In this country, as in much of the developed world, food production and distribution are extremely dependent on functioning internal combustion engines. Many other essential services are also dependent on them. This project area is one of four Petrochemical Substitutes project areas that address keeping essential machinery running in the event of a disruption in the petrochemical supply. The other four project areas are: Gasifier Conversions of Internal Combustion Engines, Bio-diesel, ethanoland Bio-diesel,.
Ethanol is likely to be a long term solution as well as a part of a quick solution to lack of petrochemicals.
The primary objective of this project area is the posting on the web of tested designs for systems that could be built, operated and maintained with the resources available in a typical rural community. Fulfilling this criteria would also make the designs suitable for many other communities. This includes both engine conversions and ethanol production.
Considerable work has been done on producing ethanol in both large commercial operation and small personal facilities, but a lot remains to be done. good publicly available designs that could be built and operated locally are needed. In addition to good well defined designs we need step-by-step documentation on making, using and maintaining such equipment.
Convert carburetor engines to run on ethanol is relatively simple with the exception of some problems with starting cold engines.
A lot of work has been done on using ethanol (ethyl alcohol) as a fuel for internal combustion engines, ether mixed with gasoline or alone. A short synopsis of the results of a web search follow.
When used alone it can contain some water and requires carburetor modifications. Conversion for older carburetor engines can be as simple as drilling out the jets to a larger diameter. Allowing a water content both makes it easier to produce and increases performance. Simple distilling can be used to make the product. People have known how to ferment products into alcohol and distill it for a long time. The only noted disadvantages of running pure alcohol are difficulty in starting cold engines and lower mileage per volume.
If it is to be mixed with gasoline the water remaining after distilling must be removed since water and gasoline do not mix.
The first link below gives a good overview.
Each web page contains one or more chapters and links to all the chapters.