I know of a self moving bioreactor that automatically mows your lawn, ferments the gras, is powered by the grass, fertilizes it and if you let it, even self replicates. It's a cow. Or a goat. Or a sheep.

@charon3707

2 жыл бұрын

Also drops a huge amount of chocolate

@Tibbs_Farm

2 жыл бұрын

@@charon3707 from what I hear, the chocolate tastes like S***

@josh_1518

2 жыл бұрын

@@Tibbs_Farm can confirm, at least a friend said anyway

@rallekralle11

2 жыл бұрын

sheep! they don't eat the grass to the roots, you get fertiliser, wool and maybe milk. it's perfect

@cha2117

2 жыл бұрын

feeds you for a year protecting against inflation prices if you freeze and butcher it. you will also appreciate an animal died to feed you.

It is something weirdly beautiful about the grass powering it's own destruction

@Barskor1

2 ай бұрын

You do the same when paying taxes WW3 doesn't happen without governments.

@jamiebray8532

2 ай бұрын

​@@Barskor1and they call us the superior species.😂😂😂😂😂

@LiborTinka

2 ай бұрын

That's how taxes work... and fiat money to a large extent. Just extraction and redistribution of capital, privatizing profits, socializing losses. Wash, rinse, repeat.

@kingmasterlord

2 ай бұрын

*its own haircuts. mowing is grooming.

@tk337h

2 ай бұрын

​@@kingmasterlordhow does the grass benefit from being groomed? maybe there's an argument about keeping the fast-growing grass from stealing sunlight from the slow grass? but then we just get into the same taxation-is-theft argument from the beginning of this thread

Your running the lawn mower with out the Air Shroud on it. The air shroud directs the air that the fins on the flywheel pushes across the head of the engine to cool it. It most likely overheated at the end of your mowing. It's a briggs air cooled engine and requires the shroud to cool it.

@davekauffman8727

2 ай бұрын

He paid way too much to have the engine "converted" to run on alcohol, any gasoline engine will run happily on alcohol that's at least 75% in concentration, and it is a Tecumseh, not a Briggs & Stratton, you can tell by the placement of the muffler, and the shape of the air shroud.

@jaradbeauvois2928

2 ай бұрын

Thank u I was coming to say the same thing

@WJCTechyman

2 ай бұрын

@@davekauffman8727Actually, that's a Briggs Quantum. The carburetor and thus the intake is on the opposite side of the muffler. Tecumseh engines have the carburetor on the same side as the muffler and early Honda engines had that too. Also, $250.00 for a conversion like that and on a flathead to boot is too expensive, all he had to do was change the orifice size of the jet(s). I would have also chosen an old OHV/OHC engine as they burn far more efficiently than older flatheads. I guess another option is finding an engine that can be easily converted to electronic fuel injection but those are hard to find in a small walk behind mower.

@TheWookWizard

2 ай бұрын

He didn't want to get suicided stfu bro you're gonna get u gon get him killed

@UnitSe7en

2 ай бұрын

Just running on gas with no liquid fuel is what cause the overheating.

My uncle had a silo on his farm. He used to fill it full of silage, to feed his cows in the winter. If he got some moisture in it the silage would ferment. It was pretty funny to see a field full of drunk cows. So, the acid isnt needed, take your green grass and ram it into a barrel. It'll ferment on its own from naturally occurring yeast. If you'd like run some copper tubing through the barrel for hot water. Keep the barrel outside in case it gets a little too hot, it can self combust.

@cranegantry868

2 ай бұрын

Yep, that sounds a pretty good, low cost solution to getting alcohol and the cows will like your uncle too!

@meribor

2 ай бұрын

One word: time

@Treeesmith

2 ай бұрын

Its air that spoils silage, not moisture, it's bagged wet and pickles, holes let air in and it changes from anaerobic

@ericlotze7724

2 ай бұрын

For the most part yeah! Minor snobby aspect would be controlling *what* fermentation happens could be an issue. Best case scenario some delicious silage (Lactic Acid Fermentation, same used for Sauerkraut, Yoghurt, Kimchi, etc) , worst case scenario that psychodelic one (then some WILD cow shenanigans) or just *botulism*. Anaerobic Digestion *can* make Biogas (Basically Dirty Methane; Pure Methane is LNG/Rocket Fuel, "Natural Gas" is surprisingly "dirty" at pipeline grade, albeit not as bad as raw biogas) with the right stuff which is a bit simpler than Cellulosic Ethanol, and *way more* than Bio-Butanol, or proper "Bio-Gasoline" (Although you could turn bio-methane into Gasoline etc with "Gas to Liquids" technology). This is so simple you can do it with a bucket and some pvc pipe! Those "anaerobic digestors" are used on some giant Dairy Farms to manage all the manure (At some Wastewater Treatment Plants for the Sludge / "Human Bio-Solids" / Humanure / AKA "POOP" ) and make useful products. Neat thing though is they are so simple they are a great solution for low income countries. Decent amount of coverage of their usage in India online for anyone interested. That's my rant on all this at least!

@vanillagorrilla

2 ай бұрын

I don’t think he wanted to wait 6 months but good idea all the same 👍🏻

Dude, convert the lawn mower to a steam engine, turn the grass into pellets and burn them to power the mower. Will be cheaper than making ethanol and you dont need to handle chemicals. The downside you will create a lot of smoke, but hanging some meat on the exhaust will smoke it for free

@chargermopar

2 жыл бұрын

@@alzoz6741 I ran on wood gas for many years. Great way to get energy cheap!

