Hi guys,

This is Blaze, hope everybody’s New Year is kicking off good. Does anyone know approx. % of methanol you get back from a recovery still? I’m thinking if a good reaction means the amount of methanol you put in = the amount of glycerin you get out, then what % of that is glycerin and what % is methanol?

I’m just not sure it would be cost effective seeing how much electricity it would use to heat up. Also does anyone have a link to a good recovery still set up? I only saw one on this site and no offense to whom ever built it, I’m sure it’s functional but it looks kinda crude. With a still are you suppose to have a constant cold water source to condense the methanol? If so how, where? Seems to me you’d be wasting a lot of water from your hose unless you find a way of cooling it down again to be recirculated.

Please contact me directly, thanks. Blazeschi-energy@yahoo.com

Blaze most processes using 20+% will have a glycerin layer that consist of almost 40% methanol with some soap and biodiesel in an emulsion.

It takes high temp. to get that last bit of methanol out given glycerins high specific heat.

Most stills on this site our some variation of the moonshine still for ethanol purification.

http://www.moonshine-still.com/page17.htm

GCG

Blaze,
with methanol around $4 per gallon. the electric cost to run a still are minimal. make sure the pot is well insulated.
water is not required for the condenser. at least mine doesn't use any water.

if you opt for the water base condenser, reuse the water. use a 55 gallon drum and drop a bag of ice in before you start.

I get around 20-25% methanol base on the amount of glycerin I start with. your results will vary. how much methanol did you start with? do you prewash? are you recovering from the BD as well as the glycerin?

-dkenny

Blaze,

I use 22% methanol by volume in my reactions. I understand that 12% is consumed in the reaction so there is 10% not used but there as a catalyst to push the reaction in the favorable direction. Now the 10% is by volume of the starting WVO ...but it is actually 45% of the methanol volume you started with. ie...if your wvo batch is 100 gal then I start with 22 gal of methanol...10 gal of it are potentially recoverable. That's a big chunk ...and by my experience 2.5-3 gal is still in the biodiesel and is usually washed away if you water wash. but 7-7.5 gal are in the glycerol by-product that could be recovered. I just picked a batch size for easy figuring ...most people are not doing 100 gal batches but the ratios are correct.

Hope this helps.

Rich

Sounds about right Rich. I run a 150l batch with 33l of methanol and get about 5l back out of the BD.

Tony

RichScorze, it seems you have pretty much the exact same methanol numbers we have...

50 gallon batches with 22% methanol by volume.
So approx. 11 gallons of methanol with ~`6 being used in the reaction leaving 4 in the glycerin and 1 in the biodiesel (approximately).

The for a good complete reaction; the less excess methanol in the biodiesel and the more in the glycerin

(and vise versa if you have a poor batch conversion which in a way is self correcting since less converted fuel will have more mono- and di-glycerides but the increase in viscosity due to the unreacted oil will be off set by the low viscosity methanol as well as find itself in solution).

Oddly enough on your timing Blaze, but I just threw a couple pictures of my still up a couple days ago.

For the water, I use a 55 gallon barrel where I draw low and replace high in the barrel with a Harbor Freight utility pump (it kinda stinks, though. I have to crack the housing to get it started every time because the impeller swells). The water warms up quite a bit, but has never gotten warmer than 120F. It would probably be more efficient if I was to throw a bag of ice in, but I never have.

I get ~10 gallons back from ~35-40 gallons glycerin; using 22% methanol in the initial reaction.