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Biodiesel


By wildbill hickup, Section Remote Living
Posted on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 09:53:47 AM MST
For auto and genset

Posted this yesterday but it didn't come up. Not really sure what catagory to put it under.
Finally got to making BD and all is going fairly well. Started with 1L batches and now have graduated to 20L. All was going great until day before yesterday (my 4th 20L batch) I now have 20L of a jelly-like goo. Don't know what went wrong but it nasty stuff. If any of you biofuelers out there can give me a clue as to what I did, and if there is anyway to fix the problem it would be great. I'm not even sure at this point how to nutralise it. A small solution of the liquid portion(not much of that) mixed with a little Isoprpyl alcohol(begining of titration process) has a pH of at around 7.25(1 ml oil to 10 ml alcohol) if that means anything. Well anyway I have an 82 Benz that just loves the good stuff that I made and by the end of the summer I hope to have a genset built using a motor from a VW Jetta diesel. Plan to put magnets on the flywheel and build a stator housing to bolt over that. I'll reclaim heat fron cooling and exhaust to heat shop and part of house. Well that's the plan anyway will keep update in diary, as it progresses. In the meantime if anyone has any ideas what to do with the goo PLEASE let me know!! I'm going to transfer into 5 gallon buckets for now.
Biodiesel | 25 comments (25 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by TomW on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 04:10:28 AM MST
(User Info)

Bill;

I assume it is flammable?

If so, it might make home brewed sterno. If not explosive in nature I wonder if you could gasify it and burn it somehow that way? No experience with biod just thoughts on how to use a gooey flammable substance. Mentioning napalm would probably be less than PC.

T

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by wildbill hickup (wildbill_hickup at yahoo.com) on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 04:56:39 AM MST
(User Info)

And we all know how you love to be PC:->




Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by troy on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 09:29:00 AM MST
(User Info)

Fundamental key questions:
  1.  Did you test the waste veggie oil for the presence of water?  If so, how did you test and how much water was present?
  2.  Did you titrate the used veggie oil to find out how much NaOH to use, per liter of oil? If so, what did the test indicate?
Your answers to these two questions will determine the future of your gloop.

Finest regards,

troy



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by wildbill hickup (wildbill_hickup at yahoo.com) on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 11:43:38 AM MST
(User Info)

Hi Troy,

Based on all your previous posts I was hoping I would hear from you.

I'm still very new to this so the answer to your first question. I'm not sure how to test for water although I brought the WVO up to steaming temp and kept it that way open lid for 2 hours, hoped that this removed all water. All oil is from the same source, to date I have made a dozen small 1L batches for practise and this was my 4th 20L. All other batches seemed to work fine with the exception of one 1L that did something similar but not as much. There was just a little gell near the bottom on that one and it cleared in about 3 days.

Second question (I was a bad boy) Since everything was going well I skipped the titration. I did use same quanities as in previous batches, in short. 6.5g lye, 200ml methanol per L WVO. Guess this is what I get for cutting corners.

[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by troy on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 04:22:10 PM MST
(User Info)

Yup, failure to titrate will sooner or later bite you in the a$$.  If you have any of the original oil, it would be interesting to know.

What follows is a copy of a procedure I wrote up for another board.  This spells out the water test in painful detail.  You probably don't need that much detail, but you'll still get through it.  If you did have much water in there, you may have unusable glop.  Hope that helps, and feel free to ask more questions.

PS, don't burn the glop, as burning glycerin can produce toxic acrolene (spelling?) smoke unless it's a very hot fire with very complete combustion.

Water test procedure for vegetable oil.  You need an accurate scale that can precisely measure weight with a resolution of 0.1 grams (a tenth of a gram).  Ebay has lots of vendors that can supply a manual triple beam balance that works beautifully.  There are digital versions as well.  The scale should have an upper capacity of about 500g or more to do this test well.  You could fake it with a top capacity of 100g, but you have to use a much smaller sample and you lose some precision.

