Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi, I hope you see my frantic requests for help here. So, I've been really interested in alternative sources of fuel this year, and I decided I was going to do a topic on ethanol and which grains work best in the making of it. I chose ethanol because it seemed simpler to make than energy using WVO(waste vegetable oil). I thought this project was relative to society because we need alternative sources of energy since fossil fuels are being depleted at an alarming rate. Is it a good project that could catch a judges eye? (I want to possibly get into regionals this year. ) I'm planning on using corn, rice, sugar, peanut, soybean. Are these good grains? I'm going to find out which works better in the production of ethanol by looking at the amount of ethanol it produces.

Now onto whether this project is legal or not. (!@(*&$#%^!@$#^%!@$#*%!^@#!*@#%&!#%!@#(!@^#(!*)
I searched up whether it was legal to make ethanol at home, and It said you need a permit from the TTB government. What The HECK IS THAT? HOW AM I, A TINY, BARELY 5 FOOT TALL EIGHTH GRADER GONNA GET THAT????!!!!!! Please give me some advice on how I can obtain that and if I need to or not.

I have some other questions: What would be a catchy topic? Are there any resources I use for some background knowledge? Is 1 1/2 pages enough for my background research? Any more suggestions??

really need some help on this, because I haven't exactly done something like this before. Is there anything that can make it a better, more beneficial to the society, project? Like maybe test how different amounts of ethanol affects the burning of gasoline(like less pollution) but IDK how to do that. Anything that can make it stand out to a judge?

Ok sorry for disturbing you guys, bye.

PS: PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Moderator note: I merged your two posts - to make it easier for the experts to see that your first post has not had a response! Thanks!

Hi SophieChen!

For making ethanol at home, I found this on their website:

Can a student make alcohol as part of a science fair project?

Well, under current law and regulations, we cannot allow you to conduct experiments involving distillation of alcohol at your home.

As an alternative, Federal law allows us to issue a permit for an alcohol fuel plant, or AFP. Under this type of permit, experiments with alcohol fuels can be conducted at locations properly qualified with TTB.

Here's what has to be done:

An authorized representative of your school (a teacher or other school official) must complete and forward an application form 5110.74 to us to establish a small AFP at your school.

The experiment must be conducted at your school under appropriate adult supervision.

The school official must tell us how long the experiment will last. They may allow for additional time in case your experiment is selected for additional competition or display at a regional or area science fair. And,

The school official must describe the adult supervision that will be provided. We require this because we are concerned about the safety of children handling hazardous materials and using distillation equipment with alcohol-even with adult supervision.

These steps apply primarily to students who are in elementary through high school. Make sure your application is filed as soon as possible to allow enough time for us to process it. You cannot begin the experiment until we issue you a permit.

Application form 5110.74 and additional information are available from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, National Revenue Center, Spirits Unit A, 550 Main Street, Room 8002, Cincinnati, OH 45202-3263, 1-877-882-3277, or submit an online inquiry.

This is a great project! One and a half pages is more than enough for the background section. You can make this project more catchy by trying to make fuel from your food scraps. Showing how you can create waste into fuel is very cool!

Hopefully this helps!

Thank you, that helped a lot! However, I don't want to do the project at school. (oof) I was planning on using a fermenting method, which doesn't require a lot of materials and only requires yeast. Is there any way I can do it at home or in a lab with my parents?? I want to do the project, but I don't want to go through the complicated process of doing it at school. I'm going to ask my teacher about it, but I really don't want to do it at school. Maybe my parents can do the experiment while recording it for me so I could watch it.?? Any suggestions?? Sorry for bothering you guys.


OOOOOOF (SORRY)

Hi Sophie,

A simple procedure for conducting the fermentation process using yeast can be found here:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

You can follow the above procedure as it provides the procedure for fermentation using yeast with complex carbohydrates, similar to your experiment.

In this case, the glucose used for this experiment would be changed to the type of grain you will be using for that trial, or your independent variable. The yeast will convert the sugars that make up each carbohydrate you use (corn, rice, sugar, peanut, soybean) into the ethanol and CO2 as (waste) products through the fermentation.

This is a fairly simple procedure that requires predominantly household items as materials. Remember to always ensure that you are legally allowed to make alcohol.

You can make the project more flashy to the judges by providing an example of a real-world application for the project such as testing for the density of each ethanol product that you created, and hypothesize which one you think will be the most commonly added ethanol fuel to gasoline, since a fuel additive with a lower (energy) density will be able to be added to the gasoline in a higher quantity, using less gasoline in the mixture which results in more profit for the gasoline company.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any additional questions!
-cnoonan180

Cnoonan180, thank you so much for the advice! Those are some really good ideas! I found out the only thing I needed was a Form 3, from the ISEF website. Luckily, I can fill that out easily! I really liked the idea of density. Thank you for the advice!

What would be a catchy title?

Hello again!

No problem and I apologize for the late response!

Some creative titles for your project would be:
1. Going Grain: The Newest Alternative Source of Energy
2. Great Grains: Which Type of Grain Produces the Most Ethanol?
3. Green Generation: Grains as an Alternative Source of Energy

Hope this helps!
-cnoonan180