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Make Your Own Ethanol At Home: the Efuel 100 MicroFueler - EXCLUSIVE VIDEO


PHOTO (select to view enlarged photo)
TACH's Marc Rauch talks with Tom Quinn, Efuel's CEO & Founder

Los Angeles Times Reports that Former L.A. Laker Shaquille O'Neal is now an investor in the system's distributor


• 100% Ethanol for less than $1 per gallon
• Produce up to 35 gallons in one batch
• Thumb your nose at the oil dictators

By Marc J. Rauch, Exec. Vice President & Co-Publisher
Originally published May 29, 2008

About two weeks ago, while Bob Gordon and I were in Las Vegas covering the Alternate Fuels and Vehicles Conference, we coincidentally carried a short TV news story on The Auto Channel about a new home-based ethanol production unit, the E-Fuel 100 MicroFueler.

It sounded like an intriguing idea, but I thought that there were too many questions left unanswered, and that the proposition was too important to be given the short shrift of a TV news sound bite.

Yesterday, I traveled to Los Gatos to shoot a video interview with Tom Quinn, Efuel Corporation’s CEO and Founder, to try to do justice to a very exciting and promising concept. The following video is that effort...


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Overview
E-Fuel’s MicroFueler is the world’s first home-sized fuel alcohol plant. Set up involves placing it on a level surface and connecting it to a source of water, power, and wastewater disposal, just like a washing machine.

The MicroFueler includes a fermentation tank with an enclosure on one end that houses distillation and fuel dispensing equipment. The machine operates automatically, managed by the user through an LCD interface. The user only needs to turn it on and fill it with E-Fuel feedstock, which is an inexpensive form of sugar, combined with yeast and yeast nutrients.

When this mixture is added to the fermentation tank, it is automatically mixed with a measured amount of water and the fermentation process begins. In this process, yeast consume the sugar and convert it to ethanol, carbon dioxide gas, and heat. A high tech control system manages the pumps, agitator, valves, fans, sensors, and thermoelectric coolers that automatically maintain the proper fermentation environment.

After fermentation, the ethanol must be concentrated to be a fuel. Over a period of several days, it is slowly pumped from the fermentation tank through a distillation column, which creates a vapor of ethanol and water. The vapor is fed to a unique membrane, designed specifically for the MicroFueler. The smaller water molecules pass through the wall of this membrane while the larger ethanol molecules stream through the exit port. A number of heat exchangers and thermoelectric coolers convert the ethanol and water vapors back into liquids and make this process energy efficient. The water is recycled and the fuel grade ethanol is available for use.

Fuel is metered and dispensed just like at a gas station through a retractable hose and nozzle.

For more information about the Efuel 100 MicroFueler visit www.efuel100.com.