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Oh, no........sounds like you have water in your biodiesel.....
 Don't worry, that is normal. When you water becomes clear, then transfer to drying container and bubble dry with a little heat... |
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Thanks for the quick reply! Will the cloudyness vary with batches? I spoke to a friend that said on the first wash his bio is cloudy but with the rest of his washes its clear. Also, for the next wash I was thinking of adding water, heating the bio gently to clear then bubbling? Curious to see if will become cloudy after. Thoughts?
Again, any help is much appreciated!!! |
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Even fully wash Biodiesel will look like that until water separates out.
Turn off bubbler and let it rest, it will clear. Keep washing until water comes out clear, and I always say "Wash it one more time!". Washing can take 6 hours or more. Rick H... ** The ONLY Home Brewers Biodiesel Production software on the market ** 96 & 97 F250 Powerstroke Diesel www.OmahaBiodiesel.net www.BDCalc.com |
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Sounds about right. How long are you bubble washing? With my batches it looks cloudy at first, but then after 6 hours or so it looks much different. It almost looks clean...
Everybody has their own way of washing but this is my method. I mist wash my first batch with a 1gph misting head (which is more like 4). Once that is done I start bubble washing it for about 4 hours. I then drain the water and start mist washing again. Then when I have enough water I bubble wash it for about 6-12 hours and my PH is the same as I started with. Some people like to dump the water in for bubble washing, but I figured you have to get it in anyways I might as well mist while I'm doing it (the two birds with one stone thing...). At the start of each bubble wash it almost looks really cloudy but then after about 4 hours it looks clean with bubbles! 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L Turbo Diesel Fuel Blends, Recorded Miles Diesel: 30194 B20: 978 B40: 447 B60: 2167 B80: 1673 B100: 1239 |
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Thanks all!!
 Rickh - I'm on board with "Wash it one more time". I'll wash as many times as it takes, I'm in no hurry. Only worrisome thing is that on the second wash I let it stand 2 days and it never cleared until heated. hiperf2007 - I will probably adopt your method or something very similiar. I was planning on eventually adding mist wash but wanted to start simple, but getting a wash when you add the water seems more efficient. Also, we have the same truck and it's reassuring that you've had good luck with B20, I was planning on starting with B20-B30. One last question, if this batch clears after drying and filtering (1 micron) then the 3/27 should prove it's ok, right? |
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Yep on 27/3. Heat speeds up everything to do with making Biodiesel. I like to wash at 140f and dry at 135f or so. With out some type of circulation drying by settling takes a LOOOOONG time. Do not use misters to dry Biodiesel, use a circulate/splash method of some kind. Rick H... ** The ONLY Home Brewers Biodiesel Production software on the market ** 96 & 97 F250 Powerstroke Diesel www.OmahaBiodiesel.net www.BDCalc.com |
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Camper
Get yourself a PH strip test kit on ebay and check the PH level of the water you will be adding. Once the exit water hits the same PH as what you are putting through the top, your done washing. Don't waste any more water than you need because once the PH is the same, nothing more is dropping out of the fuel so there is no point to it. It also helps to save the last couple wash waters for the next batch. Help save wasting water. Adopt bubble washing! I can't express this enough. I use to mist wash and it pissed me off knowing that the water sitting in the bottom of my tank was not full of crap before I drained it. I like to make that water hold as much crap before I mark it as "full" and drain. Your wash water will only hold so much drop out from your fuel. That is why I mist wash it to get the water in the tank, bubble wash it, drain, mist again, and continue bubble washing. It takes two mist washes and two bubble washes and my PH match. Then I save the last wash water for the next batch. Rickh I wash mine with the temp of the water which I'm sure it cold. I have not really found a way to use heat with my water yet and I'm not sure if I need to but that beside the point. I use a piece off an old spraying tank for my dry spray. You would not believe how well it works! It sprends out a real fine spray 180 degrees. With heat and a pump using this spray nozzle, I can dry 20 gallons in about 15 minutes. 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L Turbo Diesel Fuel Blends, Recorded Miles Diesel: 30194 B20: 978 B40: 447 B60: 2167 B80: 1673 B100: 1239 |
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Using a mister to dry meaning not to use the small ones. You will mist BD into the air. Yours must leave the droplets large which is good.
Cold wash is doable, just that heating makes it faster. Things are changing people are finding new ways all the time. Water wash sounds good, but still pretty pricey. Rick H... ** The ONLY Home Brewers Biodiesel Production software on the market ** 96 & 97 F250 Powerstroke Diesel www.OmahaBiodiesel.net www.BDCalc.com |
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Here is what I started using. The hole through the nozzle was only 1/4" and running 1" pipes I redrilled it to 1/2" so there was pressure behind the pump. There really is no drops with this nozzle. It is more of a thin 180 degree flow about 1/16" thick. If you try it using water and put your hand under the flow, you can't even tell water is passing over it. So it thins the fuel out so much and exposes it to air quicker.
2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L Turbo Diesel Fuel Blends, Recorded Miles Diesel: 30194 B20: 978 B40: 447 B60: 2167 B80: 1673 B100: 1239  nozzle.jpg (22 Kb, 25 downloads) |
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Go hog wild! A couple of years ago using bubbles to dry fuel was pretty popular and it may still be. I haven't been around the site in a year or so, so I'm not sure what method is most popular now.
