Biodiesel problem resolved

[wildbill hickup]

Well the jelly is now biodiesel and bubbling away in the wash tank (turns out there was no water based on tilly's diagnosis). Thanks to you folks and your suggestions and an individual 'Squire Tilly' on the biodiesel group over at yahoo I was able to play with some small samples of the gell and come up with a solution (not enough lye) . Troy, I'll never get bit in the a$$ again!!!! No more skipping titration for me. Haven't got my 500g scale yet, but tilly suggested that temporaritly I take a small sample and heat it up to over 212F if it pops and spaters it's got water in it. I will also let the new batch heat for a longer period of time, though it does not appear to have any water(little or no reaction to above). Buy the way when I do get the scale and use your test plan. Two questions (1) What do YOU consider to be to much water to bother with (in the sample)? and (2) When you find an exceptible amount of water, how do YOU get rid of it or compensate for it in your batch? There seem to be quite a few oppinions on the subject and I'd like yours as well(it sounds like you been doing this for awhile). Again thanks to all for the help.....and back to the chem lab.

Wildbill

[wdyasq]

Bill,

First thanks for letting us know there was an answer and the second time for putting it in a diary where it could more easily be found.

I'll let the BioD group answer your question as I am ignorant about possible solutions - although I do believe they may talk of the solution in the making processes I read.

Ron

[nothing to lose]

I was looking for the other post but did not find it now.

Anyway glad you got this fixed, I'll be looking for alot of info also, just got about 150gal oil. Perhaps oil water mix

Lot's of good clean oil, then I seamed to hit a spot that mght be mostly water. Pump run faster, liquid shot out farther, looked alot thinner, kinda white muddy look.

Where does the water locate after sitting undisturbed? Bottom of the barrel? Mine will sit for a few months while I am in Canada and other travels. About August I'll be using it for something.

I may play with a gallon early though

[wildbill hickup]

NTL,

 Your discription sounds like water to me. And maybe quite a bit.NOTE: Based on an unpleasent (to say the least) experience I had when I was younger if your mixture has alot of water in it DON'T mix it with lye!!! Many years ago I had a drain that had water and grease in it back up on me. So I put in a teaspoon of lye drain opener. The reaction was quite violent (again to say the least) a caustic guyser was more like it and In the location of the plug I thought the PVC pipe was going to melt. OIl water and lye don't mix well and I don't imagine adding a healthy dose of methanol will help :->

On to small quanities of water

From what I have gathered so far, (1) If you let the water/oil mix sit in the sun in say 5 gallon buckets ( something you can get into and see the bottom of) for several hours (or days) the water will settle to the bottom. Then the oil can then  be carefully decanted off the top using some sort of dipper, like a big measuring cup. The longer it sits the better. It also appears that a small amout of water suspended in the oil will settle into the gly/soap layer durring the reaction(Not sure if Troy agrees with that). The more water the thicker that layer. Although this is for very small amounts that arn't really visible.  However the general concencess, dispite the reason is the less water the better. I generally let my oil sit for a couple of weeks before I use it and then heated(buy the sun or other) the day before use. I have now found it useful to take a small amount of each batch and put it in a clear glass jar (kind of gives you an indicator of what's going on in the bucket. If you see water in the jar you know there is water in the bucket.

As far as letting your oil sit til august, I have been told not to let the oil get ransid. It makes it more difficult (or impossible in some cases) to work with. Again Troy(or others) may have some thoughts on this, but if you have to let it sit that long I'd keep it in a cool if not cold place to keep it from spoiling.

[Norm]

  It might work....put a large dry sponge in

a big funnel pour your oil through it ....

maybe a liter at a time...then take the sponge

and gently squeeze it to get the excess oil out

....then really squeeze it over a waste can and

you'll get a little bit of oil and a lot of water

(if there was water in the oil)

  Here is why I think it might work:

   I used to wash the air filters on Briggs &

Stratton mower engines then squeeze them almost

dry...put a tablespoon of oil on the wet sponge

and squeeze it...all the water that was left in

the damp sponge got squeezed out and was

replaced by the oil.

   Well its worth a try? Nothing to lose you

might end up with an oil sponge but if nothing

else you can use detergent and wash the sponge

out. I'd try it myself but I don't have any

watery oil.

   Of course this might not be practical on

more than a gallon or so at a time?

