# Homemade gasoline



## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I really enjoy watching people take the initiative and try things for themselves I just stumbled on this you tube channel and found it interesting.

Disclaimer; safety precautions are minimal, science and terminology are good overall but definitely some errors, construction could be improved.

IMO it is not practical to specifically set out to make synthetic fuel from biomass with a small scale set up like this, it has been done on a large scale before though. 
The reason I think this idea is important though is for situations where one might produce wood gas or producer gas for use in a generator, a refrigerator, or some other situation where propane or natural gas has been used. 
In order to use wood gas effectively as much of these materials as possible should be filtered out, there are many ways of doing this but most do not allow you to collect these liquids for other uses.
So basically if you use this system as a filter for wood gas you are able to collect some useful materials for free. For someone using a larger system, 45gallon barrel for instance, it would produce a considerable amount of liquids but even so the entire setup would be left in place, draining containers only when necessary.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

I watched the whole video. Thanks for posting it.

The useful information could have been condensed down into about 15 minutes or less. The video could have been better by being more "cookbook" like - take 100 lbs of wood, burn over 2 hours, and you get XX liters of crude, YY liters of motor grade oil, etc. This was very seat of your pants but still better than nothing.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

Interesting! I'll have to watch it when i get home.

You can go through the paperwork to make "experimental" fuel with a still. Supposedly according to one book I have the forms aren't too bad, but you have to keep meticulous records, because as a distiller the BATFE is able to walk into your house or where ever you are declaring the location of your still and audit your books, any and all stored materials and finished product, also they want you to do something that makes it undrinkable. I forget what that is. 

If you have the ability to produce corn and sugar of some kind to do the mash, you can make moonshine fuel.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

I find it very difficult to believe that you could make your own gasoline. That's even assuming you wouldn't need to add octane, detergents, or other additives.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Alchohol (ethanol) is really easy to distil and has too many uses to list, of course you have to denature it 

Like I was saying I wouldn't attempt to make synfuel like this on it's own but if using a gasifier why not harvest the distillates.

Yes the video is long and drawn out, but I give him credit for trying this and putting out his results.


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## zombieresponder (Aug 20, 2012)

Dakine said:


> Interesting! I'll have to watch it when i get home.
> 
> You can go through the paperwork to make "experimental" fuel with a still. Supposedly according to one book I have the forms aren't too bad, but you have to keep meticulous records, because as a distiller the BATFE is able to walk into your house or where ever you are declaring the location of your still and audit your books, any and all stored materials and finished product, also they want you to do something that makes it undrinkable. I forget what that is.
> 
> If you have the ability to produce corn and sugar of some kind to do the mash, you can make moonshine fuel.


I think the permit is free, and yes, you have to add something to make it unsuitable for human consumption. Here's a page with links to the law and other info. http://www.ttb.gov/industrial/alcoholfuel_regs_laws.shtml


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