I dont think Ive ever seen any KOH, let alone actually made fuel with it, so unfortunately I cannot say.....

Looking like it may need to be NaOH if Old300D is having problems with KOH.....

On Fridays, I collect about 15 gallons of canola oil from a nice little fish restaurant. The warm it to flush their fryers so I collect it warm (at least 100 degrees F - 38 degrees C). Last Friday I collected the oil and took it out to my friend's shop where we process and dumped into an open 30 gal. HDPE barrel. Let it set until that evening when it had cooled down, then added about 2 gallons of coke-colored by-product from a previous process. We use KOH.

Since we're in an unheated shop and night time temps have been in the mid 20s F (4 deg. C) at night, I put an aquarium heater in the barrel to keep the temp at about room temp (70 degrees F, +/- or 21 deg. C). Within 1 day I saw what appeared to be the by-product pooling in the bottom of the barrel (dark, clear) with the oil turning into a blotchy orange-ish mix if quite thin stuff and thicker, semi-solid stuff. But all looking like semi-solidifying oil.

After 3 days (this morning) nothing had changed, so I mixed it again with a stir stick, like I did on Friday. As of this evening, nothing has settled out and it still looks like a blotchy mess of semi solidifying oil and thinner stuff with solids suspended in it. No separation.

I'll let it go for most of th rest of the week. I'm hoping I can process it, but since it has some water in it (I pre-wash after processing), it may need a lot of drying.

Maybe this doesn't work with KOH. Any suggestions with my batch of oil?

Thanks,
Jay

quote:

Originally posted by OB1 CANOLA:
Hey HCII
I just got a batch of oil that the top blew off the 55 barrel. It is significantly wet.
I have pumped the top off and have a bunch of
cruddy wet oil left .Do you think i would benefit
from this process to reduce the amt of water in the oil before i dewater with heat.I like to avoid
water explosions in hot oil.

Well I did this this afternoon.
I mixed it with some koh glycerin byproduct
So we have multiple folks trying this with koh.
Chemically I can't explain why this wouldn't work with naoh and not Koh maybe some of our esteemed chemists can shed some light (Neutral?)
I don't know that the lye has anything to do with what is going on here.
Anyway i Had top pumped out 20 gal or so from the barrel into cubies so i could move the barrel. I got some water separation in the cubies
and i decanted the oil back into the barrel
i added the byproduct and stired with a canoe paddle until it looked like mocha ice cream
(for lack of a better description).
I will let this sit maybe a week and watch it.
I was going to throw this oil out because i was thinking it was just too wet to process.
I will let you know what happens.

Kumar
I have been doing this with KOH, I have never used Naoh.
I only did testing in the freezer on the first batch,(b100) and it was down to 17deg f before it started to cloud.
I have been using a 40-60%mix bio to dino, just because of the wild swings we get here in northern indiana. I am washing another batch right now and have plugged in my daughters apt ref. I want to set the freezer to a specific temp, I will shoot for 17deg f to set a sample in to see what it does long term.
I can only tell you my first batch, I didnt use any glyc to settle out the oil, and didnt do a prewash, it was butter at 28deg f. I should have some answers the end of the week.
Jammer

A question for those in the know,
I have got 23 gallons of nice canola in a HPDE barrel with the top cut out. I mixed a little over 5 gallons of glycerol with it and stirred it with a stick until it looked just like gravy. After acouple days not much had happened, so I put a heat lamp over the oil about a foot from it. The shop is not heated after all and this time of year it hovers around 45°f. The next day it had made about a 3" layer of clean oil on top. After a bout 2 weeks now I have 14 gallons of clear oil on top of about 14 gallons of gravy. Should I expect more settling, what is the general yeild for a "normal" settling opperation?
I am using KOH and am looking forward to processing this batch but I dont want to end the settling too soon. It would be cool to be able to run B100 in the winter

I'm using KOH but my interest in the process is the clearing and the clarification of oil prior to filtering...

However I was wondering HC; could it be that the addition of glycerol to oil has the effect of removing FFA as well as water from the upper layers of oil. Chemically all 3 substances are polar and therefore would have an affinity for each other...

Anybody done any testing?

Ok then, thanks for the help
I figured it out myself. Aparently heat is a necessary part of the settling process, I insulated my barrel and added a second heat lamp and the oil setteled leaving a bit over 5 gallons of goo in the bottom. So now we shall see if there will be a cold weather improvement, off to the processor now.