               Somebody please try it?

         I'm curious to see if it would work.

                   Thanks!

                     ( :>) Norm.

[troy]

Glad to hear you're back in business!  Yes, Tilly's a dear.

I prefer zero water.  There are various approaches to get you to zero.  I won't fuss too much if the water content is 2% or less, but it does lower your yield and make washing more problematic.

1. You can heat your oil to around 240F.  Messy, smelly and possibly dangerous.  As the water turns into steam, it can launch boiling oil right at you.  I don't know how it knows where you are, but trust me on that. Plus it sucks up wads of energy.  Cooking to this temperature would be my last choice.
   
2. Gravity seperator.  If you let your raw oil settle for a few months, especially if the containers can sit in the sun and bask, this will often do most of the work for you.  Just leave the grotty water and crunchy bits on the bottom.  This method is not totally reliable and should never be used without testing for water content prior to reaction.
   
3.  Circulation drying, my method of choice. Combines nicely with #2. This consists of pumping or recirculating the oil through a nozzle or perforated pipe (rather like a showerhead but with bigger holes) into a drum to produce lots of surface area to allow the water to evaporate.  It helps if the air is dry and the oil is warm.  I heat mine a bit to 120F to help the water evaporate. This always works, but the wetter the oil, the longer it takes.  And of course, I still test to make sure.
   
   

Good luck and have fun!

troy

[TomW]

Troy;

Have you tried pulling a vacum on the oil as you circulation dry it?

I don't know about biod but I understand a vacum will pull water out a bit faster than ambient pressure. Just a thought.

Cheers.

TomW

[troy]

There has been an ongoing discussion about the merits of vacuum or vac-assist drying of WVO (andd also methanol extraction from the waste product).  They do the same thing with orange juice to make concentrate without spending too much on heat.

It's not a free lunch though.  It takes energy to make a vacuum, or partial vacuum.  That may be less energy than just heating, but perhaps a close race with circulation drying with modest heat input.  Nobody, so far as I know, has done a carefully documented fair comparison that really compares the numerical data.

Practically, it's a lot easier for me to pump through a pipe with holes to get cheap evaporation, than to produce a pressure vessel that can stand vacuum, plus the vac pump, and a condensor.  There's also the problem of of all the contaminants (crunchy bits, etc.) in the used oil.  Even with care, it's tricky to keep all the oil vapors and junk out of your vac pump and condensor in the long run.  

Some use converted water heaters that would prob. work for vac extraction.  I'm waiting for someone else to come up with the cheap, durable, slick efficient vac distillation rig before I jump in.

Finest regards,

Troy  

[nanotech]

Just something to think about, but wouldn't a centrifuge idea work?  Water is heavier than oil, so it will always settle to the bottom of the oil.  Higher gravity will force more water to the bottom faster.  And the only way to increase gravity here on Mother Earth is through artificial means.  Easiest is to use centrifugal force.

I'm sure others around here could come up with a better way, but my idea would be to use 2 (or multiples of 2) 5 gallon pails with a 1/4npt tap fitted to the bottom.  Attatch each pair of pails to opposing ends of a "spinner bar".  Rig something up so that as centrifugal force starts to enact on them they will pivot thier bottoms outward.

Spin the oil for about 30 minutes, causing all water to settle to the bottom, stop the centrifuge, drain water out of the tap, pour oil into permenant storage.

Would that idea work?  Or am I coming up with more useless crap?  

[troy]

As far as centrifugal separation of water and oil, the best answer is maybe.

Water contamination generally consists of two parts, free water and emulsified or suspended/disolved water. Emulsified water contamination is fairly common.  A centrifuge works very well on free water, and badly or not at all on emulsified or disolved water.

If it takes one day for my free water to settle out at 1G, I can make it settle out in 1 hour at 24G.  However, think about the practical implications of your home-brew machine.  Do you know how fast you have to swing a five gallon bucket to produce 24G?  Scary fast.  If the oil weighs 5gal x 7lb = 35lb at 1G, then it will weigh 35lb x 24G = 840lb when the centrifuge is swinging that baby around.  I typically make a 40 gallon batch every two weeks, so that'd be a honkin' impressive centrifuge or I'd be making lots of smaller batches.  

