Let me first ask this question.

1) How many gallons of Oil are you starting with.
2) How much glycerin are you draining out?

Then after washing (however you may do it wet or dry)

3) How much biodiesel are you left with.

Please don't work it backwords or think it out. I am looking for hard data please.


1) I am starting out with 34 Gallons of WVO
2) I am draining off ~8 gallons of glycerin
3) After washing, I am left with ~ 24 gallons of bio.

Thanks
Doug

Doug,

What does your oil titrate when you start the base stage? (In case you do AE.)

How do you wash?

Those factors will change your % yield, IME.

Andrew thanks.

Oil titrated at 3.
Demethed and Dry wash the last batch.


Still I would like to take a poll and collect the three data points.


Thanks
Doug

I just finished 2 100L batches on the weekend. The first titrated at 4 NaOH and after recovery (push/pull) I drained about a cubie and a half. The second batch titrated at 1.5 and I drained one full cubie of demethed glycerin, these cubies look slightly larger then the normal ones I see so maybe 18L...

I have never paid much attention to the yield, at least I have never accurately measured it...
Jon

Jon please post your numbers after washing/dry washing if you would.

Thanks

Last batch
1) ~305L UCO, mixed feedstock
2) ~290 L bio before washing.
3) ~265L bio after washing.

quote:

Still I would like to take a poll and collect the three data points.

I support your poll. To add to it, (hopefully) I'd suggest that those who can add titration and wash method as items 4 and 5 since this tells your readers more about what is going on and where the loss in yield might be.

quote:

Originally posted by Andrew M:

I support your poll. To add to it, (hopefully) I'd suggest that those who can add titration and wash method as items 4 and 5 since this tells your readers more about what is going on and where the loss in yield might be.

Agreed! This would lend a bit more data to those that want it. For instance I've been "dry washing" with wood shavings as of late and it depends on whether or not the chips are dry as to before/after washing yield.
Titration and soap formation are huge variables determining yield.

Still the same I'll report what is requested!!
But at the same time others may choose to disect this info so more info may benefit more people.

Thats great. I love it. but lets go all the way then.

Start:
1A) WVO start - Soy Oil: 130 Liters (34.34 US gallons)
1B) Titrated at 3.5 - Koh.
1C) Added 26L of Methanol.
1D) Added 1495 grams of KOH.

Process:
2A) Glycerin Drained off: approx. 30.2 Liters (8 US)gallons
2B) Needed to be reprocess to pass 27/3 so added another 13 liters of Methanol
2C) Added another 130 grams of KOH.


Wash
3A) Demethed and recovered 7.6 Liters (2 US gallons of methanol) The rest evaporated in the vacuum pump or bubbled off.
3B) Dry washed with wood chips and Thermax.

FINAL
4A) 20.5 Gallons of biodiesel.

Hi Doug
Results of most recent batch:
1. 104 lts wvo
2.17-18 lts glyc
3. ~100 lts finished bio -fill 3x 25lt cans to 25lt mark + 1 almost to 25lt mark-(within 1 lt)

Note: I do several glyc pretreats-(normally 3). -I do not recover meth (so my glyc yields xtra bio + meth-But chems are based on original starting volume).
Oil tit=0 after 3 x pretreat.
80/20 process ~17%-18% methanol

Your yield figures seem very low to me-maybe you have a lot of water in your oil? I guess you are just using single stage base process

Hope this helps your survey

Sorry to hijack, but I am interested in how you get the oil down to 0 titration. Please tell me more about specifically how you do this. Do you reuse the same glyc 3x, or what?

quote:

Note: I do several glyc pretreats-(normally 3).

Hi Andrew
Get back to you later with full answer-got to go to work now-running late-Been meaning to talk to you about my results.

Last weeks batch(Push/Pull) processor.
93.8 gallons oil(Titrated 1.4)
21 gallons of methanol
Recovered 7 gallons of methanol
removed 17.5 gallons of glycerin
Ended up with 81 gallons of bio before washing.
After washing had about 79 to 80 gallons finished product.

Great!

Keep the numbers rolling in. My first set of numbers might be off to whole bunch of reasons - mostly human error and taking over a month to make this last batch and forgetting that I might have spilled more than I realized. I have four or five batches to be done in the next week so I will have a lot more accurate data.

---------------------------------------------------------------
taralec,

I am going to re-list your numbers in a step by step manner keeping a close watch on volumes added and subtracted. Please recheck these to confirm I am understand what you are saying.

Start
1A) 104 lts wvo - AFTER been subjected to Glycerin pretreat. **note#1 - unknown catalyst
1B) Oil titrates at 0 - unknown catalyst.
1C) Added 17.7- 18.4 liters of methanol (17-18% of 104)
1D) Added unknown amount of unknown catalyst

Process
2A) Drained off 17-18 liters of glycerin

Wash
Unknown

Final
4) ~ 100 liters of Bio

**Note#11: I do several glyc pretreats-(normally 3). -I do not recover meth (so my glyc yields xtra bio + meth-But chems are based on original starting volume).


--------------------------------------------------------

taralec, just so I am clear, am I missing any volume of stuff you added. ie Is there any extra volume of pre-treat glycerin in your process that I am not accounting for. Like 104 liters WVO plus 12 liters of pretreat. Or is the 104 liters of WVO after pretreat?

