My first ASM batch

[Head Womble]

Thanks to Orangevito (Carl) I have some ASM.

Done my first batch with it today and I'm very impressed.

I started with 200L of condenser dried and gly washed oil,
add 3.5L of ASM and 24.5L of meths for the first stage,
0.5ml dropout in the 10/90,
200ml of ASM and 4L of meths add for the second stage,
30min later crystal clear 10/90 

I only got 20L of gly out on the first stage (normally 30 to 35),
as I wanted to do a 5% water prewash I added a few liters of gly from the first stage back in so not to form an emulsion.

It's now settling ready to drain the gly/water tomorrow.

[Jamesrl]

Welcome to the ASM appreciation society.

Simples innit and all that extra Bio.

[nigelb]

'tis marvelous and magical stuff!

[Head Womble]

It's great stuff,
I've yet to do some calculations to see what the pence per liter is, but I suspect it's a worth while extra cost.

I took a sample before the prewash so I can do a soap titrations at all the washing stages,
hopefully this will back up Nige's results.

[Jamesrl]

The first saving to factor in is the cost of the Methanol you DIDN'T use, then there's the extra Bio produced.

How you work out the value of it's ease and simplicity of use I don't know. 

[therecklessengineer]

I've worked it out as an extra 2p per litre - but that's neglecting the increased yield as I haven't accurately quantified that yet.

[Head Womble]

I'm sure the costings will differ amongst us, depending on what we're paying for meths and catalyst.

I pay £95 for a drum of meths (205L) and the last NaOH was £18 for 25kg,
so my costs are reasonably low.

We also need to take into account the cost of oil, I pay 20ppl at one place, 15ppl at another, 10ppl at two places and 0ppl at the rest, on average I'd say it's around 10ppl,
so if we get an extra yield of around 10% that could cover an extra 2ppl chemical costs.

[nigelb]

The cost of ASM for me works out at about 4.5ppl on my batch size and usage.

ASM = £1.90/lt
3.5lts of ASM = £6.65
£6.65/150 = 4.43ppl

Is it worth the it on a ppl basis....of course it is....for me.