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Old 10-10-2008, 03:08 AM
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Default My ethanol post from the morrow yahoo group

But here comes the good news. Ethanol.

Ethanol is produced naturally by many biological organisms. Its production is probably one of the most well documented chemical processes man has ever performed. The biggest problem is that natural ethanol production uses up raw materials (sugar) which could otherwise be used as food. The goal is production of ethanol from wood or agricultural waste (cellulose), this happens naturally on a small scale, but not at levels desired by industry. That is where scientists come in.

Through the use of genetic manipulation yeast and at least 3 bacterium have been shown to be able to produce significant amounts ethanol from cellulose. In case anyone wants to do any research they are Zymomonas mobilis, Clostridium thermocellum, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (bakers yeast), and Escherichia coli.


In my game Morrow scientists have developed what are considered to be the 2 Holy grails of ethanol production.

Species
Saccharomyces morrowis (ethanol resistant yeast used for sugar based ethanol production)
Able to survive up to a 25% ethanol solution.
Able to ferment to a 18% solution in 24 hours.
Minimal genetic Drift (this is important as yeast can mutate quickly)


Zymomonas morrowis (bacterium capable of processing both sugars and cellulose)
Able to survive up to a 15% ethanol solution.
Able to ferment to a 10% solution in 48 hours.
Able to enzymatically initiate Cellulose hydrolysis

The last note means the cellulose will require minimal pretreatment. Normally pretreatment requires sulfuric acid, which can be reused but complicates things, or an enzymatic solution which requires a constant supply of enzymes unless managed very carefully.

Both of these organisms would be fantastic for trade with any brewers. The Zymomonas would probably be the most valuable as only the largest or technologically advanced cities would have the infrastructure to process cellulose into ethanol, and if they were doing so it would be at great cost.

On to stills.

If you are using normal world technology T2K vastly overestimated the weight of an empty still IMHO. They are closer when compared to the weight of a still while in production.

A minimal still consists of the following
55 gal (208 L) steel drums. 31.8 kg empty (2)
fermentation lock (pressure valve) 4 kg
multi fuel barrel boiling units. 15kg
barrel bands, heating, electric 3kg
Mixing centrifugal pump 6kg
Ethanol Refining Tower 50 kg. (takes to 96% pure)
Molecular Sieve Ethanol Dehydrator w/ zeolite 50kg (takes to 100%)
Metal Piping 10kg
PVC piping 8kg
Hand Pump 8kg
Barrel Cooling Coil 5kg

Regular non genetic engineered yeast can reach a 8-10% alcohol solution in 40 hours. So theoretically in 2 days with just 2 drums (to allow transfer and collection) you could produce 10 liters a day (with morrow yeast you could triple that). At a weight under 250kg empty, 500kg full. And you can scale barrels up to about 15 before you need a another dehydrator and up to 50 before you need another Refinery tower and efficiency only goes up with larger scale.

Other equipment is needed for the material preparation (seed grinders, wood chippers, mashers etc) but I don't consider that to be the weight of the still.

I know that the T2k people wanted to keep things simple. and make a still a tough choice weight wise, but the real world numbers don't add up even when you factor in the ad hoc nature of most still construction in that world. They should have at least made quality options where price goes up as weight goes down.

Someday I will make a full document with stills and bio-diesel production kits with high/medium/low tech options but I have too much on my plate at the moment and as you can see I sometimes get trapped in the minutia and I still have a ton of research to do.

Last edited by kato13; 10-10-2008 at 03:32 AM.
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