High Compression
Thanks for the reply. I just checked the oil it looks just like the last batch at 24 hrs. I dried the oil before i added the glyc. I will check for water when i pull the oil from the barell before i put it in the processor. I am real happy with the quality of the fuel using this method.
Thanks again
Jammer

This is pretty cool, I have lots of oil just sitting in barrels as it is to cold to use it and it sounds like a great way to maybe use a little more bio in the fuel tank during the cold winter months.

I am out of town right now, but when I return home, I'm gonna give this a try. Jammer, keep us posted. I never had to dry my oil in the past, as it is pretty dry right from the colletion site.

I do use the 5% prewash as well, so I wonder if using this glycerin for the HCII method of presettling will be required?

Jammer, keep us posted to your results. Thanks, Kevin

Jammer-
Im really glad to hear its working out for you. Ive had great success with it, so I thought it best to let others share the knowlege. As I say, Im not a chemist or anything like that, in fact, Im an electronics engineer by profession, who just happened on this idea which worked for me, while working as the BioDiesel plant manager at Sundance.....

( http://www.sundancerenewables.org.uk )

Kumar-
When I do this process, it was in a fairly dry and warm in comparison to your temperature workshop, so maybe the moisture and temperatures with you are slowing things down somewhat.
You could take a sample from the surface and try drying it, in a warmer/dryer environment, say, your office or somewhere....--My guess is, theres some meth/moisture present causing the clouding, giving that murky appearance
If you do, try a test-batch of a litre or so in a reaction to see the effects when finished on the low temperature suitability. Im sure it will work out, it perhaps just needs some extra help in your case........

quote:

Originally posted by High Compression II:
SNIP
I believe that Tony From West Oz uses this method for removing the heavy traces of water from his oil before he dries the oil. Using this method reduces his drying time (I think it was Tony who was doing this, I may be wrong......)
SNIP

HCII,
I do use biodiesel process byproduct (crude glycerol and soaps, contaminants, etc) in clarifying some of the "bottoms" of my oil collection drums. As most of my oil is stored indoors, I normally do not dewater the oil at all, but I have put "bottoms" into the glycerol which contained water (the restauranter advised me of the water in the drum - accidental inclusion). The result was a lot of soap production in the drum, but a layer of clear oil appeared which I decanted from the top.

The sediment/byproduct remaining after running a fair bit of "bottoms" thru the byproduct drum is added to my sawdust bucket for packing into milk cartons as heating fuel.

quote:

Originally posted by kd460:

I do use the 5% prewash as well, so I wonder if using this glycerin for the HCII method of presettling will be required?

Jammer, keep us posted to your results. Thanks, Kevin

Im not sure if its a requirement, that the glyc contains a little water--I wouldnt have thought so.--My glyc does contain the water from the 5% and this is what I use for the pre-treatment settlement
Maybe this is worth an experiment or two.....

High Compression
Well i just got done with 2 more batches of oil and reacted. Got about 75 gal of the best fuel i ever turned out.
Using the glyc in the oil to settle even fixed a stinkin bunch of "leftover oil" i was thinking of ditching. As this takes just a little more time,the result is so good i will just keep on doin it in my summer fuel also.
I finished up my spray dryer and i am really gettin the shop set up for a stream line operation.
Thanks for all your imput.
As for having water in the glyc vrs not, doesnt seem to make any difference. I tried 2 batches without prewash water in glyc and 3 batches with both turned out about the same. I think the 3 with the water in glyc settled a little better and were more yellow lookin at the bottom of the barrel, which is a good thing cause i am not going to quit the prewash It is the best thing since toilet paper...

Jammer

It seems sometimes, the worse cruddy oil you treat, the better the separation and oil retreived.

Im really glad youve made some great fuel, How is the cold properties of it?--With any luck, it will be better than your original fuel!

Great--Youve answered the question about the glyc containing water as opposed to not--It would seem that it makes little or no difference to the 'process' of settlement in the pre-treatment of WVO

Dont know about being better than toilet paper though!..........

H.C.II, At--Happy-Campers Divn, SWC

I'm told that my test has been "clearing up"- I haven't seen it in a while (I've been travelling and stuck at the desk, not the plant site), but I look forward to reporting a little more on it...