Doug

Start:
1A) WVO start 40 gallons
1B) Titrates at 2-4 - Koh.
1C) Add 8 gallons Methanol.


2) Glycerin Drained off: about 11 gallons (I do not measure exactly, 3 cubies 3/4 full plus about 1 gallon)


Water Wash (bubble wash 3-4 times, using hot water in winter), heat/circulate/spray dry
3) 35 Gallons of biodiesel.

Hi Doug - Not quite what I do,
let me re-list in correct format for you:
Start:
1A) 104 Lts WVO - This is my starting volume before pre-treat-mainly soy,but also canola.
1B) Oil titrates at 0.0 -(This is after pre treat-see note below)NaOH catalyst
1C) Added 17.5 Lts Methanol - (16.8% Methanol)
1D) 500g NaOH (5g/Lt0

Process80/20)
2A) Drain 17-18 Lts glycerin

Wash:
Water wash

Final:
~100 Lts Bio

Note: Between steps 1A and 1B is where I do pre-treat as follows:Add all the glyc from my "oldest"of the last 3 batches-~17-20 Lts (depending on what my batch size was at that time)heat,mix settle(2hrs) and drop glyc.Then add all the glyc from my last but one batch-again,heat,mix,settle(2hrs) and drop glyc.Then finally add all the glyc from my most recent batch,heat,mix,settle,drop glyc- (settle overnight this time, to try and make sure all glyc is out before processing).
Titrate oil and base chemicals on original 104 Lts (starting volume)


As already stated-I do not recover methanol,so my glyc is methanol rich and probably increases my oil volume during pre-treat(plus of course some bio from the glyc)I do not bother to measure the volume increase-all I am interested in is what volume I start and finish with,and ease of processing.

Hope this make sense

quote:

Sorry to hijack, but I am interested in how you get the oil down to 0 titration. Please tell me more about specifically how you do this. Do you reuse the same glyc 3x, or wha

Hi Andrew,
As you can probably see above,I use seperate glyc for each pretreat process,starting with my oldest glyc(of the last 3 batches) and finishing with my "freshest" glyc.-All pretreats are for 1-2 hrs @ 50c (sometimes longer if I get distracted).Titration after pretreat for the last 6 batches made has ranged between 0.1 and 0.0.Processing is based on 5g NaOH and ~17.5% Methanol(have gone as low as 14.8%-but had to run processor for xtra 2hrs or so to achieve 27/3 pass)I do a crude 80:20-Mix all methoxide-add 80% (guesstimate by eye) as first stage(methoxide is actually injected in the input side of my pump-takes about 30 mins to go in) and process 2 hrs at 50c(cut-out set at 50,but rarely gets above 48.5c)-settle overnight and drop glyc.Following day,reheat oil and add last stage methoxide-1hr after addition I start 27/3 testing-even if I pass I run on for another hour just for good measure.Again settle overnight and drop glyc(making absolutely sure all the glyc is out before moving to wash tank(even if I dump a litre of bio).Washing is very easy on this bio,I can dump the bio into the wash yank with water in it or I can pour buckets of water onto it-no colouration of the water takes place until I start my bubbler and then it has to be running quite a while before the water starts to go milky.I do many smaller washes,but the bio will wash completely clean within its own volume of water-I do a very vigorous shake test to confirm washing is complete.

I started down this pre-treat route from reading your earlier posts-(thank you) and looking at my cubies of glyc with bio on top(and knowing the methanol is there too),and wondering what happens if I repeat the pretreat more than once.I settled on 3 times as that gave me superb results-it is extra processing,but I do not get much wvo (its very often very wet as well-the glyc deals with this too)and I try and make the best of what I have-My glyc ultimately goes to glyc logs for my wood burner,so any recycling (meth and bio)I can achieve is to the good.
Glad to answer any further questions.

to add to your poll..

T5 oil using KOH
yield 100%..after washing and drying..now that I have ya'll wondering..

yes its possible..without gly pretreat..

so the plot thickins..

well no.not really..just for those that don't know won' try AE?? your loss..


start with dry WVO..yes DRY WVO...htp without any bubbles..NONE!!

use AE for the first stage..

this will drop the titration to around 1 KOH maybe 1.5KOH

process using base/base for the rest using the normal 80/20 but since 10-12% of the methanol has already been used..80% methanol is 80% of the remaining 8-10%..but use the proper amount of caustic..use care when mixing..it'll get very hot!!

this is not just my result but the result of many that use AE..the difference is the lower starting use of AE.. I used to use AE for anything over T7..but with these results starting with T5..makes me wonder about starting at lower levels...maybe T3KOH???

-dkenny

ps no I'm not a fan of gly pretreat..it will create soap..I suspect the increase in yield is do the release of trapped biodiesel in gylcerin.

Dave
-I agree, the only way glycerol pretreatment can lower the T of wvo is to turn the ffa's into soap!! What a waste of usable ffa's Tom

quote:

the only way glycerol pretreatment can lower the T of wvo is to turn the ffa's into soap!!

That seems like it is probably the main way. However, some have proposed that ffa+glycerol=monoglyceride. I have seen no evidence that it does or does not occur.

Could be?

Ideas on how to test?