Industrial centrifuges, both batch and continuous, exist and work really well.  But they are expensive due to the forces involved. To get free water out, it's a lot easier just to let it stand for a week or two and drain the free water.  You still have to deal with the emulsified stuff though.

Good luck and have fun!

troy

[kitno455]

there is another option, commercial drying agents, like mag sulfate or calcium chloride, or even better, super saturated aqueous sodium chloride. you can get salt cheap, and water is free, and you can re-use it.

allan

[nothing to lose]

Thanks.

I think what happend with mine is a friend tried to help, it was hard getting it pumping, to early morning, oil cold from night, to thick, to small pump and hose etc.

 Anyway I think he stuck the hose in the bottom of the tank or very close

So I probably got all the water first, then oil.

As for rancid, it's already been sitting in the waste tank awhile and stinks a bit, so it probably is already.

When I get ready to use this oil I think I have a way to bring it up to several hundred degrees slowly and can stop heating it any time if it starts acting bad, poping alot and such. So first I will settle out all the water I can then suction off the bottom of each tank to remove settled water. Stop when I hit oil, then dry the oil left in the tank with the heat.

No place around here to keep that much oil cool, would have to bury the barrels

 I may make a vent tube, they will sit in summer sun and get hot, perhap some water will evaporate, and getting hot may thin it enough to settle really well.

Nothing I can do I think now but hope for the best.

[nothing to lose]

Kinda curious too.

 I would think water would run through a sponge fairly easy but oil would sit on top if it were used as a strainer. A dry sponge will absorb water fast and hold alot, but once soaked more going in the top more that runs out the bottom. Oil being thicker would have a harder time passsing through a sponge than thin water.

 I think!

Has anyone used a sponge as a strainer/filter?

[nothing to lose]

You could put a couple 55gal barrels on there and make some big batches

Have you ever looked into Lube refiners that were used on old semi engines, might still be used, not sure.

I think they were some type of centrifuge, spun out the inpurities from the engine oil as you were driving. Might be various types and not that up on them myself. I recall one from a mid or late 70's Freightliner I think. It leaked and was removed, not needed becuase of the trucks low yearly milage and oil changed each year.

Anyway I think it spun at high speed, dirty oil in spins around a few times, clean oil out, sort of a constant feed. Something like this may work well for removing free water and crud fast. Maybe 2 small tanks, tubing to near the outer end to feed in oil, so dirty oil goes in the outer end, spining cleans the oil, as more dirty oil enters the outer end the cleaner oil is pushed to the center and out a second tube in the center to the clean oil tank. Then you would need a way to clean out the crud also when you stop the spin cycle.

You could control the speed of the spin to what you want. Kinda like spinning an open bucket on a rope and the water stays in upside down, but it is not fast. Slower spin should work well, just not as fast as a faster spin.

 How long the oil spins could be controlled by how fast it is feed into the tanks. No feed and all oil tries to stay in the spining tanks, slow oil feed will push the clean oil out slow. Fast feed pushes oil out fast. If you have pretty clean oil use a fast feed, if you have dirty stuff, use a slow feed.

Only thing I am not sure of is how to seal the center connections where spining tubes would connect to non-spinnning tubes. That's always a problem for me, figuring out seals. Like when I build a inboard engine boat and run a shaft out under water, how do I keep water from entering the boat at the shaft??

 Perhaps timing chain cover crank seals like for Ford 302 or Chevy 350? Though there realy preventing free leaks, no presure pushing.

That's kinda my thoughts on a centrifuge but to begin with I will stick to heating I think when I begin. I have plans for a heating system that won't use any feul, just build it in as one more part of my charcoal maker, black smith and metal casting setup. If I get it all built the way I plan, there will not be any waste heat escaping from anything. Each part uses heat for it's own purpose, start with the process that makes the most waste heat and feed the exhaust heat to the next process then the next etc... untill it is almost cool air escaping at the end.

[BeenzMeenzWind]

You'd be surprised how much pressure there can be in some of those crank cases. I've a diagram somewhere of a sectioned crankcase design, which uses the 'pumping losses' any engine suffers to deliberately create pneumatic pressure. The seals look like standard automotive kit, not some exotic race only parts.

The pneumatic pressure is used to operate air 'spring' valves, like in a Formula 1 car. The crankcase has a plate between each big end journal to separate the cylinders and a bunch of one-way valves. Not sure where I put the picture or I'd scan it and post it.

