Here's the results of the trial with the methanol washed shavings:

1: the shavings, a glass for mixing, two bottles for shake-em-up test, and a one hour old sample of biodiesel, unwashed and not demethed. Unfortunately the oil was low titration again (5 + 2.5) - I must be the only person hoping to get high titrating oil :

Metshavings1.jpg (33 KB, 96 downloads)

2. After stirring for a few minutes and leaving for another 15 or so a sample of the biodiesel is transfered to the bottle:

Metshavings2.jpg (36 KB, 94 downloads)

3. They samples have the same volume and the same amount of water is added to both and shaken vigorously, as normal:

Metshavings3.jpg (37 KB, 83 downloads)

4. The shake-em-up tests after a few minutes (<10). I suggest that the water is still cloudy with residual material from the shavings rather than soap:

Metshavings4.jpg (27 KB, 95 downloads)

Boy, that looks really promising, now I'm wondering if instead of a column you had a tank with and agitator.

Sounds like a good idea. When I first tried resin I stiired it up in the same way and it worked very quickly. I have to say that we'd have to use much more wood shavings than resin in any set-up. And there will have to be more preparation of teh shavings -tere was still a bit of dust coming out. People wont normally have shavings which produce such a colour, but it gives a good indication of what comes out of the wood in the methanol which cant be seen.

I would like to try bark in the same way; it should give a much greater contact area than shavings and is probably more porous too.

Note about methanol - the methanol used to treat the shavings should be recoverable by adding it to byproduct, for those who do a methanol recovery.

How exactly did you treat your shavings? Add enough methanol to wet them then drain it off and let them dry?

I did that first time, but this time I soaked them for a bit longer, drained then repeated twice with fresh methanol. Both times just enough methanol to cover the shavings. There was hardly any colour in the third methanol wash. Then left it to dry in the air. (it wasnt bone dry, but there was methanol still in th biodiesel anyway).

Hey Fabricator,

Thanks. I couldn't tell through my limited reading of this if it was a "one and done" type thing, or if it worked for several batches similar to the resin. Kind of interested in hearing.

Thanks,
-Scott

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Originally posted by Jehu:
The idea is that polar substances like glycerol and soap will be absorbed onto the polar cellulose.

Just a question about the preloading of the wood shavings just because I never read up about resins and what not so please bear with me. How does loading up the wood shavings up with methanol (polar liquid) allow it to better work at pulling other polar items out of the biodiesel?

Theres no chemistry to it - the methanol simply rinses out the shavings, just like water rinses clothes. Remember that methanol is wood alcohol, so is ideal for the job, and of course we have it handy.

So just taking a random leap here. What ever polar substances that are in the cellouse fibers are also being rinsed out allowing for more polar substances to take their place when it is used?

It has nothing to do with chemistry - polar or non polar. Neiethr the methanol nor the wood is changed into anything else. Its the same with priming new resin, it works if you dont prime but it works better if you do.

Well I have a batch of biodiesel that I just finished that has a lot of soaps in it. Going to go by my friends woodworking shop and see what kind of wood shavings I can get.

Make sure you get hardwood shavings if you can.

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To think of the number of centrifuges I used to see being skipped from work

Got any mates there still who could tell you when it is going to happen again and get permission to divert a couple our way?

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My hats of to Jehu for bringing this up. I'm glad people like him (and many others on this forum)are willing to share their findings, both failure and success

You are welcome. I found out ecopure was woodshavings by an accidental contact with an early user/discoverer before ecopure was released as a commercialisation of the idea. It was only intuition rather than hard fact but it turned out to be the case as we found out thanks to the work of various members in trialing woodshavings and in jehu's case, paper.

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The waste would definitely burn very well, but the presence of glycerol could create dangerous acreolin fumes.

Not in practice. Sawdust glycerine logs have been fuelling woodstoves since we were making bio. Any flaming fire seems safe. Smouldering is what you need to avoid. I have done it myself extensively.

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One thing that is kind of unique about Red Oak is its high level of tannic acid.

Another thing is it's excetionally open grain.

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Conclusion - the shavings greatly reduce soap emulsion in the water tests. If the shavings are first rinsed with methanol - as ecopure requires - then it seems all the soap is removed. The very dark water from this test is due to the fact that I did only minimal rinsing and the colour from the purpleheart wood leeched into the biodiesel and was transfered to the water (hence more rinsing is required.

I think thats success

I agree. You are doing great testing out the way this works. I am intriuged by purpleheart wood. Is that a description or a particular wood? Never heard of it.

Did you get around to trying bark yet? Don't garden centres sell it in bags for laying on top of your soil or something?