@DaveDorenbergVeltman

2 жыл бұрын

😂😂 Best comment I've read in a while. 😂😂

@jacobkudrowich

2 жыл бұрын

Handling chemicals is fun tho

@johnchiz54

2 жыл бұрын

the BTU conversion rate for steam and internal combustion engines are insanely off balanced, you lose so many BTU's in a steam engine that an ICE engine would utilize. while yes you can convert it to steam it is more efficient and convenient to convert the biomass to fuel first

@brokkenmask

2 жыл бұрын

Lmao

Here in Brazil we mass produce Bioethanol with the organic material left from harvests, mostly from sugar cane, which has tons of sugar. Basically you press the sugar canes and take the juice out, the material left is still moist and can be used to make Ethanol. Its a good way to make use of stuff that would go to the trash.

@midgetman4206

2 жыл бұрын

So you take what would otherwise be discarded simple sugars?

@jacobshort6528

2 жыл бұрын

What happens to the remaining cellulose pulp? I'm thinking the remaining cellulose pulp could be processed into paper.

@MsRiqueman

2 жыл бұрын

@@midgetman4206 Sorry, only now i have seen your comment. Yes, i understand little of the chemical process, but i think that those leftover materials would go to waste otherwise.

@chicob.8419

2 жыл бұрын

The dried pulp usually is used to fuel distilers, or feed to livestock. You can make alcohol from that, but the fermentation has to be done in the same way as the video. Using sulfuric acid to process tons of pulp would make the whole ordeal very expensive, compared to simply fermenting the sugary juice from the canes, hence, it's rarelly done.

@andrepatacchini

2 жыл бұрын

@@jacobshort6528 the remaining cellulose is burnt in steam generators. Generating far more electricity the plant needs to operate. The exces is sold to the grid. Here in São Paulo, almost 20% of all electric consumption comes from ethanol production.

If I may make a small suggestion: When distilling alcohol the lid of the fermenter should be dome shaped so as to direct the water/alcohol vapour to rise into the neck of the device. Otherwise most of the alcohol will condense on the flat underside of the lid. I also noted that when you performed the "flash" test by igniting the distilled alcohol, the flame was yellow. That indicates that the alcohol you distilled contained a significant proportion of methanol (CH3OH).

@animehair05silently88

Ай бұрын

I was thinking it would have been both easy and a good idea to try to get methanol instead! all you have to do is basically put it in a container (usually called a methane digester) with some microorganisms, like what you find in manure. no need for any strong acids you have to buy from the store even.

@sparkysho-ze7nm

Ай бұрын

Experienced huh?? Tehehe

here in Brazil we started the alcohol production program on sugarcane in the 1970's, here the liter of alcohol is about 75% of a liter of gasoline and about 80% of the engine performance. Well, Its a green fuel but not a great deal in terms of economy. To your project I would recommend another approach, no acid, no shredding, just dry the grass and burn it in a boiler connecting it with a steam engine to make electricity and use an eletrical lownmower. It is possible that you would have a most cost-effective result. Thank you for your video

There’s also the possibility of dry distilling the grass into syngas (wood gas), then using the gas feedstock with Fischer-Tropsch to produce actual gasoline, consisting of medium molecular weight alkanes (paraffins), alkenes (olefins) and cycloalkanes (napthenes). So from pentane to tridecane, and as light as propane and even methane if necessary.

@labcoatpirate

2 жыл бұрын

Im just wondering why direct thermal decomposition wasn't the first choice. All you would have to do is heat the grass above its ignition point in a oxygen free environment and direct offgas to the carburetor. Because....uhm....if the goal is to make something run off grass it shouldnt require gallons of acid and bases.

@calvingreene90

2 жыл бұрын

Or you could just burn the syngas.

@miclowgunman1987

2 жыл бұрын

@@calvingreene90 if i remember correctly, syngas is typically heavy in tars and other byproducts, so it would be rough on your engine without some processing. processing the gas into things like gasoline lets us use the output in our current systems with very little tweaking, which makes it scalable into our current uses.

@calvingreene90

2 жыл бұрын

@@miclowgunman1987 Filter and compress. Bubbled through water and a little time in a gassometer will do.

@lorddorker3703

2 жыл бұрын

I live off grid and I have 8.5kw of solar panels. I am working on pyrolysis using my excess solar. I'm storing the Syngas in a gasometer.

Coming from a moonshiner family some of this was painful to watch but it was entertaining.

@thatguyalex2835

2 жыл бұрын

I guess we could say his process of making grassoline is pretty entertaining. ツ Do you use ethanol as fuel yourself?

@JeffWeselyan

2 жыл бұрын

@@thatguyalex2835 saves money

@barnes29510

Жыл бұрын

I was thinking he needed to go talk to an old shine runner lol

So the title should have been Turning Grass into Ethanol: Green Fuel Revolution. I was fooled!

@EsaIbne-Menk

11 күн бұрын

If it was methanol there was a possibility of creating patrol

I used to deliver in bulk to those ethanol plants was urea. Dry bulk fertilizer. Thats what they used. They mixed it slowly with very hot water and then they mixed it with the corn. They byproduct was then taken to farmers for feed.

The engine didn't have the top cover on which directs the cooling air from the flywheel fan over the engine. It over heated is likely why you had trouble...

@phantomofbelgrad9324

2 жыл бұрын

Smart

@skunkjobb

2 жыл бұрын

That's my thought too, plus that the bubbler carburator gives no control over the fuel air ratio.

@CRneu

2 жыл бұрын

ethanol also burns hotter than gasoline in an engine.

