Thanks for the positive review and enthusiasm! At that scale you propose, I would suggest a "cone bottomed tank," such as is sometimes used for bio-diesel production. An internet search will provide several suppliers. Suitably sized containers should be used for the by-product. Bear in mind that 0.5 gal water + 0.5 gal ethanol =0.9 gal water/ethanol mix, as some of the volume of one "dissolves" into the other. Water should be added at about 10% of the gasoline content, by volume to maximize separation. Testing with ratios from 1% ethanol up to 20% in the laboratory showed that E10 is about the most prone to phase separation, which fortunately also makes it the easiest to separate out. Waste (ethanol-water mix) will be equal to about 20% of the original fuel, by volume.
I anticipate one of your biggest challenges will be the mixing. My first attempts did not feature as much mixing, and reduced ethanol content to only 7% (down from 9%). However, water content went up. More mixing solved this.
In a large batch, I suppose a re-circ line with an approved fuel pump could be used to mix it thoroughly before allowing it to settle overnight and phase-separate. Stripping the water off the bottom is also easier in the cone-bottomed tank, as gasoline is not entrained in the water as happens when siphoning. I would not attempt to manually mix that much fuel due to fume exposure and splashing risks.
Your other problem is going to be waste removal. The ethanol could possibly be extracted from the water by "salting," and re-cycled as a camping fuel or motor fuel (in unaffected engines). It will contain dissolved gasoline as well as other contaminants, so is not food-grade. Regardless of what you do with it, identifying a safe and environmentally-friendly destination for your by-products will be important at any large scale operation.
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Today's Featured Article - Third Brush Generators - by Chris Pratt. While I love straightening sheet metal, cleaning, and painting old tractors, I use every excuse to avoid working on the on the electrics. I find the whole process sheer mystery. I have picked up and attempted to read every auto and farm electrics book with no improvement in the situation. They all seem to start with a chapter entitled "Theory of Electricity". After a few paragraphs I usually close the book and go back to banging out dents. A good friend and I were recently discussing our tractor electrical systems when he stated "I figure it all comes back to applying Ohms Law". At this point
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