How is biomass converted to ethanol?
Ethanol is made by the fermentation of sugar. Sugar->ethanol But some grains have starches. The starched need to be turned to sugars first. Enzymes or acids can be used Starch->sugar->ethanol And new technology will allow cellulose and biomass materials to be turned into sugar to be fermented. As for the details, i have no clue really. Basically you need to turn what you have into sugars first. Its probably accomplished by biological means.
Where can you buy ethanol?
You can buy ethanol any where you buy wine, liquor or beer…since that is the alcohol that is in all of those drinks. Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol is the only safe type of alcohol for consumption, and hence is in all of the alcoholic drinks sold in the world.If you want the purest, highest form of commercially available ethanol, it’s probably a product called Everclear, which is about 95 percent pure (the remaining 5 percent is mostly water). It’s pretty powerful stuff, and I wouldn’t recommend drinking it straight, it’ll burn your throat!If you have trouble buying alcohol where you live, it’s pretty easy to make your own. You can make ethanol with water, sugar and yeast, and you don’t even need a still to distill it…you can freeze the alcohol out.Pick up a book called ‘How to Master Moonshine’ by RW Marshall. I bought a copy on Amazon a year or so ago, and it gives really easy instructions on how to make all kinds of drinks. So easy when you know how!
How to make ethanol from apples?
Tim Bombaci of Manson way of making ethanol from apples apples used are basically bruised or have insects, and can’t be used to make juice. then they are put into a five-gallon plastic bucket, then dumps them into his wood chipper, which mashes the apples into a mushy soup. pour this into washing machine, and sets it on the spin cycle. No hoses are hooked into the machine to add water, but the juice comes out the drain hose, and the now-dryer leftovers stay in the machine. The remains are acidic and will be a good addition to the soil. the composts are later used in the garden. strain the juice that came from the drain hose, and add yeast to help it ferment. After about two weeks, put the foamy juice in a large insulated container at the base of distiller. Using a coil from a hot water heater, heat the liquid to a temperature that’s below the boiling point of water, but slightly above the boiling point of alcohol. The alcohol steam gathers at the top of the distiller, condenses and flows down a tube to another container. Because the process is not sterile, the alcohol contains methanol, which would make someone extremely sick if they drank it, It takes about a week to distill the liquid into alcohol. Bombaci then uses a funnel to pour the ethanol into his truck, which now has a computer module that helps it run on anything from 100 percent gasoline to 100 percent ethanol. Many newer vehicles are designed to run on gasoline or a blend of up to 85 percent ethanol. After pouring it in, the truck starts right up, and he takes it for a spin. The exhaust is clear, and has a mild smell. Bombaci said his truck gets about the same gas mileage, and runs smoother on ethanol, but it doesn’t have quite as much power. He plans to have a mechanic check it periodically to see if the ethanol is causing any negative consequences. In order to run a distillery, Bombaci does need a federal permit, but that was free, and easy to get, he said. It also required an inspection by the local fire department. for more reading http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2011/...
What is the best way and easiest way to make anhydrous ethanol?
It depends on how ‘anhydrous’ you want it.Generally speaking, the answer would be something likefractionally distill to get the azeotrope (95% ethanol, 5% water)use a cheap and high capacity, but not very powerful drying agent to remove most of the water. Magnesium sulfate or calcium sulfate would work, with calcium sulfate perhaps being preferable because magnesium sulfate is slightly soluble in ethanol.If the remaining moisture (probably at least a few tens of milligrams per liter) is too much, then dry further by letting stand over molecular sieves.You can reduce the water to about 1 part per million this way.For some synthetic reactions even this is still an undesirable degree of wetness, and in such cases the ethanol can be further dried with something like elemental sodium or phosphorus pentoxide.
How to convert ethanol into ethane?