@jp400motox

2 жыл бұрын

@@CRneu No! Actually there's a reason many high-powered racing engines run on pure alcohol. It combusts at a lower temperature, keeping the engine cooler.

@bigredinfinity3126

2 жыл бұрын

@@jp400motox but they spray water into the engine with ethanol to remove heat

If I was going to try this I would go for a peletizer to compress the gas into fuel pellets and then use that directly in a wood gasifier system. This method would give you a much higher energy density for less money and would be versatile with any woody material such as leaves or paper.

@foxtizzo

Жыл бұрын

not that easy to make a small gasifier for a lawnmower... have seen one man doing this on yt, but it finished with a carburetor full of tar

@tin2001

Жыл бұрын

@@foxtizzo I'm not sure if the OP meant to mount the whole gasifier on the mower. You could build a large one and use a gas compressor to tank it up for later use on the mower. Under the "what if there was no more fuel" situation, that's how I'd want to do it so I kept waste down and could give/sell the results to others around town who need it.

@foxtizzo

Жыл бұрын

@@tin2001 Yeah, that's a way, but you need to go to very high pressures with woodgas to have an energy density that is sufficient to cut grass for let's say for 30 min. I'm doing testings with compressed woodgas right now. The normal 13kg butane tanks under 10 bar would run my generator for 2 minutes. That means 100bar would be sufficient to work 20minuts. For cooking it lasts a bit longer.

@foty8679

17 күн бұрын

@@foxtizzo You dont need high pressure. You can run a generator on woodgas without storage.

Thirty years ago I was reading about making fuel from newspapers. It was pretty much the same process of using acid to break down the cellulose. I thought newspaper would be a cheap source of yeast food but after researching the process I decided to go with potatoes.

it's amazing you found a mechanic that can convert a mower from gasoline to ethanol just like that 10:21

The perfect liquor for the discerning suburban dad.

@spartin86

2 жыл бұрын

Fahkn Ell. 😆

@308dad8

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, blindness and death are just part of the fun.

@Blox117

2 жыл бұрын

@@308dad8 stop drinking paint thinner then

@308dad8

2 жыл бұрын

@@Blox117Post Mellinial huh? It shows

@Blox117

2 жыл бұрын

@@308dad8 im not, but i imagine even they know how to spell millennial

To ferment grass it needs to be wet and stay wet and then shut the lid on the barrel. Keep mixing every 12 hours for two days, repeat the process to concentrate it before you add yeast. It'll need a storage tank to capture the resulting gases. Use direct light preferably sunlight or lighting and a heat pad. -Brian Morris

I like the way you do these experiments. It's very professional.

I would have tried a ball mill to process the grass. You can use a pile of river stones in a barrel tumbler to do this. The up front labor should be much less. It's just a matter of time, after that. Great video. I learned that cellulose can be fermented... didn't know that. I learned that straight ethanol can run an ICE... if you use that bubbler thingy. Thanks HTME!!

what i love about you guys is that yall dont just sit around and wonder, yall go and see if it can be done.

It reminds me of the NileRed video about making alcohol with toilet paper

@robmckennie4203

2 жыл бұрын

Seems like it would have been a good idea to consult with him, considering he's done basically this exact project

@MrWisski

2 жыл бұрын

Except NileRed FILTERED HIS SOLUTIONS T_T

@ninpeg4441

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrWisski What’s up with this? Lol. I’ve seen them filter before

@tjingle29

2 жыл бұрын

nilered is the only chemist i can trust. 😅

This was awesome to listen to and understand the concept and cost

his wife contacting curiosity stream to give him this challenge, was just her most efficient way to get him to mow the lawn

As soon as I heard sulfuric acid, I knew this wasn't a very cost effective process 🙄 sulfuric acid is pretty expensive but handy to have, there is a way to synthesize it from raw sulfur and other ingredients but it looks like a lengthy process too. All together cool content though 👍💯😎

@justinsander8216

2 жыл бұрын

You should check out 'Caveman Chemistry'. It goes over the exploits of Spot and Roebuck in England when they each invented the same process for sulfuric acid production at around the same time. Very interesting read.

@HepCatJack

2 жыл бұрын

Vinegar is much cheaper however it may need to soak the must much longer.

@tinsoffish1810

2 жыл бұрын

$30 a gallon mower gas😂

@AutoNomades

2 жыл бұрын

What about silage to get acidity "naturally"

@Preyhawk81

Жыл бұрын

you can make it in great amounts with elektrolysis

There are 3 ways I can think of off the top of my head. 1)converting plant/seed starches into sugar and then alcohol 2)collect the plant oils using distillation, then add sodium hydroxide and separate the bio-diesel 3)burn it normally and collect the smoke as a wood gas alternative.

@johnslugger

Жыл бұрын

#3 - Why not just heat it in the steel drum with a tiny bit of propane and make flammable "WOOD GAS" out of the raw cut grass? No need to mulch. Much cheaper and you get instant results. The other plus with WOOD-GAS is that you get 95% of your fuel out of the organic material and its DIRT CHEAP to do! Just need a 55 Gallon open head steel drum with lid and ring clamp and the base for a Turkey deep fryer to get the grass smoldering. You also need an air inlet valve in the bottom of the drum to get the air fuel ratio correct. I also use a 5 gallon bucket of water and use manifold vacuum to clean the soot out of the syn-gas Grass-smoke. It has a lot of BANG for the buck and is dirt cheap to make.

