Are there any benefits to be accrued from the "foolproof" H2SO4 esterification method when making biodiesel from new oil? Or is this method only an improvement on the methanol-lye approach when waste vegetable oil is being converted?

(My first experiments with biodiesel will employ new vegetable oil, just to keep things as simple as possible. I will probably go with a soy-rapeseed-silicone blend, as that is cheapest and also commonly used by local restaurants.)

Thanks!

Christopher Witmer
Tokyo

[Sigh] Japan is phasing out all diesels in urban areas . . .

Many people have reported failures trying to use this method on this forum and one or two have reported success.

For your first few test batches I would strongly urge you use the World Famous Dr Pepper Technique (Pat Pend)

This is about as easy and fool proof of a way of making your first few test batches of Biodiesel as there is, especially with new dry oil.

Tilly SBC/IBA

Well, add me to the list of success stories. I had poor yields in the beginning, but things have cleared up now (near 100% yield). The updated method works well with nasty WVO.

Chris,

The primary benefits of esterification/transesterification is a higher yield, overall less base catalyst use and less wash water consumption. Your wastewater treatment agency will respect you for that.

As for diesel phaseouts in Japan... you might find yours running long after everyone else's had died should you opt for bio-d over dino-d.

Todd Swearingen

quote:

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Originally posted by cdwitmer:
Are there any benefits to be accrued from the "foolproof" H2SO4 esterification method when making biodiesel from new oil? Or is this method only an improvement on the methanol-lye approach when waste vegetable oil is being converted?

(My first experiments with biodiesel will employ new vegetable oil, just to keep things as simple as possible. I will probably go with a soy-rapeseed-silicone blend, as that is cheapest and also commonly used by local restaurants.)

Thanks!

Christopher Witmer
Tokyo

[Sigh] Japan is phasing out all diesels in urban areas . . .

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cdwitmer

It all depends on what you mean by new oil. Some newly produced oil can have fairly high FFA but oil that is sold for human consumption is always low in FFA. This oil has so little FFA that it can be ignored in calculating the amount of NaOH to use.

If you add acid to that sort of oil you would need more NaOH to neutralize the acid you added.