I CALL BS!

After months of research, I have to ask, what's the point of using these resins? They ALL seem to me to be just a means of separating the home brewer from his cash. I can see the benefit in a commercial environment, but not for the backyard brewer.

Can someone explain why I'm better off using any one of these ion exchange resins?

• They don't save any time
  
• They add cost
  
• You don't need resins with the GL method
  

Good call Rick.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here. I totally understand why the merchants sell it. I even understand wanting to try it out for learning/curiosity. I looked hard for a reason for homebrewers to use it on a regular basis and all I found were reasons not to use it in homebrew.

Can somebody that is using it now tell me how using this stuff is advantageous?

If not then we all need to admit the Emperor has no clothes on.

couldn't agree more. i've said it here:http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5521001332/m/2131054152?r=9681017852#9681017852
And here:http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5521001332/m/1591044842?r=1591044842#1591044842
lawyers, tow truck drivers, and SALESMEN. three of the most dishonest professions i know of.

"lawyers, tow truck drivers, and SALESMEN. three of the most dishonest professions i know of."

You forgot Politicians.

i wish i could forget them.
term limits, term limits, term limits

Rick,

If you have time to let it settle, I guess all that the resin would be used for is final filtering or polishing. I am using the GL1 method, but I can't seem to get all the soap out by settling alone. It requires extensive filtering to get most of the soap out. I think the resin reduces the amount of time a little.

I don't water wash. I don't think it is the politically correct thing to do in the Atlanta area. We have been in a drought for the last couple of years and there are all kinds of water restrictions in the state of Georgia. Besides I don't want to deal with the emulsions and drying the BD.

So I looked at the dry wash method as an alternative.

BTW I bought 20lbs of the macroporous resin from Arbor Biodiesel. I would be willing to part with 1/2 of it at cost, as I don't foresee needing that much resin for a long time.

quote:

Posted 11 July 2008 08:40 AM Hide Post
i wish i could forget them.
term limits, term limits, term limit

Reelect Nobody. ;-)

Eurocab,

Are you using KOH or NaOH? What is the typical titration of your oil?

The problem with using the resins after removing the methanol is that the resin bed acts just like a filter and will clog up. If extensive filtering is needed to clean your biodiesel after the GL, then you will foul your resin bed. You have to get the soap levels down to the point that the biodiesel is clear and not turbid before you send it through the resin bed. If it's clear and not turbid, then filtering won't really get any more out. If extensive filtering after the biodiesel goes clear gets significant amounts of soap out, then your GL setup is not properly tuned.

Rick,

I use NaOH only. I pretreat my oil with raw glycerine from the previous batch. Let it settle overnight. At this point my oil will titrate between 0 & 2. Usually 0. My oil comes from 3 sources. One is pretty nasty, but the other two are very nice.

My biodiesel is clear when I pump it into the settling tank. I may not be heating it long enough to drive off all the methanol. Soap definitely falls out of solution in the settling tank and as it falls to the bottom the BD clears up again.

After sitting for a couple of weeks, If you perform the water shake em up test, you can see soap in the water. I haven't tested to find out how many PPM, but I know I don't want that junk in my truck.

So I filter the BD through denim jean legs which pulls more soap out and then I run it through a 4" PVC tower filled with wood shavings then it goes through 2 - 2" PVC pipes filled with resin run in parallel and then through an NSA water filter housing down the internal pipe and up through the resin bed.

The last time I did this, there was still a little cloudiness in the shake em up test, but not bad. I then reloaded my reservoir and ran it back through it again.

Results -- Crystal clear.

Your not getting enough methanol out. That may be how hot or long you run it, or it could have something to do with your hardware.

After you pump over to your settling tank, it probably develops a soap skin on top that has to be skimmed. It might not. That is caused by the methanol evaporating leaving a soap film behind.

On the shakem up test your doing. If the biodiesel clears back up where you can read newsprint through it within a few hours of shaking it up, then you have removed enough soap to prevent forming emulsions in your fuel tank. That's all you really need to get out. Getting that last molecule of soap out is for the purists, not the realists.

Hey Rick,

In talking about clogging up your resin filter, are you speaking from a top-down flow, or from a bottom-up flow filter? The reason I ask is that a couple of the mid/larger producers seem to use drywash successfully to prevent water washing (that's what I will end up using it for) but it is done from a bottom-up flow system. I can't see exactly how that would clog, but admittedly, I haven't actually started using the stuff yet.

My initial reaction would be that if it works for commercial systems, it would work on a smaller scale for smaller brewers...again, just speculation, but that's what I was betting on.

My hope is that, after using the GL Push-Pull, this pulls any remaining impurities from my BD prior to putting in my tank (and does so without water washing).

Because I haven't actually used it yet, I don't have any personal experience (yet) in saying that it is good and effective. I have, however, read enough about it from home brewers to convince me that there is some significant benefit (or at least, enough of a promise for me to be willing to invest in some).

