distillation
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Picobrew's next goal: A safe and affordable DIY distillery
Picobrew has a new, cheaper countertop beer brewing system. That you already knew. But the company is now dipping its toes into distilling. The Picostill is an add on for the Pico Model C that turns that weird custom designed keg into a countertop distillery. Specifically it's a reflux still that uses vacuum distillation, which doesn't look as cool as a pot or column still, but makes far more efficient use of the space.
Solar-powered machine turns urine into drinkable water
Scientists from a Belgian university have built a solar-powered machine that can turn urine into drinkable water. They deployed it at a 10-day music and theater festival in central Ghent, Belgium. The experiment was a success as the scientists were able to recover a 1,000 litres of unconsumed water, which will be used to make Belgian beer, from the urine of several partygoers.
Whiskey byproducts turned into biofuel, scientists prove they have a sense of humor
Did you know that gasoline was originally considered a waste byproduct of kerosene production? Seriously, people would take crude oil, refine the kerosene out of it, and dump the rest. Working along similar lines of harnessing what had heretofore been considered useless, researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have come up with a way to turn leftovers from whiskey distillation into a biofuel. Using the spent grains (or "graff") and liquid from the copper stills (called "pot ale"), they've been able to produce biobutanol -- a fuel that's 30 percent more efficient than ethanol and, importantly, compatible with gasoline-fired vehicles without the need for engine mods. We honestly had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't the beginning of April, but the university says its next stop is taking this thing to market. More power to them.
