Biofuel by own hands

Today, many are beginning to realize that the burning of fossil fuels will someday lead mankind into a dead end. At the same time, the generation of energy from renewable sources can not yet cover all the needs of the economy. And what if we turn to the experience of our ancestors and take advantage of fuel of biological origin. After all, even in ancient China, they were able to extract biogas from natural raw materials. This fuel is in no way inferior in its physical properties to other types of fuel. So let's figure out how you can produce biofuels with your own hands.

What is biogas?

Biogas is a common name for a mixture of a large number of organic volatile compounds that are highly flammable. It is able to form in an anaerobic environment during the decomposition of any organic matter. The main conditions are absence of oxygen and high humidity. The raw material for biogas production can be any organic substrate: manure, plant leaves, grass, sawdust, woodworking waste, straw and even household waste. All this can be successfully used to heat not only greenhouses and utility rooms, but entire houses.

Mostly any biogas consists of methane, carbon dioxide and impurities of other gaseous substances such as hydrogen sulfide. The less carbon dioxide it contains, the higher the quality of the product. After all, carbon dioxide is not a combustible gas. In many cases, processing one kilogram of organic produces as much as 500 grams.biofuels. This is a very high rate, which is rare in other areas.

What are the advantages of using biological fuel

There are many advantages in using biogas.

• The cost of biogas today is in parity with gasoline, but its purity is much higher, which gives a good saving on maintenance of heating boilers that work on this type of fuel.
• There is no dependence on the availability and cost of oil products.
• Sources of biofuel production can be considered renewable unlike hydrocarbons. After all, the decomposition of biomass will always happen, as long as there is life on Earth. Oil, gas and coal will end sooner or later in the depths, because they were formed by millions of years in strictly defined conditions, which are no longer on the planet today.
• The total amount of harmful emissions in the atmosphere is reduced by approximately 65%.
• Self-development capability. You can not get oil by yourself and make gasoline out of it, but everyone can produce biofuel if there is a certain amount of knowledge. Moreover, raw materials for production do not have to be searched long.

What influences the production of biofuels?

What is crucial for those who set out to make biofuels by their own hands at home - this is mainly the environment. After all, the higher the temperature, the more successful will be the necessary chemical reactions, through which gas will be released. This was the main reason that the first equipment that produced biofuel at home was designed and put into operation in a region with a warm climate. However, in cold conditions, it is also possible to produce biofuel. Simply for this purpose it is necessary to take measures on warming of a design of installation or entering in its design of devices for forced heating of a working chamber, for example, hot water. In addition, the creation of the unit can be affected by the raw materials themselves, which must be efficiently and rapidly decomposed, contain a lot of liquid. It should not contain cleaning agents and other drugs that greatly slow down the decomposition process, so kill the anaerobic bacteria that carry out the fermentation process.

The process of manufacturing biofuel

So, how can you produce biofuel yourself and what materials can be used in this process. For a complete understanding it is necessary to disassemble several common variants.

Production of biofuel from conventional manure

Manure is undoubtedly the most popular raw material for the production of a large amount of biogas by the artisanal method. Therefore, if you live in a rural area and keep any livestock, then the purchase of an installation for the production of biofuels will be economically justified, since it can fully pay off in 2 to 3 years.

The most violent reaction with the release of a large amount of gas occurs in horse manure. However, such manure can be difficult to get, because few people today breeds horses in their subsidiary farm. Much easier is the case with cow, goat and pork. It is not as effective, but still able to produce enough gas.

On the basis of manure, mixtures with other wastes are created, through which flammable gas is produced, which is used to heat the house. Here are some popular mixes:

• Any available manure and tree leaves in a 7: 3 ratio.
• Dung and ordinary straw.
• Dung and sawdust - 7: 3.
• Manure and waste from linen production - 7: 3.
• A mixture of cow and horse manure - 1: 1.
• Mixture of manure with household waste - 4: 6.

As already mentioned at the beginning, the technology of such production is based on all known fermentation. It occurs in special completely sealed tanks at a sufficiently high temperature. Surplus water during this process is simply removed, and the released biogas is fed into the gas burner installed in the furnace, which heats some rooms. This gas can also be successfully fed to natural gas boilers, but in this case, the burner needs to be reconfigured. This is due to the fact that the methane content in biofuel is much less than in natural gas. Today, by the way, special combined boilers are already being produced to work not only on the usual gas, but also on biofuel.