Kumar--

As I say, you may need a little encouragement from a little heat to completely clear the oil, especially if its rather cold and maybe damp as well.......

Best of luck, and let us know how your test-batch turns out after reacting....

Regards,

Hi folks,

I'm experimenting with another little 'discovery' I made over the past few days.

I reduced the cloud-point by accident, so why not try this lil experiment yourselves on a small scale test batch and see if you get similar results.

I have a barrel of clean, dried BD outside. These past few days, we went down to -8*C and it went solid.

So I brought it inside to warm up. After a day or so it had warmed up to around 16*C. Really clear on top, but a mess of waxy white stuff at the bottom, about 10% depth. I had not moved it or shaken it at all. Lid was on, so it wasn't condensation.

I drained off this bottom 10% and my cloud point of the remaining BD now seems a good 5 degrees C lower.

The stuff at the bottom I drained off has a cloud point about 8 degrees C higher. Some sort of clouding hysteresis effect - which is a great thing, because it allows us to separate the layers. It isn't water contamination - i did a sizzle test in the frying pan and it was dry.

If I heat the frozen mix back up to around 22C all clouding has gone in both layers.

Seems the high cloud-point material has higher densisty so sinks when solidified.

I think I'll keep that bottom layer for summer time running. Smells and feels like BD, doesn't have any hints of being unconverted fat. Wish I had a GC!

My source oil is used restaurant oil, with beef and duck and chicken and turkey and pork dripping, along with veggie oil. Smells great!

Sorry, should have said, normal cloud point for my BD is around 14*C

Hi folks

Looks like it is incomplete conversion ...

I filtered the white stuff and it definitely has the smell of unconverted grease. Looks more than there really is, as it hangs in suspension, but I've obviously goofed! I recon about 1-2% unconverted, by weight.

Anyway, if you want to detect and get rid of unconverted matter, this may be a way of doing it.

Graham-
The denser parts such as maybe partially reacted veggy and tallow esters will settle out over a period of time at their cloud-point, -appearing as a waxy looking stuff under the clearer esters-- This is time-consuming and tedious but can be used to improve the cloud point of the fuel, by filtering out the waxy deposits.

Apparently this method of 'settling out/filtering' the high melting-point esters at reduced temperatures is used in industry to reduce the cloud-point apparently, although Ive not been able to confirm this.......

What my idea does, is to remove as much of the tallows Before reacting, so the end result is a fuel largely free of the high-melting point tallows which then has a good low cloud-point, with no cold treatments or filtering needed--On average, Ive achieved around a
-10 deg C CFPP using your average waste-oil from various places, containing animal fats etc....

What amount of NaOH and Methanol did you use in your reaction and how did the oil titrate?
What time/temperature did you react and did you do the water-after-reaction at 5% before settling the glyc, and did you wash, -Hot OR cold water?

Hi Doc

I'll certainly try your method in my next batch, -10 C is a wonderful result!

I titrated 1.5g+, so 6.5g/l process catalyst.I used 22% methanol.

Ran at 60C for 1 1/2 hours, added 5% water in cleaning tank immediately after dumping from reactor, circulated around 1/2 hour.Drained, added fresh water. Bubbled at 40(ish)C , as hot as I can get it, several cycles until water nice and clear. Drained all water. Let settle a few days, decanted top 2/3 into dryer. Afterwards no splatter in frying pan test.

I don't process that long, I guess I need to extend the processing for better conversion, though 1 1/2 hours has done me fine so far. But obviously not good enough in the real cold!

I'll follow your plan over the weekend with a small 1l test batch, see how we do!

About halfway down this page is something in winterizing:

http://www.iseo.org/ffo_6-7.htm#7

quote:

Originally posted by GrahamLaming:
Hi Doc

I'll certainly try your method in my next batch, -10 C is a wonderful result!

I titrated 1.5g+, so 6.5g/l process catalyst.I used 22% methanol.

Ran at 60C for 1 1/2 hours, added 5% water in cleaning tank immediately after dumping from reactor, circulated around 1/2 hour.Drained, added fresh water. Bubbled at 40(ish)C , as hot as I can get it, several cycles until water nice and clear. Drained all water. Let settle a few days, decanted top 2/3 into dryer. Afterwards no splatter in frying pan test.

