Note: Please read the safety warning below regarding the information I’m linking to from this page regarding home made biofuel.
Some of my posts about biofuel, biodiesel, home grown fuel, etc. have elicited emails requesting more information.
I’m no expert, though I do have a keen interest in the field.
One inquiry came from a farmer whose particular farm has lots of sawdust available.
We got to wondering how you turned the cellulose in sawdust into something that could be fermented into ethanol. Right now ethanol producers use corn, but there’s talk of using switch grass instead because of it’s cellulose content.
So, we wondered, can you use sawdust?
The answer is yes.
Here’s an article from Green-Trust.org on that very topic.
Though animals break down cellulose in ther digestive system enzymatically, this process uses sulfuric acid.
Cellulose is a long chain carbohydrate that must be broken down into consituent sugars in order to be fermented for biofuel from ethanol.
Sulfuric acid breaks down the long chains into constituent sugars so they can be processed.
Obviously, you can only use this process under very controlled situations because it can be very dangerous! Please do not play around with this unless you know what you’re doing! Neither we nor the Green Trust website takes responsibility for your use or abuse of the information!
Based on what this farmer told me, there are many farms that could go a long way towards energy self sufficiency using biofuel techniques. More power to them!
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