Anyway, crank seals should work fine for containing pressure in a rotating system as long it's not a stupid amount. Can't speak to longevity, though. I've seen turbocharged 2l mitsubishi and nissan engines with crank seal leaks after 200 miles and they're VERY well built engines by US standards. (Not criticising US engineering by the way, just that big V8s can work with sloppier tolerances simply by virtue of being BIG.)

I've got a couple of bits in the pipeline for my hotrod which will need similar seals, so will let you know how it works. Assuming the wife ever stops finding me household jobs. lol

[Tom in NH]

Hey Wild Bill,

I haven't seen any flashes of light out my west window so I guess you haven't blown yourself up yet. I found this link today and thought you might find something there of interest regarding biodiesel. http://www.green-trust.org/

Tom

[nothing to lose]

Most of the oil pan/crank cases I am used to don't have much for pressure in them unless caused by a problem like compression leakage it should not have anyway.

 Often have pinhole leaks on some of the old rusty cars, they just drip out the rust holes, no pressure no squirting

It's amazing how bad North USA roads are with salt! I was born in Ohio. Anyway I have a  nice conversion van (from Ohio), some body rust, not bad. The oil pan had 2 holes rust into it. I plugged them with epoxy, hope they hold till I can pull the pan and replace it.

 My starter just gave out when I was working on it the other day (not drove for about 1 year). Pulled the starter today, Geuss what, the starter case itself has some serious rust pits, the little cover over the top is rusted out, pieces missing!

I get alot of cars that had oil pan rust (not normally this bad) but so far with normal cars I have not had any with pressurized crank cases, though I mostly do older Fords, Chevy, Dodge, etc..

Anyway back top the centrifuge, I geuss it should not actually have much pressure on the feed line, and the outlet line doesn not even need sealed, it could just be one smaller line inside another larger line for the clean oil to run down and to a storage tank. Just a straight line with an L on the end that is spinning with the tanks and a larger not moving line it dumps into. So just poke in down in there and forget it

[BeenzMeenzWind]

I suppose we're lucky here in that we don't suffer too badly with salt corrosion. We only get the roads salted for a few weeks usually and it rains a lot over the springtime, so I suppose it all gets washed off again before it can do much damage.

I'm wondering whether there might be some chemical you could add to de-emulsify any water, then centrifuging would be much more useful. They do it when they're making liquid pigments, so I suppose it's possible. Have to look that up.

[wildbill hickup]

Hi Tom,

I've been to green-trust, very good info on that one. Just a matter of digesting it all. Things seem to be going smoother here now. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. Hows the solar project going?

WIldbill

[BeenzMeenzWind]

I may just not have asked Google the right things here, but...

What do you do with the 'waste' once you've processed the VO / WVO into biodiesel. Most of the sites I've checked make vague references to it being used as fertilizer and such.

I've been reading about growing bacteria on oil substrates. (I read a novel called Gateway and that got me interested.)

I was wondering if you could use the 'waste' as a feedstock for a digester? Obviously, all the domestic organic waste would be going in there as well, as it seems a mixture of feeds works pretty well for the purpose, absent a small herd of cattle to power it.

Does anyone know if this works? The stuff must contain organic material once the biodiesel has been removed, right?

[wildbill hickup]

I'm not sure about the direct answer to your question, I'll leave that to someone else, but here are some of the things I have discovered, and that I'm trying.

Once you either boil off or distill the byproduct(to get rid of the methanol)the waste can be used as is, as a degreaser, grease is easily broken down and washed off with warm water. I first tried on an oil pan I had to replace a gasket on, worked extreamly well and once water had dried left a spotless serface with no oil residue as some comercial degreasers do. As I understand it is also broken down by the enviroment very easily. I took a chance with the next experiment(remainder of lye?) and used some to clean hands with worked great and no burns(whew!!) I am also trying various recipies for a high glycerine soap by mixing part oil part byproduct, part water and more lye (as you can tell I haven't quite figured out the 'parts' yet, but I'm working on it.

Additional info that I have found but haven't tried, burning, maybe gasifing (must be done at high temps)as an additional fuel, composting (maybe something in your direction), not really sure how much to use, as you say, so far info I have found on subject is pretty vague. If I find more I'll keep you posted.

If you haven't already check out www.journeytoforever.org

Wildbill