i just did a batch of oil consisting of wvo and rendered cancer(yep-rendering plant stuff). 110 galons with 22%meth and 10 gms koh, then had to go another 5% meth and 4 gms koh to get a light ester. so... i wind up with about 60 gallons of ester. yuk! but expected. the glycerol is stll liquid after two days at 40 degrees.
so, time to water wash....
i did some test batches with the usual bubble wash and lost the expected 10% of volume. then i washed by misting to settle some cottage chese
and it did that ok, but i noticed how quick and clear my top layer got. so, a test of misting on original ester and i find that as long as it is over 100f, everything falls rapidly with almost no loss in volume.
i surmise that soaps created in the usual water wash/bubble thing must dissolve some of the good ester. best of all, on 60 gallons, i misted with two gallons and let settle 10 mins, drain most of it, mist another two gal, 10 min, drain most
then mist another 2 gallons, settle for 20 min and drain, including about a quart of cottage cheese/oil.
i heated to 130 and let settle for another hour and got a pint of water with a ph of 8. i am happy with that. filtered with 10 micron filter and most of the cloud dissappeared and no clogging.
bottom line is that only 6 gallons of water cleaned the ester and almost no loss in product.
from now on, i will run much higher (14g koh) and let settle longer (6 hr)then continuous mist wash with the drain slightly open
and only go with 20% total with the water by volume. after a two hour settle, 10 micron filter and be happy with that.

perhaps i too someday me be a 'oracle of wisdom'?
...lord tilly, wadda ya tink?

i forgot to mention a tank-u to those who have been doing mist washing and giving inspiration for doing so.

THANX!

and even then I am not sure you will succeed.

But If you REALLY want to be a great oricle of wisdom, visit this site.

Tilly SBC/IBA great oricle of wisdom

Sometimes I wake up grumpy; Other times I let her sleep

[This message was edited by Tilly on 28 March 2002 at 05:41 PM.]

I had my speakers turned up a little high. When that fantastic site loaded up, geez did I get a scare.

If I had been an oracle of wisdom I would have had the hindsight to turn the speakers down before blasting my ear drums.

Doc.

Anatidaephobia: The fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.

BIOCRUISER is the one that deserves the credit for this 1, afterall Bcruiser did all the work to develop mist washing even though many of you doubted it's worth.
Where are you Bcruiser u need to take a bow.
Tily stop taking credit for what aint your's, seems you will do anything now to get a pat on the head.

If you want to be the "great oracle of wisdom", it is alright by me.
You might have to fight Skip for the privelage though.

Tilly SBC/IBA formerly Great oracle of wisdom until I turned the honour over to KOJO although Skip might not be happy about it as he has been working so hard to be one too.

T. S. Eliot is an anagram of Toilets.

I think "Idaho" beat BIOCRUISER to it.

The following is edited form a report at this location

TRANSESTERIFICATION PROCESS TO MANUFACTURE ETHYL ESTER OF RAPE OIL Roger A. Korus, Dwight S. Hoffman Narendra Barn, Charles L. Peterson, and David C. Drown Department of Chemical Engineering University of Idaho Moscow, ID 83843

Washing

During the washing of the ester phase care must be taken to add water slowly in a fine spray. Agitation of the ester with the flow of water caused a loss of as much as 18% of the ester due to the formation of an emulsion. The importance of washing is the removal of residual catalyst from the ester.

Smokey

It would appear you are right to a point on this paper it does say to spray the surface with water but does not go into the method used (other than the glass colum size) and also states that it takes 24-48 hours to seperate. It would appear that over time this information has been lost well done in finding it again, the question now remains did Bcruiser see this information and enhance the method or did he work this method independently. It would appear that from his posts and the information he provided he came to this method by himself,

Bcruisers information also states to use a mist not a spray (although originally it stated a spray) and that it can be used at full pressure, he also says to keep the nozzel away from the water surface and gives reasons for this, he gives good information on timings for seperation of the esters and the water and any problems that may arise, the article in question does not.

I therefore submit that Bcruisers mistwash method is not the same as the spray wash in the article especially as the university developed the much vaunted bubble wash method and has done no work on development of spraying the esters with water.

Finally mist is a much finer water particle which accounts for the better seperation times and increased reliability of washing the esters that is apparent from the posts on this board, not only from Bcruiser but by those that have really tried his method.

Yep,the mistsystem works fine. I have been using it for a long time. I dont even understand why biocruiser thought everyone was against it. The paper was never lost, it was one of the first idaho papers I read. I assumed everyone had read it and that was where biocruiser had gotten the whole mistwash idea from. It was not a new idea.

Smokey misting away and shooting elk div

[This message was edited by Smokey on 01 April 2002 at 01:48 AM.]

[This message was edited by Smokey on 01 April 2002 at 01:50 AM.]