Thanks for the video. Curious if you’ve seen videos on people turning plastic bottle trash into diesel and gasoline. Sounds like it would be right up your alley 👍🏼

The reason corn isn't efficient is because it takes fuel to run the farm equipment, and fertilizer and pesticides to grow the corn. Now I could be wrong, but I think if we tried sugar beets instead of corn, we would need less of all of those. Planting and harvesting would be easier, and since it isn't being grown for consumption, it wouldn't need fertilizers and pesticides, so that would be more cost effective. Maybe they have thought of this already, and there is something I'm not thinking of, but I trhink it's worth considering.

Good illustration of how expensive, comparatively speaking, is the ethanol production... Probably we should consider using wood gazifiers to power a gas engine, or better going back to small steam or Stirling engines to power our stuff, as those classic technologies use a direct forward energy production method...

@vksasdgaming9472

Жыл бұрын

Stirling and steam engines use external combustion or heat source. Gasoline engine has internal combustion. Quite big difference in operation.

This is so interesting to watch. There's a guy called Mr Teslonian on KZread who extract oil and gasoline from burning wood. He also made a car running on firewood. His work is very interesting and he's like a DIY off grid person. He seems very smart, way above my head. But I would love to learn more about naturally producing fuel. For example biogas is fairly easy to extract from a compost. The bacterias in the compost that are breaking down the food are farting after they eat. They fart biogas which has energy in it and can be burned or used to fuel a lot of stuff!

To stretch your source material a bit further, you can add in some malted grain or synthetic Amylase OR do a primary ferment with Koji mold to break the mid-sized starches into simple sugars that the yeast can ferment. You can also spike your secondary ferment with Klebsiella bacteria (if you can find them). They can metabolize some of the more complex sugars that the yeast cannot. (NOTE: Be careful not to ingest these bacteria or you could develop Autobrewery syndrome, resulting in the need for a completely carb-free diet to prevent constant intoxication and liver disease.) Another option is to pyrolize your grasses and run the "wood gas" through a simple condenser to capture the tar then bubble it through cold water to extract the methanol. You can even capture and compress the wood gas at the end of the system as an alternative fuel for stoves, grills and gas lamps. Allowing your grass to completely cool before cracking open the vessel will also allow you to collect charcoal powder for use as a pigment or ingredient in black-powder.

I think you need to add a another step prior to hydrolysis to break up the lignin with an alkaline solution. The Cellulose is naturally bound by hemicellulose and protected by lignin. This lignin-binding compound causes lignocellulosic materials to be difficult for hydrolysis alone to break down 90 mins soaking in a wood ash or other alkaline solution should do it. Then wash with water prior to hydrolysis

Just out of my own curiousity; did you try blending the grass while the grass was wet/soaked?

@Hunne2303

2 жыл бұрын

Ever mowed a wet lawn? The same would happen to your grinder or, if it goes fast enough, will heat up quite fast (not the motor, the bucket where it rotates in)...I burned my hands a few times this way

@Surestick88

Ай бұрын

​@@Hunne2303Ever make a smoothie? It depends on the amount of water.

Try to use the grass clippings in a wood gasification system next!

@nilsdock

2 жыл бұрын

this would make more sense since the grass can go in with little to no modification, although making grass pellet's would probably be beneficial

@lIlIlIlIlIlIlIlIlI

2 жыл бұрын

has been done and the tar residue glogs up the valves, killing the engiine gasification is a dirty method

@nilsdock

2 жыл бұрын

@@lIlIlIlIlIlIlIlIlI it is at least more efficient than doing the etanol thing. valves can be cleaned, the question is how often do you need to clean it, every 3 times you mow the lawn?

@John-rw9bv

Жыл бұрын

@@lIlIlIlIlIlIlIlIlI What is a fuel filter?

And this is why the ethanol seen sold at stations is usually E85 with the 15% gasoline for the purpose of denature it and a little bit of lubrication.

I absolutely love biochemistry and I’m all here for it

You got me thinking though. How about just making alcohol from the natural fermentation of grass? Maybe not as high of a yield but your cost would be next to nothing to make it. Yeast naturally occurs in the air and would start the fermentation in a few days on its own.

@308dad8

2 жыл бұрын

Still have to get a fuel permit to distill that alcohol out. Also if you have free space in your freezer you can remove water using freeze concentration.

@treyt6474

2 жыл бұрын

@@308dad8 In most states its legal to distill alcohol

@joshlower1

2 жыл бұрын

@@308dad8 you think im gonna ask for a fucking permit? Fuck biden and his gas prices.

@Hunne2303

2 жыл бұрын

@@treyt6474 in any amount?

@treyt6474

2 жыл бұрын

@@Hunne2303 Yeah

You can usually get jet kits for those carburetors. Thats probably a better way to manage the mix. Just make sure you use ethenol rated fuel lines, And maybe a metal tank if you wanted to go that route.

@TelmoMonteiro

11 ай бұрын

HD-PE tank instead os metal maybe?

@martinbisschoff988

7 ай бұрын

Will also be interesting to compare cylinder temps during combustion of actual petrol vs ethanol. Also carbon residue %. Thinking here about eventual burned pistons and carbon build up on valves?

@blackbird1234100

2 ай бұрын

Honestly, you probably cant. Thats a newer mower. Unfortunately, it has become common practice to make the carbs "non adjustable non servicable" The jets are often epoxied in place, there are metal seals blocking off screw and jet holes, and some of the carbs are just straight up plastic now..... That being said, just get a mikuni VM22 & a minibike intake manifold.