I don't process that long, I guess I need to extend the processing for better conversion, though 1 1/2 hours has done me fine so far. But obviously not good enough in the real cold!

I'll follow your plan over the weekend with a small 1l test batch, see how we do!

Just so I got it straight-- After your reaction time (which is a good length, and temperature...) You dump the whole lot, before settling glyc and all, into a separate vessel, to which you add the 5% water, which you mix for half hour before settling and draining glyc?--If so, thats great so far!

The issue that may improve your cold properties is to wash with COLD water-(1 : 2000, H2SO4 : H2O--Great mix for wash-water--)-This will crash-out some of the higher melting-point tallow-esters,/methyl-stearates which tend to solidify at around 29 degrees C, if you havent done the pre-treatment, and may improve slightly the cold properties of your fuel.

Dropout-
Well spotted!--I thought there was something somewhere about this sort of treatment, Guess its easier on an industrial scale!

OK, HC II

The man is a star! Check this out...

I used the same feedstock , same 22%MeOH, same 5.5g/l NaOH, same temperatures, same duration, same washing etc. Note darker colour of brew made with added glyc per HC II, but with only 8 hours overnight sitting before I separated and ran a brew....



Both are perfectly clear at 22C, the bottles still have label-glue on them, and some permanent marker notes , which make them look a little 'messy'..

Now after 2 hours in the fridge...



Only thing I found different, I got no white stuff at all, just some clumpy brown blobs floating on top of the glyc before I separated and ran the reaction.

Who cares, end result looks promising!

I'll let you know where the HCII-special-brew clouds at ... need to get my spare freezer set to around -5C first.

quote:

Originally posted by GrahamLaming:
OK, HC II

The man is a star! Check this out...

I used the same feedstock , same 22%MeOH, same 5.5g/l NaOH, same temperatures, same duration, same washing etc. Note darker colour of brew made with added glyc per HC II, but with only 8 hours overnight sitting before I separated and ran a brew....



Both are perfectly clear at 22C, the bottles still have label-glue on them, and some permanent marker notes , which make them look a little 'messy'..

Now after 2 hours in the fridge...



Only thing I found different, I got no white stuff at all, just some clumpy brown blobs floating on top of the glyc before I separated and ran the reaction.

Who cares, end result looks promising!

I'll let you know where the HCII-special-brew clouds at ... need to get my spare freezer set to around -5C first.

I am in the process of doing this also. I will be using pretreated oil as you did and i will be processing it today. I will let you know how it turns out.

Ian

Hi Ian,

Good news, will be interesting to compare notes.
I'm just down to 0C and I'm starting to cloud, but this is a BIG improvement for me, from 14C CP !

What type of feedstock are you using? I've got roast meats fat and some veg. oil from a local restaurant. Quite stiff at 20C

Graham-
Looks good!--Glad you have improved your fuel.

One thing though........

Did you heat up your source oil before treating with the glyc?
Ive found that works best, even if you've got lots of really cruddy fats in the oil, NOT to heat it--Just mix the whole lot up, then add the glyc, and settle for around 2-3 days--The fats will settle out in a thick whitish gloop at the bottom.--Odd, that you had no white-gloop oil, after settling.

Things to remember are , If the source oils are cloudy/solid at room temperature, then they will have a fairly high 'cloud-point', but the process of making biodiesel will reduce this temperature, often enough in the summer to use with no problems.

Vegetable oils that are perfectly clear and fluid when at room temperature, will have a much lower cloud-point than those above.

The problem arises when oils are mixed as is the case when they are used for cooking--The 'good' oils become contaminated by the high melting point 'fats' from meat and pre-blanched chips (frozen type) which are generally partially cooked in solid veggy oils like palm oil, before being frozen and sold to fast-food joints

What this settling process does, is go some way to separating out the two, leaving you with an oil which is reasonably low in the high melting-point 'fats' to start with, so fuel made then from this has a good low cloud-point.

Well, to be honest, I did heat my feedstock to around 40C.

Reason is, when I mixed it with glyc at room temp, it just sat there and no separation was happening at all. After a few hours, there was no darkening to the bottom half at all. It really is thick and sticky stuff!