I have mixed my first batch and I am getting some gel'ing at the top of the BD. And for some reason it is not seperating very well. I am mixing 10 gallons of WVO, 2.2 gallons of meth, and 9.3 ounces of lye. Could it be the type of lye I am using?

Mike,
It looks like you are using about 6.94 grams/liter for your lye. Can you give some more specifics about your process? We need to know your titration, NaOH vs KOH, temperature and mixing time?
Thanks,
DD

I am using NaOH. I bought it at Lowes. It is called Roebic. I am using a 55 gallon barrel, heating 10 gals of oil to 120 degrees, when it reaches temp I turn off the heat, I pour in the lye and meth, and began mixing in 5 min intervals with 15 min breaks in between. I am using a pump as a mixer. The oil is pre filtered before use but not tested for water. When I did my titration it was about 2 ml.

Its a sealed barrel, right? And the lid is sealed on during mixing?

And you mix the lye and methanol together until completely dissolved, then add them, right?

The barrel is an open top. And the lye I am using is in liquid form, not powder.

Mike,
You need to be careful with the open top processors. The best processors will be sealed with a vent to minimize methanol exposure. Also make sure you are doing this in a well ventilated area.

I have never used Roebic as I get my catalyst from a chemical company.
It sounds like your problems are coming from water.
Let's do a few small batches of a liter or so each. Why don't you get some powdered Roebic and dissolve it in the methanol and then add it to the oil for one experiment and then use the liquid catalyst for another liter of the same oil and see what happens.
Before you do this take the oil and heat it up to 225 F and see if any water boils off. Make sure you cool the oil back down to 130F before you do your test batches.
Hope this helps,
DD

Thankyou for the help, I will try that. Do I need to keep the heat on while mixing the in the processor?

Mike,
I would turn off the heat when you add the methanol and keep mixing for the entire time. Ideally you want to maintain the temperature at 130F for the duration of the processing. I use an appleseed and I shut my heat off before I add the methanol. If you have good insulation your temp will not drop much.
DD

Hello Gentlemen,

I'm having the same problem. I get a 50% yield by weight of biodiesel with 50% of what I call glop. I did the test for water. No sputtering occured. I mixed amounts of Naoh starting at 2g to 3.5g. My highest yield occured at 3.5g. I would also like to mention that on a previous experiment I used amounts of NaOh from 9.5g to 12g and got nothing but glop.Very little soap was generated with both experiments. Any suggestions?

The Roebic liquid drain opener is not pure NaOH. You need the Crystal drain opener. The liquid stuff is mostly water. Water, oil, and lye make soap. The goop is soap.

http://www.roebic.com/catalog/clog.htm

-Jim

Hello Jim D,

The Roebic product Iam using is crystal and is pure NaOh.I should have been more specific.
Could the glop be glycerine? If memory serves, I should be getting 1 liter of biodiesel for every liter of oil used in the reaction.Maybe its working as it should?
I'm just very curious about the glop.
I did see a small layer of suds with the glop.
I thought this was the soap. What do you think? Thanks for your input.