Seems easy, straightforward, looks simple & convenient enough, and definitely likely to go mainstream come lawn season 2024. Pulverizing with metal balls moved around with magnets seems like it'd reduce size faster & more effectively. Using a concrete mixer bit for blending/mixing. Using a grass-type that has a much higher sugar / energy density .. switchgrass, for example. Or switching methodology & approach altogether opting to pyrolytically gasify the feedstock biomass then cleaning up the hydrogen-rich syngas to fuel ⛽️ a slightly modified generator. Generator provides electricity. Charges mower & weedeater batteries. Quieter

It's really good for us that someone is trying. I cannot help but applaud. These are the things we need to learn and test as a world. But what worries me is that all plants need nutrients, and the energy to spread nutrients into the grounds are not free and in many places will strip in a few seasons. The grasslands of the US were tended by Bison, which carried nutrients from valley to highland, and highland to valley, creating a cycle of life from dung to insect to bird to dung to molds to grass to bison to dung, with the cost to humans being a requirement to stand aside when a herd of 10,000 Bison decided to move, and to watch where you stepped. Cattle can, to some degree, replicate this, if we increase the numbers.

"Why is this dude mowing his grass AGAIN!?" --Your neighbors 😆

Love the concept, grass is certainly a net waste in my community and we are even warned in the summer not to leave them exposed to the sun because they ferment and may catch on fire. I don't know how much the sulfuric acid is sustainable (I mean it is an industrial waste and a readily available byproduct of volcanism...) Overall great job!! Clearly I prefer using a net waste (grass) rather than a crop to make fuel :)

@zazugee

2 жыл бұрын

i think it can be fermented if you're patient, for example people make bokashi as an alternative to compost and it involves using grass and other organic matter, and it makes a sour liquid i imagine you can distill the bokashi liquid and get some ethanol out of it

@jacobshort6528

2 жыл бұрын

Sulphuric acid is a byproduct of mining sulfide metals like copper. Copper mines have lakes of sulphuric acid.

This is super cool I bet if you were willing to put in the effort to make the sulphuric acid yourself and using wood ash to neutralize if you have a consistent source you could probably make this a lot cheaper. Sulphuric acid as far as I know is not to difficult to make but you’ll need to take precautions and have some laboratory equipment to do so. Basically my understanding is just burn sulphuric and bubble the gas produced through water then distill it to the desired purity and boom sulphuric acid. Sulfur is pretty cheap from garden stores so that might be a better source. And you could probably make several gallons from a bag of it. Anyway love this idea and the fact that you could use grass clipping to power your mower to cut more grass is pretty awesome.

Thanks for teaching us how to distill everclear from our lawn mowers.

Water vapor in that ratio of fuel in the enginge is usually not a problem for the enginge. Water in liquid form sure is a problem for say fuel lines, tank, carburator etc. But the vapor in the pistons dont condense at all and usually just removes inpurities. There is quite extensive testing on running a enginge on ethanol and it seems to decrease the wear and tear compared to petrol.

@GUSftw

2 ай бұрын

there is a such thing as water injection after all. i believe it has a cooling effect as well.

If you needed about 20% more fuel to air, couldn't you have just run the engine partially choked?

@TheElfsmith

2 жыл бұрын

The mower had no manual choke, and taping the intake wouldn't be an option as you have to adjust as the engine comes up to temp, and needs more fuel and air to have the power to actually cut grass.

@mason1926

2 жыл бұрын

You can run a higher elevation jet I. The carb.

I saw a setup that used the grass through a gasifier that used exhaust heat to pyrolyze the grass. It did add considerable weight to the mower.

Very interesting. How did you solve the lubricant issues with the lawn mower. Most combustion engines that small are two stroke motors that do not have an oil pan. They are lubricated by motor oil that is mixed in with the gasoline. Without lubrication the motor will seize up

@pseudomemes5267

2 ай бұрын

Probably what happened. They thing was quite literally running on fumes. No way to inject oil with the gas

@comingviking

2 ай бұрын

@@pseudomemes5267 He should hire a different mechanic the next time. But of course, the experiment was more about the viability of the fuel production process than anything else. Anyway, I would have suggested going for the biogas route, myself, because you can just leave that to bacteria and time. Put all of your bio waste in a container, and you will have a lot of free heat on top of the combustable methane gas.

@learningtofly6675

2 ай бұрын

um i think this is a 4 stroke engine not 2 stroke

@michellebaxter1403

Ай бұрын

Briggs and stratons are 4 strokes my man.. Almost all mowers are. Now High reving machines like chainsaws, weed eaters etc. Are 2 stroke and you're correct they need oil mixed If that thing was a 2 stroke it would have siezed up before it ever started!

Have you tried Cellulase or Amylase enzyme instead of acid for the sugar extraction?

I love how he says someone qualified and takes it to the mechanically inclined kid next door haha!

Mate, this must be the most cost inefficient way to mow your lawn. It's almost surrealist. I learned a lot tho', many thanks for sharing!

