anything.
Supposedly, the EPA converted a diesel engine to a 19.5:1 compression ratio with spark plugs, EGR, and an intercooler. It got 22% better MPG on ethanol than on diesel pre-conversion.
>The fuel system also has to be rated for it, all the o rings and rubber lines.
So pretty much most cars on the road today.
>4-speed transmission
Autotragic too. Can't shift earlier.
Confirmed absolutely retarded. I'd wager 99% of all cars on the road are running ethanol right now. You know they are blending it into gasoline pretty much every where, right? E5/E10. You have to go out of your way to find pure gasoline.
Ethanol is used because it's a big agra subsidy but worsens mileage.
It actually improves mileage at around 30-40% ethanol.
That's not correct. Heat of combustion > heat of vaporization. The energy could also be recovered by directly a steam engine to help condense the alcohol. The biggest energy waste is actually from aerobic respiration by the yeast, followed by anaerobic respiration.
>It actually improves mileage at around 30-40% ethanol.
Please explain to me how the fuck that works, considering a gallon of ethanol contains considerably less potential BTUs than a gallon of gasoline.
Unless you're using very shitty gas on a high comp engine and have to retard the timing very far, but even then you'd be running on the ragged edge of detonation even on ethanol.
Pretty much any car made this millennium will run on alcohol.
>"I am injecting the right amount of fuel, but there's too much oxygen in the exhaust. Let me inject more."
t. ECU
We need PrepHole to get in here and help us genetically engineer some yeast that can ferment us some moonshine.
Maybe check out this thread
yes, i have seen those. but from what i understand, the wood gas can't really be saved. you have to kind of use it as you make it. i thought the ethanol would be something you could put by. like everyone gathers up their leaves in the fall, turn them into ethanol, ???, profit.
You don't need to store wood gas. You gasify the wood on demand. But you could also store it in a gasometer or pump it in a bottle.
No cause the power required to cook the leaves alone wouldn't cover its cost in fuel not to mention the logistics of gathering,storing,processing the leaves with industrial size equipment for such large batch(s) you speak of for such little product.
You get near 1 to 1 weight ratio fermenting grainlite sugar you buy from the store. Growing just about anything else on the land would be easier cheaper cleaner and yield more in orders of magnitude then leaves could. Also you require a licence to cook ethanol depending on your geographic location.
Tldr: its a waste of fucking time
Ethanol contains oxygen, thus burns quicker. The oxygen reduces the energy density by 30%, but only a 10-15% reduction in MPG is due to greater efficiency. If you blend it with a higher density fuel, the ethanol will burn quicker, and the heat will help quicken the burn of the slower high-density fuel.
What the fuck are you talking about retard