Biopowered - vegetable oil and biodiesel forum

Biodiesel => Chemistry and process => Topic started by: Mickindashed on March 20, 2014, 09:23:25 PM

Title: Settling onto water?
Post by: Mickindashed on March 20, 2014, 09:23:25 PM
Has anyone tried pumping the demethed bio into a settling tank that's half full with water? I'm wondering if the soap wouldn't drop out the same as settling onto a batch of bio, but without you having 100L of bio sitting in the settling tank serving no purpose except to get soapy. Any thoughts?
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Head Womble on March 20, 2014, 10:15:12 PM
An advantage would be the gly/soap will stay liquid so easy to drain off, no shoveling it out.

Disadvantage is the bio would need to be dried before use.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Julian on March 20, 2014, 11:31:54 PM
I brought up this idea on the VOD a long time back, but never got round to trying it.

The suggestion was poo pooed at the time, but personally I think it has merit.  I'm pretty confident the soap would dissolve into the water and wouldn't need periodic digging out.

If the bio could be introduced gently ... all same cream on an Irish coffee, I recon there would be little or no wetting of the bio.  Try a long term experiment in a lidded jar.  Alternatively you could run water gently to the bottom of a bio filled barrel through a hose.

I recon it's worthy of further investigation if you're willing to give it a try.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Julian on March 20, 2014, 11:50:22 PM
Just jumped onto the VOD to find the thread.  It would appear that all my subscribed threads have disappeared along with all my messages ... is that the result of the upgrade a while back!

The search facility seems to be as pants as it ever was, so I'm unable to locate it, sorry.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Mickindashed on March 21, 2014, 06:08:36 AM
I'll give it a go next time I brew up and see what happens. The worst case is that it doesn't work and I have to water wash - which is what I do anyway - so there's nothing to lose.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: knighty on March 21, 2014, 09:17:44 AM
The search facility seems to be as pants as it ever was, so I'm unable to locate it, sorry.

typ your search terms into google followed by

site:http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/mybbforum/


and google will search vod for you :-)
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: greasemonkey on March 21, 2014, 09:33:50 AM
Try a couple of litres in a clear bottle, see what happens.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Tony on March 21, 2014, 10:12:18 AM
This is something I also thought about a few years ago, to avoid having to dig soap out - with my new steel tanks that would be quite hard so I'm interested to know if this would work.  I may experiment with a jam jar with tonight's batch :)

In theory with enough water you wouldn't even need to separate the bio/glyc phases, just dump it all into the settle tank and leave it.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Julian on March 21, 2014, 10:26:15 AM

In theory with enough water you wouldn't even need to separate the bio/glyc phases, just dump it all into the settle tank and leave it.

Interesting thought there Tony.

You would certainly need to dry it afterwards, but you could also do a 7% wash and then settle on water.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Julian on March 21, 2014, 10:37:56 AM
The search facility seems to be as pants as it ever was, so I'm unable to locate it, sorry.

typ your search terms into google followed by

site:http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/mybbforum/


and google will search vod for you :-)

Yes, I forgot about that.  Tried it and it gives too many results as all the possible search terms are quite common.  If my subscribed threads list hadn't been deleted I could have found it within seconds.


Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Mickindashed on March 23, 2014, 01:44:42 PM
My plan to settle onto water hasn't got off to a good start. I had my second stage methoxide made up in one container and 5L of water in another ready for the pre-wash and guess which one I used by mistake. I'm going to leave it all to separate and reprocess it when I can drain off the water. So with a bit of luck this time next week I'll have a batch ready to settle onto water. I think there's going to be a lot of soap...
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Tony on March 23, 2014, 05:49:57 PM
Ohh, one of those mistakes.  How annoying.

And Friday I forgot to try a jam-jam sample over water after that batch gave me some grief.
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: 1958steveflying on March 23, 2014, 06:40:16 PM
My plan to settle onto water hasn't got off to a good start. I had my second stage methoxide made up in one container and 5L of water in another ready for the pre-wash and guess which one I used by mistake. I'm going to leave it all to separate and reprocess it when I can drain off the water. So with a bit of luck this time next week I'll have a batch ready to settle onto water. I think there's going to be a lot of soap...

 And if you had taken a real good sniff of one to identify sods law says it would have been the Methoxide ! !
Title: Re: Settling onto water?
Post by: Tony on March 23, 2014, 07:51:08 PM
My plan to settle onto water hasn't got off to a good start. I had my second stage methoxide made up in one container and 5L of water in another ready for the pre-wash and guess which one I used by mistake. I'm going to leave it all to separate and reprocess it when I can drain off the water. So with a bit of luck this time next week I'll have a batch ready to settle onto water. I think there's going to be a lot of soap...

 And if you had taken a real good sniff of each to identify sods law says it would have been the Methoxide ! !

*swirls around mouth and swallows*  No good - this Methoxide is corked!

...would be a really bad idea ;)