I've had sucess 2x now using koh. I decided to do the pre treatment in my processor and so far haven't had any probs draining. Usually what I do is drain a couple of gallons off then wait a while and drain off a couple more. I keep repeating this process until I have enough room in the processor to make a batch which usually means that I've drained off around 40 liters into 3 or 4 cubbies. When I get ready to pretreat another batch, I pour off the good stuff from the top of those cubbies that have had a chance to settle more.
Both batches have withstood 25F without gelling.

As far as using the processor goes, I haven't had any trouble draining the glop off the bottom although it does move pretty slowly. I'm guessing that if I were using naoh, it would be thicker and would have a tendancy to clog up the pipes.

I have a 3rd batch in the processor right now that has been setteling for a few days and should be ready to go.

Shaun

As an SVO man, I do not have any waste glycerol to play with, but it might be worth getting some pure glyc in if it speeds the removal of hard fats. So i did 4 kitchen experiments with a mix of veg and sausage fat:

1) Fat stirred and left as a control
2) Fat with pure glyc stirred in
3) Fat with glyc mixed with a bit of methylated spirits
4) Fat with glyc mixed with a bit of meths and soap

The meths and soap were there to simulate contamination and find which may be the effective contaminant. However, the meths is 90% ethanol (not methanol) and i dont know whether the soap was from soda or potash (though i cant for the life of me see why this would make a difference). And i havent tried contaminating with lime yet. Anyway, the results for all pots were the same - no initial coagulation as reported in many posts, and then slow seperation of white fats with glyc forming a seperate layer under the white fats. The seperation was no quicker than the control. The temperature varies between 14 and 19C.
Apart from the imperfect contaminants, is there anything else i'm doing wrong? Can anyone get kitchen test results from glyc bought at the pharmacy? If it comes down to a fat-glyc-contaminant matrix doing the job then it would be worth us finding what are the optimum amount of the relevant contaminants (eg if adding a bit more methanol might double seperation time etc.)

quote:

Originally posted by scumsporn:
As an SVO man, I do not have any waste glycerol to play with, but it might be worth getting some pure glyc in if it speeds the removal of hard fats. So i did 4 kitchen experiments with a mix of veg and sausage fat:

1) Fat stirred and left as a control
2) Fat with pure glyc stirred in
3) Fat with glyc mixed with a bit of methylated spirits
4) Fat with glyc mixed with a bit of meths and soap

The meths and soap were there to simulate contamination and find which may be the effective contaminant. However, the meths is 90% ethanol (not methanol) and i dont know whether the soap was from soda or potash (though i cant for the life of me see why this would make a difference). And i havent tried contaminating with lime yet. Anyway, the results for all pots were the same - no initial coagulation as reported in many posts, and then slow seperation of white fats with glyc forming a seperate layer under the white fats. The seperation was no quicker than the control. The temperature varies between 14 and 19C.
Apart from the imperfect contaminants, is there anything else i'm doing wrong? Can anyone get kitchen test results from glyc bought at the pharmacy? If it comes down to a fat-glyc-contaminant matrix doing the job then it would be worth us finding what are the optimum amount of the relevant contaminants (eg if adding a bit more methanol might double seperation time etc.)

I agree- we need to get to the bottom of why it works for some folks and not others.

well i have to say something for time with this process.After mixing in the koh glyc I let this oil settle in the barrel for about 7 days.
The wet oil had separated and i had nice clean oil on top and a whitish(beige) glop on the
bottom about 3 inches. (this was about 15 gallons of oil in the barrel) The oil was somewhat clear but not really clear.The oil was also less viscous.Which says to me that there may be some partial conversion going on here. It titrated at 3 this oil usually titrates at 4 to 5.
Again leading me to believe there may be some partial conversion. I am processing it right now and will drain the glyc in the morning.

The big thing..As i said above.. this oil was
signifacantly wet as the top blew off the 55 barrel outside the restaurant during a storm
2 weeks ago.The oil decanted off the top was dry.
I put about 2 gal in a pot and brought it up to
250 f and not a pop. This may prove to be a less NRG intensive way to dewater oil. Can't wait to freezer test this batch.
If I do this again i may try to filter the glop
and make soap from it .

quote:

Originally posted by Old300D:
It titrated at 1 gram KOH. I only had 1/2 a liter, so I took 100ml methanol and 1/2 gram KOH, and made a 1/2 liter test batch.

sounds like you added just enough KOH to neutralize the FFAs, and there was no KOH left to be used as catalyst. try again with 4 g of KOH. 7 gram/liter plus titration, giving you 8 grams/liter or 4 grams for a half-liter batch.

quote:

Originally posted by OB1 CANOLA:
It titrated at 3 this oil usually titrates at 4 to 5. Again leading me to believe there may be some partial conversion.

