Titration

Intro required

The reason for titrating used cooking oil

If you make biodiesel from fresh, unused vegetable oil there is no need to titrate the oil. This is because unused oil has little or no Free Fatty Acids content, this allows base levels of catalyst (5 grams per litre of oil for NaOH and 7 grams per litre for KOH) to be used in the biodiesel reaction.

Used vegetable oil, on the other hand, will contain Free Fatty Acids in varying amounts largely depending on how, and for how long, it has been used.

Free Fatty Acids plays no useful part in the biodiesel reaction and needs to be removed. This is done by adding additional catalyst with which it will react to form soap which is later removed as part of the production process.

Titration is a test that simply determines the amount of Free Fatty Acids in the oil, from which the quantity of catalyst, additional to the base level, can be calculated.

It is very important to obtain accurate titration results, as these will have a major bearing on the quality of the finished biodiesel. For accuracy, it is well worth while doing two or more titration tests and averaging the results, especially of the titration levels are high.

Equipment required

The items required for the test are very basic, although you can go to the expense of laboratory equipment, most home brewers don’t bother. Keep an eye on the household rubbish, over time most bits and pieces required can be found and reused. As we are private individuals carrying out this process at home we are not obliged to label any storage bottles to the same degree as would be required in a commercial situation. It is however, good practise and very strongly recommended, to clearly and indelibly mark each storage container with its contents.

Scales

In the past home brewers have advocated making balances with which to weigh out chemicals. However, very accurate, digital scales are now available at extremely reasonable prices via the internet and advertised a jewellery scales, it is these that are now pretty much standard equipment in the home bio lab.

The scales will need to have a minimum resolution of 0.1 grams. You will only need this degree of accuracy infrequently for making your titration reference solution. However, if the range of the scales is large enough, say up to 1Kg, they can also be used for weighing the catalyst during biodiesel production which saves buying two sets of scales, although with large processors and high titrating oil it may be necessary to weigh the catalyst in two hits.

The platen on this type of scale is small but it’s capacity can be increased by using a suitable jug to contain the chemical and then using the “tare” facility, reset zero.

Beakers

Beakers in the laboratory, but jars in the bio lab. You will require a minimum of two jars. One to hold the oil sample, a jam jar is perfect for this and a smaller jar for the titration reaction. A baby food or fish paste jar is more suitable for this operation. Although two is a minimum, it’s always handy to have several jars to hand for spent solutions and used syringes and pipettes etc.

Measuring cylinders

As with beakers laboratory type measuring cylinders can be used but plastic measuring cups form the kitchen work equally as well. For titrations only small volumes of 10ml are required, so a medicine measure might be employed or a syringe, see below. For making reference solutions you will need to measure 1 litre accurately and this will be done more conveniently with a larger vessel.

Syringes and pipettes

It’s largely down to preference as to which you use, but you will need a two, possibly three sizes. A 20ml syringe will be useful if you don’t use the 10ml measuring cup mentioned above and something like 3ml plastic pipettes for measuring the oil sample and reference solution. If you have high titrating oil, a syringe of around 10ml may be more convenient.

Personally I prefer to use the plastic, disposable pipettes, they are cheap to buy and are far easier to use with one hand than a syringe.

Dropper bottle

A small dropper bottle will be needed to store and dispense pH indicator solution. One similar to this is perfect, but a glass “eye dropper” bottle could equally be employed.

Reference solution storage bottle

This can be a glass or plastic bottle of between 500 ml and 1 litre. If using plastic HDPE is recommended as the reference solution is a mild base. I use an old gear oil bottle which has a translucent strip moulded into one side allowing the contents level to be viewed. What ever you use the top must be air tight to stop the solution coming into contact with the air.

Chemicals required

The following chemicals will be required for the titration process. All can be purchased via the internet and some from supermarkets or hardware stores. Be sure that you obtain a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for each product you buy. It is a legal obligation on the part of the seller to supply this. Ask before purchasing, if an MSDS is not supplied, find another supplier.

Isopropyl alcohol

1 litre should be sufficient for 100 titrations. Aim to buy the most pure you can at least 95% or better.

pH indicator solution

Tumeric indicator

As with many things biodiesel, you can use a proprietary indicator solution such as phenolphthalein, but any solution which indicates a pH of 8.5 will be fine. The cheapest and most readily available is the spice turmeric. This needs to be made into a solution as follows:

In a clean jar mix Isopropyl alcohol and powdered turmeric in the ratio of 10parts Isopropyl alcohol to one part turmeric by volume and mix well. The proportions are not too critical, but you should end up with a bright yellow solution with the turmeric powder settled at the bottom. Decant off the liquid into your dropper bottle and dispose of the dregs. For each titration you will only use a few drops so you don’t need to make up a massive quantity. As the rate of use is slow it is advisable to make fresh solution every few months to ensure that you always obtain accurate results.

Turmeric solution is obviously non hazardous and non toxic but it will severely stain clothes and work surfaces so take suitable precautions.

Phenolphthalein

An alternative to making your own is to use Phenolphthalein, which is a commercially used indicator that turns from yellow to pink over pH 8.2. It can be bought from some biodiesel supply stores or on popular online auction sites. Only a few drops are needed at a time so only a small bottle is required for titration. However, unlike Tumeric indicator, it is an irritant and there is some evidence that it is slightly carcinogenic, so take precautions when handling.

Reference solution

This needs to be a very accurately made solution of your catalyst, be it NaOH or KOH and distilled or deionised water.

Using clean equipment accurately measure out 1 litre of distilled water. Weigh out 1 gram of catalyst to an accuracy of 0.1gram (this is why you require scales of a similar accuracy). It is best practise to use catalyst from the same batch as you will use to make your biodiesel. Ideally the catalyst should be 99% pure. Add the catalyst to the water and stir carefully until completely dissolved.

A more accurate method of mixing a reference solution is to use the procedure above but use 10 grams of catalyst to 1 litre of distilled water. Then take 100ml of this solution and mix with a further 900ml of distilled water.

Both the raw catalyst and the solution you have made are hygroscopic. This means they will absorb water from the atmosphere. If this happens to any large extent it will render the raw catalyst unusable and the reference solution inaccurate so keep both in air tight containers and only expose to the air for as short a time as possible.

For each titration you will only require a very small quantity of reference solution, typically a maximum of 10ml, so a one litre batch will give you at least 100 tests depending on the titration level of your oil. As with the indicator solution it is best practice to make a fresh solution after a few months to ensure the accuracy of the test. Similarly, if you purchase a new supply of catalyst for bio production, then you should make a new reference solution using the new catalyst.