I think your article is fantatastic and maybe I just missed it, but in the example would you then use 150ml per liter of emulsified BD to break the Emulsion?

Thank you

Biowayne,
Welcome to the Forum. You will find a lot of information here, if you use the search function, you will get answers quickly. If your questions still need answers, after searching, post your Q on the forum and wait for someone to respond.

Breaking of emulsions.
If when washing biodiesel, you get an emulsion forming due to over vigorous washing, simply add about 10% of the glycerol from the reaction and stir. The emulsion will usually break quite quiclkly and allow you to drain off the water / glycerol.
Repeat the washing process, taking care to avoid forming an emulsion.

Note: an emulsion can also be caused by poor conversion of the Used Cooking OIl to biodiesel, where mono / di glycerides may assist the formation of the emulsion.
The glycerol will also assist in breaking these emulsions too.

Thanks Tony that is the number I could not find anywhere else in the forum.

Have a great day

If 10% is not enough, dump in all of the glycerol you have available and try again.
Please post your experiences here to help others recover from emulsion hell.

The 10% is a guestimate and starting point. If you have success with 5%, 10% or other amount, please let us know. IIRC someone else had success with 10%, hence my recommendation.

I think it depends on the extent of the emulsion, I had one batch that I managed to break using just a few hundred ml's of glyc by-product in 25 litres of emulsion, and on another occaision it took nearly 50% glyc by-product to break a similar sized batch of emulsion, however I have not managed to form any more emulsions since I started using first a fine mist wash and then spray washing my biodiesel, gently, gently, gently is my answer to not making emulsions.

Chug

I am having a terrible time breaking an emulsion. I have aded about 6 gallons of glycerine to 20 gallons of emulsion and it still won't break. I created the emulsion with a very fine mist so I'm wondering if I have incomplete conversion. What should I try next. I have made several batches with no problems and this is frustrating.

Try adding some strong salt solution. Do a search on salt and emulsion for some good reading.

Thanks for the assistance. I'll let you know if and when I solve this.

I added a large quantity of salt (1/2 box) to a gallon of water and sirred it in gently with no luck. I also transfgerred the product back into the appleseed and heated it and added 5 gallons of glycerine with no help. I want to know how to break the emulsion but more importantly, how to prevent it in the future.
p.s. I had one emulsion in the past break by adding glycerine but no luck this time. This mess makes a strong case for trial batches before each large batch. Any other ideas?

Have questions. I start out with something that looks like good biodiesel out of the processor. But then it turns into a dark chocolate color after first wash. After second wash it is a little more lighter but thicker. What is happening here. I looked at "breaking an emulsion" on the CBT. My first wash looks like the picture of the water and by product after it has been shaken. The bottom of the wask tank, which is suppose to be water, looks and acts like diesel fuel. (foaming etc) When I drain the water from the bottom of the wash tank it is dark in color but clear (not hazy). Any advice/

Neutral- add salt? I swear by the beard of Zeus, acid works very well. Salt?

quote:

Originally posted by kumar:
Neutral- add salt? I swear by the beard of Zeus, acid works very well. Salt?

I've had good luck with salt. I use de-icer, made of magnesium chloride.

I am learning about this delemia to I used a pound of plain salt to breake the emulstion down and it did a fine job because I stired it in slowly and then let it sit a few hours, the water and oil did seprate and a lot of flour crud was with the oil came out in the water but I don't trust the oil so I pumped it back into the reactor and heated it up to 120*f re titraion tested it gave me a 2.5 reading and I used the Bio- diesel calulator and came up with the fallowing formula 30.2 gallons oil+6.6 gallons of methanol and 30.2 ounces of lye.
But there is a catch I can't factor in the amount of water that I know is still present in the oil I teste the oil buy taking a sample and heating it to 250,*F it boiled with a lot of bubbles and then it seemed to settle down. bottom line there is still water in the mix, will it still come clean and sepreate after I use the previously mentioned formula and give it time to settle? I need a quick answer can any one help ? ratski

Boy it is a learning experiance to reread my old posts in this case....
Posted 05 February 2006 01:51 PM
I am learning about this delemia to I used a pound of plain salt to breake the emulstion down and it did a fine job because I stired it in slowly and then let it sit a few hours, the water and oil did seprate and a lot of flour crud was with the oil came out in the water but I don't trust the oil so I pumped it back into the reactor and heated it up to 120*f re titraion tested it gave me a 2.5 reading and I used the Bio- diesel calulator and came up with the fallowing formula 30.2 gallons oil+6.6 gallons of methanol and 30.2 ounces of lye.
But there is a catch I can't factor in the amount of water that I know is still present in the oil I teste the oil buy taking a sample and heating it to 250,*F it boiled with a lot of bubbles and then it seemed to settle down. bottom line there is still water in the mix, will it still come clean and sepreate after I use the previously mentioned formula and give it time to settle? I need a quick answer can any one help ? ratski) I learned that buy adding whit vinger to my wash tank in the fresh water befor the BD is transfered to the wash tank helps prevent emulsion and by letting the BD stand for at least 2 hours before I turn on my bubbler pump Emulsion is not a problem anymore and if it dose show up its easy to cure just spray in more white vinger it dose a fine job. Ratski 96 Dodge 2500 Cummins Turbo Bio-diesel

I've used salt, but with hot water. I only used about a cup of table salt for a 20 gallon batch and I added about 10 gallons of hot H2O. As hot as you can get. I don't remeber where i read it, but it worked beautifully and the last wash was the cleanest I have seen to date.