Wood alcohol...

[Externet]

Hi.

Which wood would yield better/more methanol; 'alive' freshly cut timber or 'dry' old dead wood ?

[chilled_fluorine]

Hi.

Which wood would yield better/more methanol; 'alive' freshly cut timber or 'dry' old dead wood ?

 

Hmm... How are you getting the alcohol, fermentation or distillation? For fermentation, you would probably want to use fresh cut, as the juices would help fermentation along. For distillation, fresh wood is brutally inefficient, as you have to boil all of that water off for no reason. Use seasoned/dead stuff for distillation. Hardwoods like oak work better than soft ones (willow), just FYI. Also FYI, you do know that the stuff you get won't be pure? Good luck.

[alpha2cen]

Hi.

Which wood would yield better/more methanol; 'alive' freshly cut timber or 'dry' old dead wood ?

 

Lignin degradation is always a big problem.

[chilled_fluorine]

Lignin degradation is always a big problem.

 

I've made it a few times, doesn't seem to be a problem for me in terms of yield.

[alpha2cen]

I've made it a few times, doesn't seem to be a problem for me in terms of yield.

 

Without degrading lignin, we can do cellulose hydrolysis. First lignin separation and do hydrolysis, or without lignin sparation do hydrolysis.

[chilled_fluorine]

Without degrading lignin, we can do cellulose hydrolysis. First lignin separation and do hydrolysis, or without lignin sparation do hydrolysis.

 

What wonderful sentence structure you have there. Lol

[CaptainPanic]

chilled_fluorine, please stay on topic. Not everybody is a native English speaker here.

 

 

On topic again: the term "wood alcohol" is an old synonym for methanol. Methanol, according to wikipedia, was produced by the destructive distillation of wood. Nowadays, destructive distillation is called pyrolysis, and wood alcohol is called methanol.

 

So, using pyrolysis, alpha2cen said, that means you get some lignin decomposition products too.

 

So, to make a long story short: yes you can make some methanol by heating wood in absence of air (especially oxygen).

 

To answer the question what works better: fresh cut or dry, I am guessing that it's dry. The simple reason is that fresh is more difficult to heat. The reaction of some components in the wood to methanol will not require water (I think), so its presence is not necessary. But I repeat: this is only a guess. Unless someone has tried it and reported it somewhere on the internet, this will be difficult to answer.

 

But you're better off using the term "pyrolysis" in your search for an answer. Most research done at the moment uses that keyword.

 

[edit] apologies for editing this post while chilled_fluorine was already replying to it... but since chilled_fluorine commented on grammar (again) rather than the science of pyrolysis, I don't think this should be a problem.

Edited November 19, 2012 by CaptainPanic

[chilled_fluorine]

chilled_fluorine, please stay on topic. Not everybody is a native English speaker here.

 

 

On topic again: the term "wood alcohol" is an old synonym for methanol. Methanol, according to wikipedia, was produced by the destructive distillation of wood. To me, that sounds a lot like pyrolysis, and as alpha2cen said, that means you get some lignin decomposition products too.

 

So, to make a long story short, you can make some methanol by heating wood in absence of air (especially oxygen).

 

To answer the question what works better: fresh cut or dry, I am guessing that it's dry. The simple reason is that fresh is more difficult to heat. The reaction of some components in the wood to methanol will not require water (I think), so its presence is not necessary. But I repeat: this is only a guess. Unless someone has tried it and reported it somewhere on the internet, this will be difficult to answer.

 

But you're better off using the term "pyrolysis" in your search for an answer. Most research done at the moment uses that keyword.

 

I started learning English at age 4, according to my mother. Up until then it was just German. Not quite as native as you would have thought, eh? The only reason I commented was because I honestly couldn't understand what he was trying to say.

[alpha2cen]

In fact the process explaining is not easy. No specialist can not understand well.

This is the process diagram.

[CaptainPanic]

Eeh... alpha2cen, that is a fermentation.

 

I agree that you can make methanol from wood through some pretreatment and a fermentation, this is not the conventional way. And also, it is not the topic of this thread!

 

The topic of this thread is to make methanol from wood through pyrolysis:

 

Wood --> [Pyrolysis] --> [Separations] --> Methanol

[chilled_fluorine]

Eeh... alpha2cen, that is a fermentation.

 

I agree that you can make methanol from wood through some pretreatment and a fermentation, this is not the conventional way. And also, it is not the topic of this thread!

 

The topic of this thread is to make methanol from wood through pyrolysis:

 

Wood --> [Pyrolysis] --> [Separations] --> Methanol

 

So you can see why I was confused with his talk of lignins, which, as far as I'm aware, have nearly nothing to do with wood pyrolysis? And why I might have became frustrated? And, btw, did you hear him essentially say that I'm too stupid to understand his silly paint flow charts?!? I for one will apologize. I am sorry for dissing your sentence structure.

 

This: http://www.ehow.com/how_7762993_make-wood-alcohol-through-distillation.html method never occurred to me, although it seems like it should work. Essentially soak the cellulose in hot water to make it decompose into methanol and "some other shit", for lack of knowledge.

[CaptainPanic]

So you can see why I was confused with his talk of lignins, which, as far as I'm aware, have nearly nothing to do with wood pyrolysis?

 

Lignins are a part of wood, and will therefore decompose (hence the lignin degradation that alpha2cen mentioned) and form all kinds of nasty chemicals which will pollute your methanol.

In fact, I think you're lucky to get even 10% methanol from your wood pyrolysis. the other 90% are undesired components.

 

Maybe alpha2cen talked about a pretreatment - the lignin will probably still decompose and still form some degradation products. And in pyrolysis, that is only worse.

[John Cuthber]

Wood is largely cellulose (which doesn't contain methoxy groups) and lignin (which does).

 

Where do you think the methanol in wood alcohol comes from?