There are probably a bunch of ways to convert ethanol to ethane, but most of them are multi-step processes. Here's a method that's really easy to understand: First, we will dehydrate the alcohol (and heat it): CH3CH2OH + H2SO4 (+ heat) ---------> CH2=CH2 Now we have an alkene, ethene. We can add hydrogen to an alkene to turn it into an alkane: CH2=CH2 + H2 (+ Pt as a catalyst) ----> CH3CH3 As you can see, we did a two-step synthesis. First we dehydrated the alcohol with a strong acid, H2SO4, in the presence of heat, forming an alkene. Then we reduced the alkene by adding H2 (with a catalyist metal like Ni, Pt, Pd, etc.), making an alkane. Here's another way to do it: CH3CH2OH + TsCl ---------> CH3CH2OTs We have used a tosylate to get rid of the hydroxyl group. CH3CH2OTs + LiAlH4 --------> CH3CH3 We used LiAlH4 to reduce the tosylate, forming an alkane. * I myself don't understand this second method, so if I were you, I would focus on the first one. As I said, it's easier to understand.
Ethanol and Sucrose Mixture?
there are several ways but an easy way would be to put pure ethanol in one test tube and the same amount of the unknown liquid in another tube then place the tubes into a beaker with enough water to float them sucrose will significantly increase the density of the liquid and would float lower than pure ethanol another 'quick and dirty' method would be to pour a bit of the liquid into a watch glass and fan it until the alcohol evaporates any sucrose would be evident as a residue on the glass
How can I make alcohol (ethanol) naturally?
Making ethanol is painfully simple, people in prison pull it off with materials they have access to. Fill a bottle with sugar water, dump in a package of yeast. Then you have to let the gasses out without letting air in. The traditional way to do that is to attach a tube to the top of the bottle and run the other end into a container of water. A simpler way is to stretch a balloon and poke a couple of pinholes in it, then put that balloon on the mouth of the bottle. Over time, you’ll see the balloon expand, and the holes will stretch enough to let the gas out.Depending on conditions, you’ll need to let it ferment for a couple of weeks, until the tube stops bubbling, or the balloon deflates.If you’re using ordinary baker’s yeast, it will get you to around 12% ethanol. You can buy special strains of yeast that will get you to 15%, but not much higher. If you want pure ethanol, you need to distill it
How do you convert methanol into ethanol?
Most of the time there is absolutely no reason to make that conversion. However, there are two proposed industrial routes (as opposed to laboratory synthesis).The first is indirect catalytic homologation, where you transform the methanol into an ester with acetic acid, catalytically carbonylate the methanol portion of the ester to acetic acid, and then hydrogenate. There's a rather energy intensive separating step in between each of these operations, but the advantage is that it's highly selective in comparison to direct homologation; the main side reaction is from the carbonylation forming acetals.A second direct homologation basically adds methanols using a catalytic chain growth mechanism. However, there's no good way to stop at ethanol. Instead you get a product distribution based on the length growth mechanism.Both of these are synthesis methods I came across while reviewing patent material for various processes proposed for production of fuel ethanol from syngas. Needless to say, they're not particularly likely to succeed in those forms.
How to identify and differentiate between Ethanol, Ethyl Acetate, n-Butanol and Toluene?
easiest way is via your nose. All four of these chemicals have distinct odors. Go over to known bottles of these chemicals and take a wave wiff. Then compare it to yours. ******* Comments about the other answer. (1) bp differences are good, but that will take a little while to setup and run. probably take the afternoon. (2) FTIR? Ethanol and n-butanol will both show the broad OH absorption and the difference will be in the fingerprint region. Modern FTIR's can resolve the difference, PROBABLY, but you have to have $$ piece of equipment ($10k used), lots of training or a technician in the lab with experience running the equipment. Or pay an outside lab a few grand to analyze the samples. Way too complicated. (3) NMR is the lazy man's method??? I've run NMR. Pain in the rear! And interpreting the data is even worse. This would take you a whole day provided you had access to a proton NMR and knew what you were doing. go here... http://riodb01.ibase.aist.go.jp/sdbs/cgi... and check out the spectra! *********** use your nose!!!! ethanol will smell like vodka. You must know what that smells like right? ethyl acetate will smell like nail polish remover n-butanol is like a sweet smelling vodka. Some people think it smells like bananas or the erasable markers toluene smells like a sweet version of benzene. sort of a gasoline like smell. Like paint thinner. The easiest way by far is to get reference known samples of each of those 4 chemicals and use your nose!
How would you be able to tell the difference between Ethanol & Methanol?
easiest way to tell the difference is the measure the boiling point (methanol is mid 50's and ethanol is 78). They also smell different (methanol has a slightly fishy smell) . There are ways to distinguish them using fancy instrumental technique. But simpler is faster and cheaper.