Homemade Propane

reply to post by Starchild23


If you MUST have propane I will be of no use to you.
HOWEVER...we all produce methane.
You could probably harvest some off of a septic system.
Google that.
Advice from the senescense flatulence.

I think you should just look into gasification or oxyhydrogen.

Engineer775 is a prepper on youtube who does a lot of gasification and alternative fuel

You know my grandpa and grandma and seven kids lived with out any propane or CNG - they actually used animal fat for light. That was the turn of the century - in Iowa - I actually don't think Iowas has come along much since. Point is that if you are at the point where you are having to make gas. you might want to be looking at burning wood.

Seriously---why bother?
Just change out the jets on all your appliances and use methane. (Natural gas)

All you need is a big pile of--------well, what methane smells like-----in a closed system.

A mixture of cow, pig and chicken---droppings---works best.

A compressor and an lpg/ng tank with a regulator is necessary for storage at pressure.

Alright, I'll bite.

Making LP gas and pressurizing it would be a fairly complex operation in a survival or camping situation so let's look at alternatives:

You can make and distill alcohol fairly easily and with cast off materials such an all metal radiator from a car. Kinda a rare item now a days. Just be aware this will not be drinking alcohol.

This can be used in a Colman multi-fuel stove by using the included hand pump to pressurize the alcohol. Long term use will naturally destroy the rubber seals rendering the stove useless for that function. But the metal construction means you can gather sticks for firewood and burn them down to hot coals for cooking.

But alcohol would be the best substitute in that situation. Unfortunately the propane stoves, lanterns and catalytic heaters are useless without proper pressure in the tanks and little green bottles. Don't worry about making a stockpile to live forever off of either as the tanks lose pressure over time as well. Which means the tanks will be full, just worthless. I have ran into that problem a few times which is why I buy a couple fresh bottles in the fall for use in winter emergencies since the apartment is all electric for heat and cooking.

reply to post by Starchild23


I remember reading once they use to make gas by heating coal in a container and the gas that came off was flammable. If you are going to try this, do some research first. I could be wrong on it..

reply to post by g146541

HOWEVER...we all produce methane

This is true
So you will need a lenght of tubing maybe an old hosepipe would do and a match
Insert tube
And your good to go with your own fart powered cooking heating device

Cran

Originally posted by TomServo
Bingo?
Hydrogen Peroxide Combustion
I'll read the rest of this article soon, and see if I can test it.
Some other agent candidates to look into (possible combinations): Rubbing Alcohol, Bleach, Baking Soda, Citrus Juice... thinking...

I love that you are give examples of things that burn as if it takes all these special chemicals to start a fire.
You really think in a survival situation you're gonna be making fire from bleach and citrus juice when all you need is some dry brush and dry twigs, which by the way can be found just about anywhere?

reply to post by TomServo

Hydrogen Peroxide Combustion

I think this mixture would be to explosive the op is after DIY propane though saying that if you made a mistake
you would probably get a
Na Palm faceslap

Cran

Originally posted by Starchild23
reply to post by Chrisfishenstein

 

Yeah...I'm thinking of a way to make propane without actually paying for propane. Something cost-effective...you know, gives you a relatively decent (not commercial grade) propane for less than what you would have paid?

Also, it's good to know how to make propane when you aren't near any stores.

I'm doing a lot of camping this summer, and it would be great to know a few tricks.

Personally, You'd be better off using white spirit, which can be made with simple sugar and yeast. In the wild it will take longer and you'd have to have a very decent yeast nutrient to get the levels of alcohol required to distil a clean spirit, but having done it myself, once you have the mash ready to distil, it takes less than 4 hours to get about 1 litre of about 60% spirit, and further distillation can get higher grade, cleaner fuel.

As a side product, if you use proper ingredients and keep it all sterile, you can have a snifter as you wait

Any fermentable sugar, water and you can use raisins, vegemite, tomato paste, etc, as a yeast nutrient... can make a reasonable amount of alcohol, and you can build a small stove out of tin cans that can be used to cook, heat and sterilise things.

I do it for the recreational purposes, but to get an idea of how to do it, you can buy pre-made Yeast Nutrient turbo yeasts, which can complete a full fermentation of about 15% alcohol in 24 hours, or higher in 48 hours, which makes about 30 litres of wash, that can be distilled into 4-5 litres of white spirit.

The biggest issue would be the still. I've got an electric one that does it all for me, I just watch it drip out. But if you are able to take temperature readings, or are familiar with the process, it's not hard to do.

If you don't intend in ingesting any of it, you don't really need to care about sterilising everything as all you are going to do is extract the spirit. Won't even really need to worry about methanol in the end result.

I would expect propane would be rather impossible to produce using home made products that did not already have flammable properties as it is a direct result of petroleum based distillation, if I am thinking properly.. .it's 7am so this might not be the case

You can try this method:
www.chinasmack.com... 2/pictures/shandong-villagers-inflate-plastic-bags-with-natural-gas-to-carry-home.html



SKETCHY!!