Once I've done a few batches, I'll give some feedback, although I don't water wash so don't have anything to compare it to.

Thanks,
-Scott

I think Rick's question is more of whether resins are practical/helpful for the home brewer not whether they work or not. I have been asking my self the same question.

I use the GL1 process and once the methanol is recovered I move to one of two settlings tanks where, while still hot I circulate for a few hours to evaporate that tiny bit of methanol off. Then wait for a few days to settle then pump through 1 micron sock filter. Just last night I start rigging my Centrifuge to cut settling time at least in half and help with the filtering.

I have been asking my self whether there would be a benefit to running from the CF then through a resin tower then into my fueling tank. I am after high quality fuel as most of use are but just how far do I need to go? And how much will it cost me?

Then there is the question of methanol. If some of these resins need a little methanol in there to work properly then that mean I need to go backwards in my process or at least run the tower in a different point of the process.

So one question I have for the resin experts is: Is there anything the CF (spinner II) won't catch that the resins will?

There are two types of clogging with resins. The first is due to compaction and is when the beads expand but dont move up the tube. The second is fouling where a slime plugs the spaces between the beads.

Flowing from the bottom up prevents compaction, but not fouling. It does so at the risk of channeling. That's forming an open channel where the biodiesel flows without touching any resin. Channeling is a big problem with larger resin beds.

The direction of flow does nothing to prevent fouling. The soaps drop out and plug up the spaces between the beads no matter which way it is flowing. The commercial guys are usually either filtering or using a centrifuge before the resin beds to prevent fouling. It is very important to get out every thing that will either settle or centrifuge before going through the resin beds.

tbeggs is very close to right. I don't see a value add. In fact I see it as more trouble than other methods with no benefits over the other methods.

Your spinner will catch everything that will fall out in settling. There is chemistry involved with the resin beads. Most all of the resin beads are converting the soaps into FFA, just exactly the same result as adding acid to your wash water. Settling just drops the soaps to the bottom. The resins convert the soap back to ffa and deposits it in your fuel.

quote:

On the shakem up test your doing. If the biodiesel clears back up where you can read newsprint through it within a few hours of shaking it up, then you have removed enough soap to prevent forming emulsions in your fuel tank. That's all you really need to get out. Getting that last molecule of soap out is for the purists, not the realists.

I guess I must fall into the accidental purist category. ;-)

For some reason when I started this journey, I was sure that soap in the water was what you were looking for. I guess I need to get me one of them little soap test kits. Doesn't someone here sell those?

I think I must be getting most of the methanol out. I like TJ's idea of circulating the warm BD in the settling tank to evaporate more. I will do that next time.

I researched resin all winter and was initially very hot on the idea, and thought I would never water wash again, but, after all the problems encountered by the pioneers in dry washing I have cooled way down to the idea, I can water wash 250 gallon batches in 4 or 5 hours and dry in 5 or six hours and have astm spec bio ready to use.
If you use any of the dry wash methods you will have a substantial initial investment in towers and resin and if you do not demeth and de soap to the right degree you will have a recurring substantial investment in resin as it is depleated rapidly by plugging up with soap and as it stands right now there is no fast simple consistant go/nogo test or a test for proper demethification to tell you wether your bio is within the parameters to go into your resin.
And if you are using KOH all bets are off wether you use GL1 or base only or acid/base as KOH soap is a COMPLETELY different animal than naoh soap, so as far as I am concerned at this point the resin technology has to mature some more before I leave my tried and true water wash for it.

quote:

Originally posted by tjbeggs:
I think Rick's question is more of whether resins are practical/helpful for the home brewer not whether they work or not. I have been asking my self the same question.

I use the GL1 process and once the methanol is recovered I move to one of two settlings tanks where, while still hot I circulate for a few hours to evaporate that tiny bit of methanol off. Then wait for a few days to settle then pump through 1 micron sock filter. Just last night I start rigging my Centrifuge to cut settling time at least in half and help with the filtering.

I have been asking my self whether there would be a benefit to running from the CF then through a resin tower then into my fueling tank. I am after high quality fuel as most of use are but just how far do I need to go? And how much will it cost me?

Then there is the question of methanol. If some of these resins need a little methanol in there to work properly then that mean I need to go backwards in my process or at least run the tower in a different point of the process.

So one question I have for the resin experts is: Is there anything the CF (spinner II) won't catch that the resins will?

tj, in a word, no, your spinner will fuge out everything the resin will get get out, the only problem you will have to keep tabs on is polymerization, I did a test of 50 gallons but I spray demethed it as I did not have my condenser set up on my processor yet, it took 10 or 12 hours to get the meth all out so the soap would start fuging out, but once it did it started fuging out rapidly but started smelling slightly varnishy, I believe the 12 hours of air spraying caused this and if you demeth in the procesor where there is very little oxygen this would likely not be a problem, below are my results after the meth was gone, this was with a spinnerII 960.

Wow, that's some ugly crap and only after 12 hours? I wonder if you could use this to make plastic.