  1.     Find a container to put an oil sample in.  Gladware works nicely (semi-disposable "Tupperware" and available at any supermarket or Wal-Mart).  It's about the right size, cheap, lightweight, re-usable, see-through and heat resistant at the temperatures we're working with.
  2.     Weigh the empty container to the nearest tenth of a gram and record that somewhere.
  3.     Take a 300 to 400 mL sample of oil.  The sample should be representative of all the oil you are going to react.  So typically, I dump all my oil into my processor tank and stir it for ten or fifteen minutes.  Then I take the sample.
  4.     Weigh the sample.  Record this number.  Subtracting the weight of the container gives us the actual weight of the oil. Record oil weight.  I designate this as "wet weight".
  5.     Heat the sample in a microwave until the oil reaches a temperature of 240F.  Harbor Freight sells a nice probe thermometer with a 6" metal probe with a round thermometer head at the end.  A candy thermometer would work as well.  Check your thermometer in boiling water and confirm a reading around 212F.  Some are a mile off.  During the heating phase, you will get a qualitative indication for the presence of water.  If your sample starts to spit and boil around 212F (100C) you know there is some water. We'll get quantitative data in a few minutes.
  6.     Allow the sample to cool off for ten minutes or so.  This allows any residual emulsified water to evaporate, plus it's safer.
  7.     Weigh the sample again, record that number.  Subtract container weight.  This is your "dry weight" of the oil.
  8.     You can see where this is going.  Take wet weight and subtract dry weight.  The difference is the weight of the water that was in your sample.  Now divide water weight by the original "wet weight" and this will give the decimal fraction water content of the sample.  Multiply by 100 to get percent.
Here's an example:

Container wt:        26.2g
Total wet wt:        335.6g
Wet oil wt:        335.6g - 26.2g = 309.4g
Total dry wt:        321.6g
Dry oil wt:        321.6g - 26.2g = 297.4g
Water wt:        309.4g - 297.4 =  12.0g water
Water content:        12.0g / 309.4g = 0.03878
% water by wt:    0.03878 x 100 ~ 3.9% water by weight

If I'm careful, and without heroics, I can measure the presence of 0.2 grams of water in a 500 gram oil sample.  That would be:

0.2g/500g = 0.0004 water, or 0.04% water.  

So even if you're sloppy, and only measure gram amounts, you can still learn a lot about water content with a scale and a microwave.

Summary:

Weigh
Heat
Weigh again
Do math stuff


[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by ghurd on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 05:09:14 PM MST
(User Info)

Very new to the mechanics.
I should say new twice.

What about 1 gallon of filtered (5 microns) waste to 20 gallons of diesel?

G-

[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by ghurd on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 05:11:00 PM MST
(User Info)

Just WVO and road diesel.

[ Parent ]


Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#21)
by wildbill hickup (wildbill_hickup at yahoo.com) on Sun May 22nd, 2005 at 07:34:03 AM MST
(User Info)

THanks for the info on water testing AND no skipping titration from here on out. Now to my problem at hand. You said don't burn it and I had read that it's not a good idea, so what to I do with this stuff, turn it into soap(if you have a recipe that'be great), is it safe to dump, etc. At this point I just want to get it out of the reactor so I can move on. I guess as I said before I'll put it into 5 gallon buckets and play with small quanities (more lye, more meth, a little acid) to see if I can make anything happen, but any more ideas as to what to do with the bulk of it would be a great help. Thanks for all your help so far and I promise NO MORE SHORTCUTS!

PS Got a scale ordered.

[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#25)
by troy on Tue May 24th, 2005 at 04:51:37 PM MST
(User Info)

You could do mini batches of one liter, done in a 2 liter pop bottle.  On the best biodiesel discussion board in the world (not that I'm biased...http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/cfrm/f/498605551)this is known as the World Famous Dr. Pepper technique, as popularized by a biodiesel wizz who goes by Tilly.

Anyway, the idea is, you put a liter of oil (or glop) in a 2 liter pop bottle, and then add a bit more methoxide (methanol + lye (sodium hydroxide, you knew that...)).  And see if it helps.