I looked into this year's ago with enzymes. Iirc Corn produces 600 gallons per acre, sugarcane produces 3600 gallons per acre. Do the math that's almost 10 gal per day you can burn. Switchgrass was 400 I think. I remember mix 1lb material with 20lbs water & enzymes. Then it needed a reflux still, not sure what's particular about that type but the guide said had to use that kind. Then add zeolite to remove the water content. Gasoline stoich is 14.7:1 & ethanol is 9.6:1 air fuel ratio. The other issue mechanically is alcohol has a much higher octane so it needs more spark advance to actually see benefit. Alcohol in a gas tuned engine runs worse than with gas. But that same engine tuned for alcohol runs way better & makes more torque therfore needing less rpm/ throttle therfore burning less fuel per job than gasoline. Any rubber components need to be synthetic to avoid alcohol eating it apart, & alcohol is corrosive to aluminum. Alot of tuning street cars is done on e85 now when it's available so we can make more power, & they have alot of info

@tenbitcomb

8 ай бұрын

The idea that components such as fuel lines, seals, and aluminum parts need to be replaced to support ethanol fuel is mostly obsolete. So-called rubber components in modern engines, even small engines, are made of things like neoprene or tygon specifically because they can hold up to both gasoline and ethanol. It's also not really true that ethanol corrodes aluminum. It will only corrode aluminum if stored improperly such that it adsorbs water and forms an acidic solution. As long as the ethanol isn't left to acidify, there should be no problem with exposing aluminum parts to it. It's also not necessarily true that less fuel is burned per job with ethanol; ethanol contains less available energy per volume, but as you said, it is more compressible, so it's a better performing fuel. Not so much for lawn mowing since lawn mowing doesn't require that much power (in contrast to say driving a truck up a steep hill). However, ethanol burns cooler than gasoline, so it's still a more efficient fuel. For the record, I have experience converting both small and large engines to run on ethanol. It doesn't really take that much to tune any kind of gasoline engine to run correctly on ethanol, but high performance vehicles require the advanced tuning approaches in order to take full advantage of what ethanol has to offer in terms of power. Usually timing adjustments aren't required for an engine to run adequately, whether it's 2 stroke or 4 stroke, and EFI vehicles adjust timing automatically. At the very basic, conversion comes down to making sure enough fuel makes it into the cylinder before ignition. When youtubers make videos about ethanol fuel and their engine breaks down, it's almost always because they are failing to provide the correct air-fuel ratio.

This was a very interesting video, thanks for putting it together! I've never done this process before or tried to ferment essentially processed grass, so grain of salt, but I was a little surprised you only allowed 48 hours of fermentation. Next time, I would suggest using a hydrometer and fermenting until gravity of 1.000 or less. A hydrometer because you wouldn't need to adjust the refractometer reading for the inaccuracy the presence of ethanol can cause.

@Hunne2303

2 жыл бұрын

nah, 48 hours is enough me thinks...given the low content of sugar, the yeast will finish quickly and kill itself off or starve. I produce with pure sugarwater and baking yeast and that usually takes around 3-4 days...

@Freddy-bx6sf

5 ай бұрын

@@Hunne2303just actual sugar water? This is honestly so interesting.

The shroud he took off the engine was to help with cooling to duct the air form the fan into the fins on the air cooled engine it probably overheated yes running on alcohol would make it run cooler but I think it would still need cooling and it had basically none

@crussell1991

2 жыл бұрын

I've seen several engines ruined this way.

There once was a movie about a man that turned into a dog that made some veichles run on grass. At the end the dog said "Oh no I'm out of grass"

here in brazil people who want to make more power with their cars use ethanol bc is harder to ignite so you can use more compression ratio on the cilynder or more boost when using forced induction and the ethanol molecule have an oxigen atom so the combustion is wayyy more eficient, the fuel injection has to adapted to inject 30% more fuel, an camaro ss with 450 hp can go up to 550 hp just by changing the fuel and tuning

Grams per liter, pounds, again grams, then gallons... parkour !!! Making my head spin

@praisegod8635

2 жыл бұрын

Lol...$3K per gallon makes my head spin. I’d rather cut the lawn with a manual hedge trimmer... Lowe’s, $19.99.

I'd like to see side by side about how long you could run an equivalent mower converted to hydrogen power, since you could probably make a good bit of that from the acid used as well.

@erinw1485

2 ай бұрын

I have two mowers that run on Hydrogen Fuel From Electrodes. it cheap and fun to make the neighbors look at me like I'm Crazy!

Gotta scale it up to be efficient. I distilled hand sanitizer for its alcohol during covid because supply shortages. It was my first home built still. It was about 1 ½ to 2 cups of brewing volume . Took forever just to get to one cup -ish of product.

You need heat when trying to get the yeast to work, very cool btw. the conversion tip about removing the fuel components was gold info. The amount spent to cut your grass - 3 grand.

Would turning the grass into silage make the process more efficient?

@austinpage4361

2 жыл бұрын

this would eliminate a great deal of his labor, the need for acid, and if done in a bright enough place the distillate could be captured as it formed with the heat from the sun. real shame you didn't make this video instead.

@Jhaishim

2 жыл бұрын

@@austinpage4361 damn

You can break down the grass easier with a grind wheel. There are easy ways to make effective grinders. You really just need a rough surface to pull the grass across another rough surface. If you let the grass sit in just plain water for about a day, it will make it softer with the water weight in the plant cells. As you draw the grass across, it will squeeze out green water and soften the grass further, after a pass, mix with wster again and grind. The green water can be evaporated and give you some very fine powder. The rest can be dried and crushed again if necessary, but should be broken enough for fermentation. The whole process from clipping to powder could be done in 2 stress free days. A good place to start looking for grinder ideas is to take a rolling pin and try it on grass over concrete. The grass will get lost on your concrete and stsin it green for a while, but it will give your mind a chance to consider the concept physically.

@chriskwakernaat2328

2 жыл бұрын

hammer mill would be the fastest way i think.

@jacobshort6528

2 жыл бұрын

It sounds like he should inquire as to how matcha tea is made.

@jacobshort6528

2 жыл бұрын

Matcha tea smells like lawn clippings and looks like green flour.

