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To: marcos who wrote (58226)	4/6/2008 9:21:21 PM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 78408

Well try this. Chip your snag into a large open pit and add water and plenty of industrial yeast that won't die until alcohol content reaches 18%. Any yeast left alive in the bottom of a bottle of CA wine should do. Add dodeconal in stoichiometric quantities (test for proof) to the mix after a suitable fermentation period. The dodecanol will combine with the alcohol and form a dry white solid which rises to the surface. Skim the solid off. Distill the solid and separate the fractions of alcohol and dodecanol and repeat. The alcohol so produced is suitable as a fuel for diesel engines. Works best with poplar as it is fast growing, but any tree species will do. soilcrop.tamu.edu You can get your enzymes for cellulose breakdown here.. en.wikipedia.org A small demonstration-scale plant (5 ton/day) is under construction as is expected to be operational early in 2008 and a 100 ton/day demonstration plant is expected in 2009. "The process uses a mixed culture of naturally occurring microorganisms found in natural habitats such as the rumen of cattle, termite guts, and marine and terrestrial swamps to anaerobically digest biomass into a mixture of carboxylic acids produced during the acidogenic and acetogenic stages of anaerobic digestion, however with the inhibition of the methanogenic final stage. The more popular methods for production of ethanol and cellulosic ethanol use enzymes that must be isolated first to be added to the biomass and thus convert the starch or cellulose into simple sugars, followed then by yeast fermentation into ethanol. This process does not need the addition of such enzymes as these microorganisms make their own [4]. As the microoganisms anaerobically digest the biomass and convert it into a mixture of carboxylic acids, the pH must be controlled. This is done by the addition of a buffering agent (e.g., ammonium bicarbonate, calcium carbonate), thus yielding a mixture of carboxylate salts. Methanogenesis, which, as mentioned, is the natural final stage of anaerobic digestion, is inhibited by the presence of the ammonium ions or by the addition of an inhibitor (e.g., iodoform). The resulting fermentation broth contains the produced carboxylate salts that must be dewatered. This is achieved efficiently by vapor-compression evaporation. Further refining of the dewatered fermentation broth may then take place depending on the final product desired. The condensed distilled water from the vapor-compression evaporation system is recycled back to the fermentation. On the other hand, if sewage or other waste water with high BOD in need of treatment is used as the water for the fermentation, the condensed distilled water from the evaporation can be recycled back to the city or to the original source of the high-BOD waste water. Thus, this process can also serve as a water treatment facility. Because the system uses a mixed culture of microorganisms, besides not needing any enzyme addition, the fermentation requires no sterility or aseptic conditions, making this front step in the process more economical than in more popular methods for the production of cellulosic ethanol. These savings in the front end of the process, where volumes are large, allows flexibility for further chemical transformations after dewatering, where volumes are small." You can burn the lignin waste, so it is energy zero. Let me know how it turns out. For reference look up the tree department of Lakehead U in TBay and ask around. EC<:-}

To: marcos who wrote (58226)	4/6/2008 10:05:10 PM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 78408

One small snag... Some scientists have expressed concern that if experimental recombinant DNA genetic engineering continues to be used to develop unprecedented enzymes that break down wood much faster than in nature, such microscopic life forms may accidentally be released into nature, grow exponentially, be distributed by the wind, and eventually destroy the structure of all trees, ending all Earthly life that breathes oxygen released by photosynthesis in trees.. And (surprisingly) When considering the total energy consumed by farm equipment, cultivation, planting, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides made from petroleum, irrigation systems, harvesting, transport of feedstock to processing plants, fermentation, distillation, drying, transport to fuel terminals and retail pumps, and lower ethanol fuel energy content, the net energy content value added and delivered to consumers is very small. And, the net benefit (all things considered) does little to reduce un-sustainable imported oil and fossil fuels required to produce the ethanol. ********************************************* What to do, what to do...

To: marcos who wrote (58226)	4/6/2008 10:27:14 PM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 78408

Some like bacteria better. Put down the chain saw, stop construction of the plant and consider this... "Cellulosic substrates are the most abundant. Acid hydrolysis of cellulose is technically possible and was used during the war. Enzyme hydrolysis has presented problems. A more promising approach appears to be the direct conversion of suitably pretreated cellulose into ethanol by mixed cultures of celluloytic and fermenting bacteria. Some thermophilic Clostridium species are rather promising. The pretreatment of cellulosic biomass may be either physical or chemical and is aimed at reducing the size of the substrate to help in cellulose hydrolysis. Typically, fermentation of 100 g glucose by selected strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis yields 45-49 g ethanol, the theoretical limit being 51.1 g (C6H12O6 --> 2C2H2OH + 2CO2). Both batch and continuous fermentation processes are used, and often yeast cells are recycled to save the substrate used up as cell matter. Continuous process uses 3-5 closed vessels; ethanol concentration increases from Ca. 4% in the first vessel to Ca. 10% in the final vessel, the productivity ranging from 10 to 20 kg ethanol/m2/hr. In contrast, batch process productivity ranges between 1.5 and 3 kg ethanoVm2/hr. However, final yields are much higher in the batch process, which is the most commonly used. Generally, ammonium sulphate or urea (N source) and a salt of phosphoric acid (P source) are added to the substrate. Most commonly the temperature during fermentation is 32-38°C and pH is between 4.5 - 5.0; in large fermenter vessels, some form of cooling is necessary. As the ethanol level rises, both ethanol production and yeast cell growth are progressively inhibited, and eventual1y cells begin to die. In general, yeast growth stops at 6-9% w/v ethanol, but ethanol production, at least in some strains, may continue upto 15% ethanol or higher. Ethanol inhibition can be relieved by continuous removal of ethanol. The commercial process, called Biostill technique, passes cell free broth through an evaporation chamber for ethanol removal and this medium is then fed back into the fermenter. Ethanol recovery is based on distillation. (i) The broth is distilled in a beer column to yield 85% v/v ethanol. (ii) The next step of rectification gives 96.5% ethanol, which is then (iii) dehydrated to 99.4% using benzene or cyc1ohexane if the ethanol is to be used as a fuel blend."