You're pretty much screwed as far as determining if you have water in the batch, because if you boil it to check for lower weight, you'll boil the methanol off too.  So you won't know if the change in weight is due to the water or due to the meth.

You can burn the glop, but it's got to be done in a nice hot fire, where the glop is NOT the primary fuel source.  Think nice hot wood or coal fire, outside, built around a can, to which you add a quart at a time or something.  Or you can build a "Turk" burner, which is a forced draft thing, then feed it 50/50 diesel and glop just to get rid of it cleanly.

I have read several sources that say glop makes really good herbicide.  And the meth just evaporates with lots of fresh air dilution, so that shouldn't be a big deal.  I have no first hand knowledge of disposing of glop however...

Good luck and have fun!

Troy

[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by RobD on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 10:03:49 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.dsgnspec.com

I looked into BD and changing my small power equipment to diesel but the cost of small diesel engines is quite high and there isn't a readily available source of used cooking oils in my area.
How long does BD keep if it's stored? That might make it worth it.



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by ghurd on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 12:17:48 PM MST
(User Info)

Would anyone care to recommend a good book to get started with WVO?
G-



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by farmerfrank on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 02:02:11 PM MST
(User Info)

Biodiesel is great as a road fuel but is quite a bit more expensive when used as a 24/7 power source. Even a small VW engine will use 10 gallons a day or close to 4000 gallons a year. Thats a lot of 20 litre batches. What does it cost you to make biodiesel...about $1 a gallon plus your time and cost of picking it up?



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by wildbill hickup (wildbill_hickup at yahoo.com) on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 02:22:51 PM MST
(User Info)

Right now it cost me about $1 per gallon, however I intend on purchasing methanol in bulk thatr will cut the price to $.60


[ Parent ]


Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by farmerfrank on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 04:59:35 PM MST
(User Info)

I haven't done the calculations myself yet by the makers of electric vehicles claim that a gallon of fuel is about the same as 25 cents worth of electricity.I'm sure that will change as the natural gas prices rise. I worked in a cogen plant and the price of electricity is almost impossible to beat unless you have a free fuel source such as sun or wind.

[ Parent ]


Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by K3CZ on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 02:22:03 PM MST
(User Info)

For starters, try pulling up "www.attra.ncat.org", the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service.  They have rich resources of Biodiesel info, among other things.  The most appropriate bulletin is labeled "Biodiesel - a Primer" of about 14 pages and can be downloaded.  It contains info on the home production of Biodiesel from both SVO and WVO, from 1l. to 20l.  The latest HomePower has an article on a closed process for the transesterification (!) process using recycled domestic hot water heaters.
                                                K3CZ



Thanks (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by wdyasq on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 04:52:36 PM MST
(User Info)

Good recource.

Ron
Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen
[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by Devo on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 06:10:53 PM MST
(User Info)

I was making small batches last year , I priced out a 45 gallon drum of methanol & figured I could get the fuel made for under 40 cents a litre , the trouble is the $$ spent to heat the oil to rid it of water-some people let the 20 litre batches of wvo oil sit in the sun & then settle the oil & water seperates over time & you can then remove the water from the bottom.

A little of topic I read about a guy running diesel in a briggs & stratton once warmed up , I tried it last summer & ran 3 tanks  -last week I ran straight used wvo in my test briggs & stratton motor I had the fuel tank heated to 100 celcius & the fuel jet wide open & the air intake almost closed -about 95% off. -it smoked but it ran , I am trying to build a better tank/ carb assembly so I can get the heat up high enough to burn the oil better -the things we do for fun eh -lol

Devo  



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by RobD on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 06:35:28 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.dsgnspec.com

How about machining yuor own injector and preheating the oil just before it goes into the manifold?
I think it would work but the plugs might not last long. Also the hot oil would probably cause some preignition.

The cranks aren't heavy enough on the Briggs, maybe a Kohler could hold up to the forces of going to diesel on a gas engine.