You want to know how to make home-made explosive vapor??? That sounds extremely volatile( and what immediately came to my mind, I won't state, due to receiving a T&C violation) and could go really wrong pretty quickly, especially if the vapors are heavy and pool up somewhere, even the smallest heat source could create a flash-fire that burns so quick and hot that you can receive 3rd degree burns instantly....but to each their own... all I know is flash-fires suck and 2nd degree burns are one of the top 5 most painful things I've ever felt

Personally I'd go with trying to convert something to use stilled alcohol. I presume in a SHTF scenario, that a license would no longer be needed for "moonshining", and basically you can make alcohol from just about anything.... even grass and weeds... and this one skill provides fuel, first aid and can be used as a trade commodity

anyway... my 2 pesos (because it's probably not even worth 2 cents)

reply to post by Starchild23


OK, Propane (& Butane) are byproducts of natural gas and petroleum refining and so are not easily made at home.

But perhaps you are simply looking for a gas for heat & cooking. In that case, Methane is your gas. Easy to make with biological processes. The only problem is that you could never compress Methane enough to make it as efficient/portable as Propane which turns liquid at far lower pressure.

If you are looking for a gas to use for light, acetylene will do the trick (better/brighter than propane). Acetylene gas is produced when you mix Calcium Carbide and water. The bubbles that come off are acetylene. Be careful with concentrating Acetylene as it can ignite on impact.

reply to post by chr0naut

. Be careful with concentrating Acetylene as it can ignite on impact

And is also good for chopping up scrap metal but not good for cooking in any way

Cran

I was thinking about methane as an alternate fuel source when SHTF. lol say when you are in desperate need for heat. You need something that's sustainable and fuel efficient. So I looked up Rocket Stoves which they will save you a ton of material, very insulated and it focuses it's heat straight up. depending on how you design it. You can boil water faster, than the conventional fire pit that you have in your backyard.

reply to post by Shrukin89


Calcium Carbide and water makes a viable gas acetylene for burning as posted earlier. In cutting torches oxygen is added to the acetylene in order for it to burn hot enough to melt metal. Acetylene can burn hot enough for light and cooking just by combining with the oxygen in the air and a flame. Miners used a lamp that uses this exact principle to minimise explosions in the mind. It's called a carbide lamp. That same principle could be used to make a cooking burner, oven, heater or possible electricity generation. Any engineers here willing to take this on?

Another interesting idea is Brown's Gas. It is created by electrolysis. Instead of capturing the gases separately as pure hydrogen and pure oxygen the gases are captured together and are just as combustible as their former and separate counter parts.

It is possible to create propane from hydrogen as propane can be stripped of carbon atoms to create hydrogen. Therefore this process can also be reversed, although using current methods energy would be lost in the conversion making the process inefficient. My thoughts go along the lines of a hydrogen fuel cell that creates energy by adding carbon in some form. Propane would be the the exhaust. That would be a nice little system.

There is also an idea of generating friction heat which I will not detail here but apparently one receives more heat energy out than energy put in. I know it seems impossible but engineering is the key and magnet field bearings wouldn't hurt either.

Originally posted by FarmerGeneral
reply to post by Shrukin89

 

Calcium Carbide and water makes a viable gas acetylene for burning as posted earlier. In cutting torches oxygen is added to the acetylene in order for it to burn hot enough to melt metal. Acetylene can burn hot enough for light and cooking just buy combining with the oxygen in the air and a flame. Miners used a lamp that uses this exact principle to minimise explosions in the mind. It's called a carbide lamp. That same principle could be used to make a cooking burner, oven, heater or possible electricity generation. Any engineers here willing to take this on?

Another interesting idea is Brown's Gas. It is created by electrolysis. Instead of capturing the gases separately as pure hydrogen and pure oxygen the gases are captured together and are just as combustible as their former and separate counter parts.

There is also an idea of generating friction heat which I will not detail here but apparently one receives more heat energy out than energy put in. I know it seems impossible but engineering is the key and magnet field bearings wouldn't hurt either.

The Carbide lamp is also known of as the Davey Lamp, after its inventor. It is because of Acetylene's high carbon content (which glows brightly when heated) that it produces a lot of light. As a cooking fuel though, it might generate too much soot.

Hydrogen & Oxygen burn explosively and with an almost invisible blue flame. It would be useless for cooking & lighting and dangerous too.

You can make methane from any organic matter including human or animal waste or compost.

You have a 45 gallon drum, without a bottom, fit over a pit, and tap the gas that comes off it. You need organic sludge.
There are probably videos of that but what you really want is to be a high tech survivor operating at the next level and don't have to go looking for 45 gallon drums, just make a small HHO torch out of some stainless steel plates and a 12 volt battery.

It can be used to blow glass, weld steel to rock, reduce and remove radiation from metal screens, anything you want including as a cutting torch.
But its not like propane. It reacts differently with different materials the flame comes into contact with.

So you could not heat a room with the open flame, but you can heat a rock red hot and heat a room.

For after the SHTF i know and have the hose setup to tap large propane tanks.

Many rural homes are still on propane and after the fall this propane will be still there in many cases for the taking.
Plus you have all those propane BBQs an other items for many small bottles that can be used for transporting the propane.

If TSHTF you might as well forget about getting propane or gasoline. Gas line ups for ever and then no gas and gas rationing maybe but maybe no gas at all but if you had this set up you would not care....

And with PTO (power take off) you can do a lot of farm work with this truck.