Obtaining gas from charcoal

It is quite possible to produce biofuel at home from ordinary charcoal, which everyone likes to use in nature to fry shish kebab. However, the embarrassment is that in stores such coal is expensive. Fortunately, its price is purely speculative, as it is dictated by great demand for use in barbecues. The cost of production of this product is several times lower. Therefore, if you learn how to produce such charcoal on your own, the costs will be fully paid off by the thermal energy that will be produced later. To independently make charcoal, you need to have some knowledge and not very "crooked" hands. Consider two methods:

1. Charcoal from a barrel. For the production of a sufficient amount of coal, a metal barrel of 200 liters is quite suitable. In its lower part, a connection is made for the forced air injection device. For these purposes, you can use a conventional vacuum cleaner or mount a device with a fan. In the barrel a fire is built, in which the wood is gradually added.

This can be any waste wood processing. When the firewood is up to half a barrel, it must be completely closed and sealed with raw clay or wet earth. At this moment, forced air is supplied. There is a very intense combustion with the formation of all familiar coal. The disadvantage of this method is increased ash formation. Therefore, after each batch, it is necessary to clean the barrel from the ash. Charcoal from the pit. In this way, coal was always burned in the forest. Today, this is prohibited without the consent of firefighting authorities in view of the increased incidence of forest fires. In order to obtain such an agreement, it is necessary to observe the following conditions: the place for burning should be located on a vast clearing or outside the forest, and it must be waved with a wide strip;Within the reach of sparks there should be no dry and old trees. In addition, the environmental control authorities should give an opinion that production will not harm the environment.

For a small production, dig a pit 50 cm deep and 80 cm in diameter. The walls of the pit must be inclined. On a carefully compacted bottom of the pit, a bonfire is made using birch bark and thin twigs. Then add to it gradually wood, having a length of not more than 30 cm. Each successive layer is added only after the complete firing of the previous one. Firewood should be very tightly to each other. Approximately three hours is necessary for complete burning of firewood. When this happens and the pit is completely filled with baked firewood, they need to pour dry leaves and earth. All this is rammed and left for 2 - 3 days. During this time, the fireballs from firewood will turn underground into charcoal, cool and can be stacked. If there is such a need, then you can dig a larger hole or make several.

As you can see both methods are labor-intensive, but they do not require almost any financial costs, as it is not necessary to buy high-grade and expensive firewood for coal production. You can use dry in the forest or waste of logging production.

Combustion of such charcoal in solid fuel boilers allows to produce high-quality and high-temperature pyrolysis biogas, which has very high combustion energy. Unlike conventional firewood, charcoal can produce several times more heat from the same amount of fuel.

Biofuel from rape seeds

It is also possible to produce quality biofuel from rape seeds. In order to understand this procedure well, it is possible to independently conduct a fairly simple and accessible chemical experiment to anyone. It is necessary to take five grams of caustic salt and very quickly, so as not to get air, pour it into any glass 2 liter container, which already poured 200 grams of methanol( methyl alcohol).The mixture should be thoroughly mixed. After this, rapeseed oil heated to 55 degrees is added to the mixture. For the convenience of mixing, it is good to use a jar with a lid in which the hole for the blender is cut.

Mix the mixture at low rpm of the blender for 20 minutes. Then the mixture is left for 1 hour at a temperature of at least 55 degrees. At room temperature, they will need a whole day. Through this time, glycerine appears on the bottom of the jar, and everything else will be filled with a liquid of yellow color. This is the biofuel that we wanted to receive. It must be filtered and can be used in boilers running on liquid fuels. Of course, producing biofuel in 3-liter cans is not at all cost-effective, so there are special installations for this purpose.

So, taking into account all the obvious advantages of using biofuels listed above, as an alternative to the currently popular types of fuel types, it is safe to say that this is a very reasonable and reasonable solution, for example, for a farmer. Provided that you become acquainted with some thematic literature containing more detailed explanations of methods and schemes for the production of different types of biofuels, add to your own personal qualitative knowledge and skills, then you will undoubtedly succeed.

And remember: any raw materials that you plan to use on the flow for the production of biofuels should be perfectly decomposed and contain a fairly large amount of liquid. Manure is best suited to these conditions, and production at its use is the simplest. In addition, no foreign matter should be present in the raw material, which can slow down the reaction or reduce the quality of the biofuel obtained.