Biodiesel process guide
I have been asked by fellow member of the forum to creat my suggested
fast track guide to making biodiesel in advance i appologise for my spelling, this is the brief guid to making Biodiesel start to finish
there are different methods and adaptions of this method you can use along the way but for me this is by far the easiest and most affective
im new to wiki and forum editing so please bare with me, I hope to hyper link each task in the process to the page on here which goes into more detail, on the specific science of that task.
Bio making can be quite time consuming but it helps if you can multi task, IE titrate whilst your oil is warming or transfering.
Dewatering
- Dewater your oil - raise oil temp to at least 60 degrees C and allow to stand for at least one hour, over night is better.
- Take a sample for titration (from the top, more than 1ml)
- Transfer the oil to your processor
Titration
- Add 10ml of IPA to a beaker
- Add a few drops of Phenalphaline
- With a syringe draw a little of your titration solution, and add dropwise to your beaker until your solution turns purple and stays purple for approximatley 30 seconds. This is known as blanking, so you know you're at neutral pH.
- Add 1ml of your oil sample you drew from step 2 and swirl - the solution will turn a yellowy white
- Fill a 1 ml syringe with 1 ml of your titration solution and add drop wise to your beaker swirling constantley, you are trying to find the point as where the solution goes and stays purple for 30 seconds again, it may take several fills of the syringe with your titrant.
- once a purple colour has been reached and stay contant for 30 seconds you need to count the amount of titrant you have used.
For example from blanking 1 ml oil is added and you add 1 whole syringe of titrant and then 0.4 mls of the second fill your titration would be 1.4 this is very important write this down
- now we know your titration we need to add this figure to your base i use 5.5
so we add these together 1.4+5.5= 6.9 this figure is the amount of sodium hydroxide you need to add per litre of oil you are going to process
- Heat your oil ready for process to 55 degrees C and turn off heater (make sure your pump is on and circulating)
Process
- Mix methoxide (whilst heating oil)
- Inject methoxide via a venturi
- Process allow to mix for one hour
- Take a sample for 3/27 or 5/45 and allow to sit for 10 minutes
5/45 test
- add 45mls of methanol to a suitable containor
- add 5mls of biodiesel from the top of your settled sample taken in step 9
- tightly close the lid and shake for 10-15 seconds for an accurate test your methanol should be at 20 degrees C
- allow to stand for 5-10 minutes
what you are looking for is the solution to become transparent and to be constant through out and no fall out/seperation of liquids if you have oil in the bottom of the vessel the reaction is not yet complete often more mixing will solve this.
Drain Glycerol
- Settle (turn off all the pumps) transfer to settling tank if applicable.
Stand for at least one hour
- Drain Glycerine (slowly open your drain valve and drian the glycorine to a suitable vessle glycerine is black and thick when the lighter biodiesel starts to flow out shut off valve).
- Transfer biodiesel to demeth and settle tank.
- Bubble over night (i use a large koi pond air pump with 2 ceramic air stones in a sealed drum with a 32mm pipe throught he wall please make sure this is done in a well ventalated area)
- Settle out soap, turn off the air pump and allow to settle naturaly for approximatley 1 week#
Soap test
- Fill a jar pickle,jam what ever you choose just under half full with a sample of your biodiesel add about the same off water give three solid shakes, and allow to stand for approximatley 5 minutes. If, when settled, the water on the bottom of your sample is clear your good to go simply pass your fuel through at least a 5 micron filter and fill your car!
remembering that winter time your fuel will need winterising
More work to be done on this page :)
