quote:

Originally posted by Thebushpig:
Err i think the horse has already bolted on that one ......

Dang! Well, c'est la vie. ;-)

I've followed this thread and there seem to be 2 unanswered questions. Good questions too. 10 pointers I think....

So, for 10 points (each)

Q: Can this 5% water pre-wash be done with 3-5g/l titrated oil?


Q: Is good meth recovery more difficult with the glyercine from the pre wash method?


OK, that's it from my control freak sub-personality..... but someone better answer the questions otherwise he'll be back, and nasty!

Paul...

I believe that you can use the water prewash method with oil that titrates at most any level. I've used it my last five batches and my titrations have ranged from .75 to 2. Seems to work fine.

Others might get squeamish (sp?) about adding water and seeing a bit of milky color in the pump tube, but I can attest that it works well at reducing the reacted BD's soap and residual "mayo" that normally settles out in the first wash.

As far as the distillation of the meth, I've heard others say that since meth vaporizes at approximately 160 degrees, the water shouldn't come out during the process. I've not tried that, but it's a good question. Others here might have some more info.

as to your question on methanol recovery TRY HERE

Remember SOTD cares not (in this experiment anyway) for economy... only top results and quick. therefore he does not address nor care about meth recovery.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Drayton:
I've followed this thread and there seem to be 2 unanswered questions. Good questions too. 10 pointers I think....

So, for 10 points (each)

Q: Can this 5% water pre-wash be done with 3-5g/l titrated oil?


Q: Is good meth recovery more difficult with the glyercine from the pre wash method?


OK, that's it from my control freak sub-personality..... but someone better answer the questions otherwise he'll be back, and nasty!

Answer question 1- My oil titrates at 3-5 so it works on this oil well

Answer question 2- You can recover the Methanol relitively easily and WITHOUT adding water to your 'newly" distilled Methanol. Just keep in mind that you will not want to go any higher on temp than 185-190F (190 MAX) as to keep the water from boiling and diluting the Methanol you have just reaquired.

HTH

Ian

20 points to Ian.

And a gold star me thinks.

Now, who's keeping score?

thanks Ian. I might be brave enough to try it tomorrow on my batch of crappy chinese cooking crud.

Although, that would mean putting my fantastic automatic perpetual misting toilet bowl replicating system (pat pending) to less than full use, which pains me.

I do have one last question to sneak in though.... (it's a 15 pointer)


What will happen if I use regular temp water? (probably around 60 F). I don't have a hot water tap where I have my BD setup. (I have a hot water heater and no hot water!)

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Drayton:
I do have one last question to sneak in though.... (it's a 15 pointer)


What will happen if I use regular temp water? (probably around 60 F). I don't have a hot water tap where I have my BD setup. (I have a hot water heater and no hot water!)

What I did, was use very hot tap water and used one of my Methanol/lye carboys to fill it the reactor with. Works like a charm. I'll be honest I have never used anything but hot water.

If you have NO source for hot water, fill the carboy or whatever and put it in a black bag and set it out in the sun, You will be suprised at how quick it will heat it up (Sun is FREE.)

HTH

Ian

Thanks Ian.

i just read a post where some guy uses normal tempo water, and it works fine. I suspected it might because the heat retaining properties of oil are very high, and there is alot more oil than water, so the water gets heated up quickly.

my setup is outside, and has cold water tap right there, so I'll use that.

35 points to Ian. Remember to look through the catalogue and figure out waht you want as your free gift. 1,000,000 points gets you an engraved pet rock I think....

I posted my comparatve testing for soap (remaining in the biodiesel) in the following thread:

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/71960555...581021451#4581021451

"I have been doing some soap tests on various methods of biodiesel production , and it has shed some light on reduction of soaps via pre wash that I thought was worthy of its own thread.

More details are in the "Liquid NaOH" thread, but the soap results are below:

I made 6 500ml test batches of biodiesel.
Dry NaoH
Dry NaOH with pre wash
Dry KOH
Dry KOH with pre wash
45% KOH in water (liquid KOH)
45% KOH in water (liquid KOH) with 5% pre wash

I then tested each for soap:

Soap test procedure:

1. Placed 250ml beaker on scale.
2. Added ~100ml solvent (Acetone w/2% distilled water).
3. Noted weight of beaker/solvent as 160gr.
4. Added unwashed bio until scale read 170gr.
5. Added 25 drops of bromoblue
6. Added .01N HCL until reach yellow endpoint.
7. Noted qty of added HCL solution.

Note- I did not blank titrate, but used the same solvent and hcl for all samples tested to determine RELATIVE values across samples..not absolute accurate soap ppm counts.

Results:
(to calculate soap for either catalyst, the approximate weight of sodium oleat is 304.4 grams/mole and the approximate weight of potassium oleate is 320.6 gm/mole, so these value are used accordingly)

1. Dry NaOH with no prewash:
required 7.5ml HCL solution
7.5 x 304.4 = 2283ppm

2. Dry NaOH with 5% prewash:
required 2.6ml of HCL solution
2.6 x 304.4 = 791ppm
(65% reduction in soap compared to no prewash)

3. Dry KOH with no prewash:
required 5.6ml of HCL solution
5.6 x 320.6 = 1795ppm

4. Dry KOH with 5% prewash:
required 2.2ml of HCL solution
2.2 x 320.6 = 705ppm
(61% reduction in soap compared to no prewash)

5. Liquid KOH with no prewash:
required 5.0ml of HCL solution
5.0 x 320.6 = 1603ppm

6. Liquid KOH with 5% prewash:
required 1.8ml of HCL solution
1.8 x 320.6 = 577ppm
(64% reduction in soap comapred to no prewash)


Conclusions:
These tests seem to indicate :
- Liquid catalyst does NOT increase soap formation as compared to dry catalyst.
- KOH soap formation was lower than NaOH
- Liquid KOH and dry KOH were about the same
- 5% Prewash significantly lowers soap content (remaining in th biodiesel).

Very cool! Thanks for the exact and very informative results. That should put an end to a bit of arguing.

I definately found a 5% prewash speeded up washing, but it's good to have facts and figures. Gradgrind would be pleased.

Thanks again, you saved a lot of us a lot of messing around!
Paul

..dollar

So how much would you charge me to come by your place and check out you processor?

Ok, let me ask a familiar question. SOTD and others doing this pre-wash...I love the prospect of your process but I do wonder if you have done a re-process test on your final product...and if it dropped any glyc. Your settle time seemed short, have you extended the settle time to see if more glyc dropped? Also does your processor hold any of the water from the pre-wash over to possibly interfere with the next batch of bio...meaning does any water remain to pollute the next batch and has that been a problem for you? One last, if you took a 50/50 mix of final product/water, put it in a bottle and shook the hell out of it would you get anything of note...milky water, milky layer, emulsion...anything of interest? Thanks for the research and the ideas...very interesting