How can you test for high water content in your WVO.
My first three test batches all turned to soap.
-Titration was performed correctly
-filtered and pre-heated WVO to 150 f
-Mist washed 6 times
When it cooled almost all turned to soap.
Scratching my head here.

Don’t do an aggressive wash on the first wash also triple check you titration. I have found that if I do aggressive wash on the first one I will end up with mayonnaise some times. Also if you add 5% water after the glycerin drops out (before removing the glycerin) this will help you also. Use your pump to mix the water and the glycerin together.

Jamey
-are you using Naoh or KOH
-when you say almost all turned into soap, are you talking emulsion here. are you loosing biodiesel when draining the water? Tom

Jamey,

Easiest way to test WVO for high water content is to carefully heat it up in a pan and see how much snap crackle pop you get.

Are you sure you're not in the 'orange juice' stage of washing? It looks like that in the early stages of washing when methanol and soaps are still suspended.
Are you doing heated washes? If not, it will take much longer for the methanol to wash out, and because of that, the soaps will take much longer to drop out. I wash 120F-140F.

quote:

Originally posted by Biotom:
Jamey
-are you using Naoh or KOH
-when you say almost all turned into soap, are you talking emulsion here. are you loosing biodiesel when draining the water? Tom

I am using Naoh.
I would say that 85-90% of the batch turned into soap. There is a small seperation, but not enough to worry with.

quote:

Originally posted by andyn:
Don’t do an aggressive wash on the first wash also triple check you titration. I have found that if I do aggressive wash on the first one I will end up with mayonnaise some times. Also if you add 5% water after the glycerin drops out (before removing the glycerin) this will help you also. Use your pump to mix the water and the glycerin together.

Thanks; would you mind explaining an aggressive wash? Sounds like what might be happening.

quote:

Originally posted by binuya:
Are you sure you're not in the 'orange juice' stage of washing? It looks like that in the early stages of washing when methanol and soaps are still suspended.
Are you doing heated washes? If not, it will take much longer for the methanol to wash out, and because of that, the soaps will take much longer to drop out. I wash 120F-140F.

Thanks;
I washed while heated several times then again when cooling.
I may just need to wash longer. But I had read someone that wrote how their water never completely cleared after washing.

Jamey
-when you get into yjis situation where the water will not seperate, add 7 ml of table vinigar / ltr of wash water and mix the batch again. this will break the emulsion. sounds like you made some glop, this can happen wiyh NaOH if you have wet wvo, hight T oil, or if you use too much caustic. When draining the wash water, stop when the liquid gets more viscous than water, draining past this point is like throughing the baby out with the bath water. Tom

quote:

Originally posted by Jamey:
would you mind explaining an aggressive wash? Sounds like what might be happening.

If you are agitating during the first wash, then you are creating problems. Generally speaking, you should only agitate once you've removed a good portion of the soap-making potential. In our case, we don't agitate at all with the first wash, which is all misted on, and we agitate to only a very minor degree in the second wash, along with adding vinegar.

Try heating and using just a small aquarium pump with bubbler (fine bubbles) I run a small fan during this process. It take about 4-5 hours from murky orange juice to clear nice Bio.

Definately recheck titration. Make sure you aren't using too much Naoh. I would also recommend a 5% prewash. You can do a search for it on the forum. It has helped me tremendously to avoid emulsions. Come to think if it, I don't think I've had one since I started prewashing. Afterwards I mist wash and bubble dry. Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by binuya:
Are you sure you're not in the 'orange juice' stage of washing? It looks like that in the early stages of washing when methanol and soaps are still suspended.
Are you doing heated washes? If not, it will take much longer for the methanol to wash out, and because of that, the soaps will take much longer to drop out. I wash 120F-140F.

I have washed several times. My in-tank heat source will take it to 110F at best. It does look like what you describe as the OJ stage. So I should just keep washing, huh?
Thanks

Jamey,

I'm still not sure I understand: are you agitating at all during the wash? In other words, is there any movement of liquids? How gently is the water brought into the fuel?

quote:

Originally posted by kumar:
Jamey,

I'm still not sure I understand: are you agitating at all during the wash? In other words, is there any movement of liquids? How gently is the water brought into the fuel?

It is introduced by a fine mist wash.

There is no movement in the fuel at all.

where are you in NC?