Anyway, a poster here who goes by neutral suggested to spray the fuel through the air, maximizing contact with the air in order to evaporate more moisture more quickly. He suggested that in bubbling the fuel dry, the air in the bubbles may become saturated with moisture meaning it won't remove any more moisture at that point. However it will eventually dry as long as the pump continues to run and the rh of the air being pulled in is low enough. In my zeal to speed things up on my end, I rigged up a manifold at the top of my wash tank, pumped the moist fuel into the air and allowed it to fall through the air as neutral suggested. This was the dead of winter with static in your hair type dry humidity. The fuel dried thoroughly which I tested via microwaving samples, and rather quickly. The old way I dried it was to heat several gallons to 250F or so, stir the heck out of it several times over a couple hours or so. I could never get it completely dry, or dry enough for me. It always had a teeny amount of moisture in it. Pumping it through the air continously really is the safest and quickest method I've found. 250F oil is NOT safe to be handling! Once I saw how quickly it dried this way, heating was a thing of the past! The secret to quick air drying though is low relative humidity (rh). Check the weather channel for your zip code (US folks) and you'll find the rh. The lower your rh the faster it dries. If you're in a building you may try the AC as it removes humidity or probably better yet is to invest in a dehumidifer. My setup was in my shop and all I ever did was pick a time to dry with rh not very high, less than 80 or so and the lower the better. Drying in high rh is fruitless. Periodically I would turn on the exhaust fan in very cold weather to bring in fresh low rh air as drying will raise the rh in the room and drying will stop or slow drammatically as the rh increases. Good luck and happy drying! <i> "Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will. Dr. Robert Anthony </I> 2005 F250 6.0 4X4 Crew Cab |
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I love the smell of drying biodiesel 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L Turbo Diesel Fuel Blends, Recorded Miles Diesel: 30194 B20: 978 B40: 447 B60: 2167 B80: 1673 B100: 1239 |
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Re: Fuel Blends Recorded
Dino Fuel: 30194 B20: 978 Miles B40: 351 B50: 0 B80: 37 B100: 0 What are you driving and how old is it??? If you've got a 1999 or later truck I've read, it should be ok. Sooner or later you'll need to replace the fuel filters when all that crap starts to separate from the fuel lines. My first long trip was to Maryland and back on B95 or so. I had some residual dinodiesel in the tank when I filled up on homebrew. About 2/3 of the way there I noticed the boost guage maxing out going up a slight grade and I couldn't accelerate to pass anyone. I thought surely I'd toasted it's buns. After freaking out for a few minutes and wondering what to tell the Ford dealer (it was still under warranty) it finally dawned on me the fuel filter had likely clogged up with dinomuck from the fuel lines from not running biodiesel for a while. Next morning at the local dealership I got a new set of filters and off we went. Tons of power again! Whew, that's scary until you realize B100 is a good system cleaner and thus your dilemma... I've also got a couple guys in the coop I joined running B100, even on 40 degree nights! One has an 06 or 07 Dodge with a 5.9 cummins and another has maybe an a 05 or so of the same setup. No problems so far. <i> "Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will. Dr. Robert Anthony </I> 2005 F250 6.0 4X4 Crew Cab |
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How do you dry in a high Relative Humidity area, like south Louisiana? Rh is usually 79-80% on summer days.
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Hiperf: the smell of drying biodiesel probably has some methanol fumes. I'd advise you to stop loving it asap...  "When you don't think what you say, you say what you think" Jacinto Benavente. "Wars not make one great" Yoda. WWVhaCwgSSdtIGEgZ2Vlay4gU08gV0hBVD8= |
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Bernyjb, he's referring to AFTER washing, which removes methanol, residual glycerine and soaps. <i> "Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will. Dr. Robert Anthony </I> 2005 F250 6.0 4X4 Crew Cab |
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HMMM. Sorry. My bad. "When you don't think what you say, you say what you think" Jacinto Benavente. "Wars not make one great" Yoda. WWVhaCwgSSdtIGEgZ2Vlay4gU08gV0hBVD8= |
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Heat the air. It lowers the rh. |
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There are two ways I know of to lower the rh. 1. De-humidify the air by using the AC in a building or using a de-humidifier. 2. Increase the temperature of the ambient air. As you increase the air temp in the building, the rh decreases. Humidity Info If your processing is in a building you can dehumidify the air and if the air is dry the fuel will dry. HOWEVER, once you begin to dry the rh will correspondingly increase if you're not removing the moisture from the air via AC, dehumidifier or fresh air. I recommend you invest in a rh meter so that you'll know the rh condition as you dry! Recently I was at walmart and noticed they had relative humidity meters, electric ones and they were <$10! If you don't have a building and yet need to safely, quickly and thoroughly dry lots of fuel as I did (running two commercial vehicles daily) or just don't want to take forever to dry it this is the way to go. If you have no building to do it in you may need to build a small building for it. A good excuse for a shop! Regardless of your setup, in a high rh environment you will not dry it quickly whether bubble drying or air drying. There has however been discussion of heating the fuel or oil to speed evaporation in high rh conditions but I've not experimented with that but once. You can likely find the answers here if you look. I've not tried bubble drying as it seemed to take forever and I couldn't wait forever. <i> "Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will. Dr. Robert Anthony </I> 2005 F250 6.0 4X4 Crew Cab |
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Sorry for changing the topic a little, but guzzler you were speaking of soap and I have to ask. When I let any of my samples of bio sit for 24hrs + and pick them up I have what looks like a soap film on the bottom of the test jar. Its there, but have to be looking for it and know what it is. How do I get rid of that or is it normal period? Longer washes? Once the last bubble wash has been turned off let it settle longer? 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L Turbo Diesel Fuel Blends, Recorded Miles Diesel: 30194 B20: 978 B40: 447 B60: 2167 B80: 1673 B100: 1239 |
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Sponsors Biodiesel & SVO Forums Home Biodiesel & SVO Forums Making Biodiesel Biodiesel Turns Cloudy When I Add Wash Water
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