As likely stated buy several others start with gelatinizing the grass, then use Alpha amylase to break down the sugars instead of buying acid, so that the yeast can ferment them. Next use a proper pot still, preferably with reflux capacity instead of the glass one, these can be obtained cheaply. This will more effectively produce a higher ABV product. I noted in the comments that the cover was not on the engine, this is important. Carburetor jets can be drilled out to be bigger. The best you can probably expect from using just grass would be a starting gravity of 1.040 to 1.060 which would only yield a potential pre-distillation alcohol content in the single digits. So the fix for this is going to be either add sugar or increase the volume of your fermentations to compensate. Finely grinding up the grass was a good step though.

Here in the UK, Ecotricity, a renewable electricity generator and supplier is setting up a commercial scale plant to produce methane from grass. The intention is to feed it into the UK gas grid.

Dry ice should hopefully speed up the shredding process. Freeze the clippings and they should break up faster

@AutoNomades

2 жыл бұрын

YEs.... But how much energy would you need to produce it .... ^^ ?

13:11 perfect laboratory smell test 💯

what about making dry grass pellets and using a smoker to run the engine, would that make the process easier or cheaper?

In Brazil you can buy alcohol at the petrol station as they produce alcohol running cars from factory, the carburettor also have a special coating to avoid corrotion and get ruined

An idea for turning the grass clippings into a finer powder, Seal them into a concrete mixer and toss in some rocks

I've watched Tech Ingredients from YT make alcohol from bananas. He used some sort of enzyme to properly dissolve the cellulose, going from memory it was something similar to a MAOI, I think. The best way to know for sure is to watch the way he did it! I'd be super interested in seeing an engine run on wood gas or even water through sonoluminescence!

@jacobshort6528

2 жыл бұрын

Look up woodgas-powered vehicles on the KZread. There is a history of them, from WW2 onwards.

@baneverything5580

2 жыл бұрын

Sugar, water and yeast and tomato paste to feed the yeast.

@Humbulla93

2 жыл бұрын

an MAOI is totally different from the enzyme you refer which is called cellulase, allthough if you used an MAOI(mono aminoxidase inhibitor which isn´t an enzyme but blocks the enzyme called mono amineoxidase) you could die eating a banana. another way would be using pyrolysis which could be powered by the sun

Awesome job! Thanks 🙏

Your mower was running too lean, causing temps to increase and vapor became volatile before ignition time. Essentially when your mower reached a high temp the engine was fighting itself. Solution: less airflow through bubbler.

An alternative method would be to use a different organism strain than yeast to digest the cellulose directly without needing to break it down first with acid reduction. However that may produce results over months rather than weeks. But it could potentially be a lot cheaper if the process was somewhat self-sustaining.

@haroldbrown5887

2 жыл бұрын

I would suggest using a digester take 155 gallon drums step the full of grass fill it with water and add either a bucket full manure or box of red x after about 24 hours you should start noticing a bubbling cap the barrel how much the second barrel filled with water run the pipe down into the water and let it bubble up through the water use your second bung on your thing to run a piece of pipe out with the valve on it I believe you'll find that when you bring a flame next to the pipe and open the valve you'll have fire you are now producing methane gas it does running internal combustion engines.

This is hard work. If the economy crashes, I'll stick to my bicycle.

@milahu

Ай бұрын

bikes depend on rubber from asia...

What about putting it in a giant tumbler like what is used to polish stones that might make a finer powder. Or use a hydraulic press and mold of some kind to press it into more solid bricks then grate/grind/sand them down?

can you do a video of how to take waste plastic and turn it into diesel? I haven't seen a video that explains it right, I trust you, you are tried and true. thank you! ♥️🙏♥️

I think the easier thing to do would have been to compress the clippings into pucks or pellets and used in a wood gasifyer to run a generator to charge batteries for an electric lawnmower.

@tylerm124

2 жыл бұрын

But, that's not as fun lol. Also I get that the point is to teach about alternative storable fuel sources.

@chriskwakernaat2328

2 жыл бұрын

the pellets would probably fall apart because of the heat/moisture coming out, it's the reason most gasifiers use wood chunks.

@jacobshort6528

2 жыл бұрын

Bake the grass clippings in trays inside a dehydrator oven, then hydraulically compress them into either pellets or pucks.

@baneverything5580

2 жыл бұрын

Just charge the batteries with a solar panel.

@giovannicesaramorim9adigan961

2 жыл бұрын

just use the generator on the lawnmower instead???

i used the grass to destroy the grass

You could just heat it up and the starches will turn into sugar that is how they do it when making whiskey

Nile Red has converted toilet paper to ethanol, using, as I recall, acid hydrolysis. You might chat with him about yields. Also, something that I did when I made ethanol from sugar was to pitch a couple of cans of tomato paste into the mix to provide more nutrients for the yeast....

There was a report that lawn machines produce more air pollution than a number of motor vehicles combined. Wouldn't biodiesel be easier to produce from grass? This is accomplished with Algae. Have you tried a lawn motor that uses biogas? Then conceivably get biogas from grass and compost. Thank you

@alexandermueller4115

2 жыл бұрын

That’s what he’s doing in this video

Hey, nice, 2 HTME videos in one day!

Cool project. THANX

Thanks! This was fascinating! Could it be cheaper if you used enzymes instead of acid?

Well, most won't see this as a low budget way BUT you are proving that gas isn't just made just from Dinoseurs as many people think. This is a great way to show that crude oil is made much from plants and algae, not all from animal remains. GOOD job. Hopefully people will learn that biofuels and dead plant matter can contribute to the making of oil and gas. GOOD job! Try composting some grass or other plants and see if that works any better.