You may have answered the question I posed above.. glycerol actually takes out the FFA? Glycerol, water and FA all being polar molecules they should "clump" together...

Did your glycerol still have some methanol in it? If so you might have got some conversion but if not then there is no way to get conversion...

This also harks back to an idea neutral had to neutralise FFA in WVO before blending it with Dino to prevent wax precipitation..

Thebushpig

quote:

Glycerol, water and FA all being polar molecules they should "clump" together...

You have made a slight slip there. The FFA are long chain acids so their oiliness overcomes the polar end group and they should stay in the veg oil. If the FFA of an oil batch reduces after stirring with byproduct it will be because the byproduct contains a little excess NaOH which converts some FFA to soap. This increases the polarity and most will go out with the byproduct. Ideally one would use very fresh byproduct to do this otherwise the excess NaOH will be lost.

If you really want to try something more effective along these lines do a titration on your oil then dissolve the titration amount of KOH in the byproduct and stir with the veg oil. You should get a good reduction in FFA. I suggest KOH for this as NaOH doesn't seem to want to dissolve in byproduct.

quote:

Originally posted by harry747:

quote:

Originally posted by Old300D:
It titrated at 1 gram KOH. I only had 1/2 a liter, so I took 100ml methanol and 1/2 gram KOH, and made a 1/2 liter test batch.

sounds like you added just enough KOH to neutralize the FFAs, and there was no KOH left to be used as catalyst. try again with 4 g of KOH. 7 gram/liter plus titration, giving you 8 grams/liter or 4 grams for a half-liter batch.

Oh wow. Good catch, this could be it. Momentary lapse of reason I suppose.

neutral

quote:

I suggest KOH for this as NaOH doesn't seem to want to dissolve in byproduct.

Even if the by-product contains the 5% water pre-wash?

24/7

quote:

Originally posted by neutral:
The FFA are long chain acids so their oiliness overcomes the polar end group and they should stay in the veg oil.

Maybe... but the ideal situation for FFA in such a mix would be to have its polar end in the glycerol/water "soup" and its long chain in the oil... Ther is oil in the bottom in the soup... there must be in mine as I have no appreciable water and the apple sauce whitish glop is present at the bottom.

It would still then be possible for there to be spheriod particles of this nature in the glop allowing the ideal situation for FFA within the oil, sterate and glycerol mix.

Obi how fresh was your byproduct?

quote:

Originally posted by Thebushpig:

quote:

Originally posted by neutral:
The FFA are long chain acids so their oiliness overcomes the polar end group and they should stay in the veg oil.

Maybe... but the ideal situation for FFA in such a mix would be to have its polar end in the glycerol/water "soup" and its long chain in the oil... Ther is oil in the bottom in the soup... there must be in mine as I have no appreciable water and the apple sauce whitish glop is present at the bottom.

It would still then be possible for there to be spheriod particles of this nature in the glop allowing the ideal situation for FFA within the oil, sterate and glycerol mix.

Obi how fresh was your byproduct?

Thebushpig-
Generally speaking (but not always,) the By-Product I use, is fresh, quite often still warm from the reactor...

It does seem to affect the effectiveness and speed of the settling to use fresh/warm glyc in the process, so I guess the NaOH must be doing as Neutral suggests, but I have used quite 'old' glyc for the process...

Ive recently done some titration tests before/after, but as I only do this to remove the tallow types, I dont heat up the oil and mix with any speed or time, which I believe would be needed to reduce the titration to a greater extent- Basically, I just stir it in,-My titration usually falls between .5 and 1 or so, Maybe extended mixing/more by-product and heat would reduce this further....

So the freshness or otherwise of the by product could explain the variable results that eg kumar has been getting...

quote:

Originally posted by Thebushpig:
So the freshness or otherwise of the by product could explain the variable results that eg kumar has been getting...

Yes, Im beginning to think this could be the case,--It always seems to work more effectively with 'fresh' glyc, off the reactor--It doesnt seem to matter whether the glyc is warm or not, but this may help in the initial mixing in.

Guess I need to do some more testing with fresh and say, a month old glyc on the same oils to see..........