[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#19)
by nothing to lose (nothingtolose175 at yahoo.com) on Sun May 22nd, 2005 at 06:11:15 AM MST
(User Info)

"How about machining yuor own injector and preheating the oil just before it goes into the manifold?
I think it would work but the plugs might not last long."

I am thinking about the same for a truck engine, 351W 3/4ton :)

Heat the oil at the exhaust manifold, pipe to injector at the carb. Used feul injectors cost me $3 each. Have to figure a way to fire the injectors still though.

I figure if I back off the gas (run very lean) and inject the WVO, the gas should fire and help burn the WVO. I have the feul pump and injectors, did not have oil, getting it today.
Hopefully today, lots of thunder just started up here :(
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.
[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#18)
by nothing to lose (nothingtolose175 at yahoo.com) on Sun May 22nd, 2005 at 06:03:21 AM MST
(User Info)

How are you feeding the desiel or WVO into the engine, throught he carb as gas would normally flow or seperate feed?

I have engines, I should be getting 100-200 gals cooking oil today :)
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.
[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#23)
by nothing to lose (nothingtolose175 at yahoo.com) on Mon May 23rd, 2005 at 10:45:59 AM MST
(User Info)

Seems like you could build a type of solar oven to boil out the water and heat oils etc..

I got into a un-used mini van this weekend for something and it was so hot I could hardly breath in it. Hmm, Sun, 3 sided box, mini-van windows :)
Maybe a Satalite dish covered in Mylar or aluminum foil for a collector also, just don't burn anything down!!

I salvage old hot water tanks alot, Now this would be a good use for those that don't leak! Strip them to bare tanks, flush out the sediment.
Use the sheet metal from the tanks to build a box, the insulation from the tanks to insulate the box. Now add glass from a junk car or van.

You could set up maybe 3 35gal tanks in about 5-6' wide and only  about 2' deep?

I just got about 150Gal oil yesterday :)
Nothing to do with it yet but let it sit :(

Since I plan to be away all summer mine should be well settled by the time I get to use it.
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.
[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#24)
by Norm (peppysue@suite224.net) on Mon May 23rd, 2005 at 05:26:15 PM MST
(User Info)

& then settle the oil & water seperates over time & you can then remove the water from the bottom.
  What if you were to make a small centrifuge...
use a couple of small buckets ...like a laboratory
does with test tubes?
  use a VAWT to spin it? 5 or 6 Gs would seperate the oil and water a lot faster...
              ( :>) Norm.
( :>) Norm
[ Parent ]


Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#17)
by farmerfrank on Sat May 21st, 2005 at 07:45:12 PM MST
(User Info)

The engine should be strong enough to run on BD. Remember that you are not raising the compression ratio which is why a real diesel is built so much stronger. They run compression ratio anywhere from 15:1 up to 20:1 A gasser runs only about 8 to 10.



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#20)
by nothing to lose (nothingtolose175 at yahoo.com) on Sun May 22nd, 2005 at 06:16:28 AM MST
(User Info)

 I think the brigs may hold up better than we think anyway.
I read somewhere how to convert them to diesel along time ago. That involved pulling the head. Not sure if it was just a thinner head gasket, machining the block or the head, or all 3 now though. It did raise the compression ratio anyway what ever it was.
Probably better quality engines too, it was older artical and reffering to older engines.
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.
[ Parent ]



Re: Biodiesel (3.00 / 0) (#22)
by RobD on Sun May 22nd, 2005 at 07:40:56 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.dsgnspec.com

If you're running it as a gas engine the crank takes much less of a beating. when you go to diesel, like someone said, the crank and wrist pin have to take lots more compression and I don't know if they will hold up. I'm wondering if you could take a larger horse power, say 16 hp and reduce the piston area to make a 4 or 5 hp diesel. this way you would get the heavier crank. I'd make a new piston and cast iron sleeve. I'd love to see it done. I have a couple of old 8hp's that I might be able to reduce. What you would get with the piston diameter reduced and the same stroke is higher compression that would ignite the BD. I think most diesels run about 23 to 1 compression ratio.

[ Parent ]


Biodiesel | 25 comments (25 topical, 0 editorial)
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