Reminds me of a book by David Blume called Alcohol can be a Gas! Super interesting book showing how much alcohol you can get from many crops w/ alcohol yield per ton and per acre. If I remember correctly it shows some waste products that could be converted into alcohol as well. One guy who grew watermelon for seeds started using the pulp to make alcohol 🤔

@daviedood2503

2 жыл бұрын

Couldn't u just use moonshine? 😂 white lightening will knock u down its like 100 or 200 proof. 😂 if that won't cut your grass, idk what will

@scenicdepictionsofchicagolife

2 жыл бұрын

@@daviedood2503 I think for use in anything that compresses fuel you'd want it to be nearly anhydrous ethanol. 200 proof comes close, which may be suitable BUT 200 proof can still be drank (at least according to my friends). The ethanol at the pump is so pure and full of different types of alcohol group chemicals it'd kill you, even at very small concentrations. (Not to mention the 15 percent isooctane gasoline). Pure anhydrous ethanol will have zero to no water but will also contain some amounts of other primary (like methanol, which is toxic) and secondary alcohols, and/or other alcohol isomers like isopropyl alcohol, which is also very toxic. I'm sure there are also sugar alcohols present, amongst a litany of other related compounds, but the main component is ethanol or "pure grain alcohol." Still not something you can drink. Hopefully we'll become smarter in the future and start using biomass for biofuels. I've always wondered why someone hasn't tapped into this.

@daviedood2503

2 жыл бұрын

@@scenicdepictionsofchicagolife naw, it's how it burns. The explosion in the motor and the engine compression etc. It's how combustible it is to slam the piston down inside the chamber. 200 proof like everlcear they run race cars on it just for laughs. Actually does quite well but very expensive to do. Especially high performance engines etc. Biofuels etc has to do with disel engines. They not fuel injected exactly so the combustion is a little different on how it happens.

@sharkysnipe6777

2 жыл бұрын

@@scenicdepictionsofchicagolife Because "they" have killed all of inventors. Somr dude comes up with a great idea and you wont here from that guy anymore....

Its a weird thing but immediately when I saw him shred the grass ,the smell of cutted grass came to my nose like my brain thought i was cutting grass and it just reminded me of the smell again

"I'm going to use everything for average consumers." Proceeds to bust out an Entire chemistry set ....

I really enjoy these kinds of videos. They are very instructive about what a hoax green energy is.

@petevenuti7355

Жыл бұрын

I wouldn't call it a hoax but it is certainly not a simple as environmentalists make it out to be, and ignorance tends to cause more problems then are solved. But yes I get what you're saying, to make green power cost effective is a major engineering challenge that takes a lot more than just a change of mindset , that would just be denial and unrealistic. For instance shutting down the nuclear reactors while forcing people to get electric cars... Ruining forest by making green fuel out of trees. Biodegradable plastics releasing more carcinogens into the environment then regular plastic would have. So much that it's not thought out and mostly impulsive irritates me to no end. But I do know that the 'green revolution' MUST come because what has been going on the last 300 years has been destructive, short sighted and wasteful, getting worse every year and it's now passed a tipping point, change should have happened before the tipping point.

@GG-og4wt

Жыл бұрын

@@petevenuti7355 *impoverishes you to no end

@sneaky_krait7271

11 ай бұрын

This particular one. Wind, solar and electric good and cheap

LOVE where CuriosityStream is going! Changing the future, one subject at a time! Got my full support

What was the yield ratio? Did one lawn produce 1.5 lawns worth of fuel? Was it more like 0.8 lawns yielded from 1 lawn of grass? What if you were to use rotten fruits that would otherwise be thrown away? What do you do with the waste product? Is that useful for anything such as compost?

Just wondering, if you have a lawn with lots of dandelions. Instead of converting the grass to ethanol as it looks too complicated and not worth it, would it be possible to convert the dandelions to wine and then distill it until you have ethanol? Just asking?

@MannyJazzcats

Жыл бұрын

It would definately be possible

Oh hell yeah, hi Adri!

@ZedaZ80

2 жыл бұрын

Came to the comments for this XD

Why not experiment with different types of grass? I find these videos interesting! Keep up the great work!

@34Bartek34

2 жыл бұрын

good idea, more flavours

You forgot to add in the cost of the engine you destroyed by overheating it, because you left the blower housing off.

You have hit upon one of my biggest hatreds: Cultivated land that does not produce food. Also, when making beer, sterilization is one of the most critical steps there is. Starting from step 1: The Equipment. Step 2 is the raw materials. Both must be squeaky sterilized or you are doomed to fail. Those secondary reactions can be a witch. I'm going to try out a batch using malt. By the way, your mechanic is a genius for doing the evaporative carb. But you should ask her about storing ethanol in ferrous containers.

Why not run the lawnmower over the grass clippings to cut them up even smaller?

Thank you for doing this! It's valuable to illustrate to dreamers a few practical realities. The world abounds with ridiculous ideas promoted as ready solutions. If it were easy, we'd already be doing it!

@alexanderrahl7034

2 жыл бұрын

That's why I'm not worried about climate change. The doomsayers never account for mitigating factors, like people adapting and inventing new solutions to the problems. All their prediction models assume we won't change and will just wait until doom

Would it be easier or more efficient to just use the grass to produce syngas instead of ethanol? The only issues I guess is that storing that would be a lot harder and the conversion of the engine would be a bit more intensive than ethanol

i have a question, could you increase the sugar content by adding fruits ?