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If you end up not washing beware in using it in the VP44, they can be problematic just using diesel let alone with something that might be loaded with soap. I have been puting my faith on well done BD to prolong my pump's lifespan. I'll bet the MBZ would have no problem.
I have let BD settle for over a month and gotten very little fall out but I never took steps to get rid of the methanol. |
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The washing/not washing debate has been thoroughly answered here on this forum. If you want to burn this for fuel in your vehicle, then you MUST, I repeat MUST remove the Methanol and Lye/Soap from the biodiesel or you risk damage to your fuel pump, injectors, and engine. If you just plan on using it to fuel your next campfire, then knock yourself out. Since you mentioned that you lack space, then might I suggest an alternate method to cleaning the biodiesel other than washing and drying. For the soap to be removed without water, practice has shown that you must remove the methanol, then the soap can either fall out or be filtered out. I recommend removing the methanol with Graham Laming's simple and effective design venturi and condenser/still. I use a still to recover methanol on every batch. A great side effect to condensing the methanol is that you get to reuse it if its pure enough. . Then finally remove the soap with either a drywash media or a centrifuge filter. Water washing is not the only road to paradise when it comes to washing biodiesel but it is probably the easiest and least expensive up front. I say up front because the cost of water and time are the trade off. The centrifuge filter uses no disposable media. A great resource for purchase and info on centrifuges is here. They have a series of youtube videos that I recently discovered here. I hope that helps. It's not impossible to implement a methanol recovery setup, especially if a bonehead like me can do it on the first try. I made it out of parts from Lowes and it works great!! Welcome to the world of biodiesel. Once it's in your blood, it's hard to get out. Cheers, PSD6 |
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I found several articles on Gramm's design - which one is current/recommended to follow. Thx
The apprentice BD-maker, Denver CO Vehicles: 2002 Dodge RAM with Cummins Turbo-diesel; 1985 MB 300D Turbo; 2006 Honda Pilot LX |
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The push/pull is GL's latest design. Look in the equipment section for a very long post all about it... Jon |
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Regarding a centrifuge option, I watched some of the videos on-line but couldn't figure out if it's necessary to first evaporate the methanol from the 'raw' bd first and THEN use the centrifuge to filter out the remaining suspended soap from it, or if can all be done in one step?!
Thanks, James The apprentice BD-maker, Denver CO Vehicles: 2002 Dodge RAM with Cummins Turbo-diesel; 1985 MB 300D Turbo; 2006 Honda Pilot LX |
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Good find on the centrifuges. Ive never heard of PA Biodiesel Supply before. thanks |
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Ramski, search for Fabricator and read his notes on 'fuging to remove soap. He is the resident expert and has taken it to a new level.
edit, Fabricator |
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Even if you fuge your soaps out of your BD, ya still going to have to demeth your BD before use..BD and methanol are miscible at a certain ratio, hence 3/27 tests. If they were immiscible like glycerine and BD then fuge would work well - but theyre not. You really wanna recovery your methanol, it reduces your input costs nicely. |
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except you need to search "fabricator" if you want to find his thread. He has a new one right now on the general side..  Lisa 2006 Ford F250 6.0L Powerstroke with 12 inch lift |
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Water washing bio is now a thing of the passed on this side of the pond.
We now demeth the whole batch, NO prewash, based on the stoichiometric measure, 12.5% of the wvo/uco. To make it simple, If you had a 100gall batch and used 22gall of methanol you can recover 9 1/2 gals at 98%pure. Transfere the bio to an open top drum and force air through it at a fairly high volume for a couple of hours, most of us now use 70ltr/min Koi aquarium pumps, this is to drive of the last of any remaining methanol. Leave to settle for 12-24hrs and it's ready to use, just run it through a 5 micron filter for peace of mind. As no water is used there's no mayonaise and because the methanol is no longer in the bio the soaps fall out of solution in no time. My personal record from WVO/UCO to bio to the car and driving away is 7hrs. |
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James most will tell you I just spent alot of money on my truck for doing it that way and not letting it settle long enough. I demethed and ran it thru my Thermax tower.. I was unaware of the fallout when you demeth like that.. I think it settled around 48 hours and then into my truck.. the soap continued to fall out for even the next few days in my tank and caused a fuel pump failure, clogged regulator and 1 injector bad. Not saying it would happen to you but it did me. The nice people on the forum explained that I really needed more like a week to let it settle since I used KOH and demethed..I now how gone back to water washing and then the Thermax after I dry as a polish..
Just curious.. are you passing all your soap test? Lisa 2006 Ford F250 6.0L Powerstroke with 12 inch lift |
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James demething the whole batch dont you get back reactions?
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Hi Reece, My last batch had a very small reverse, I now do a 5/45 test. The test before demeth was good the second, after demeth showed a pinhead size reverse. Having said that I've used poorer conversions in my car before with no adverse affects.
I've been running 3 engines on B100 for 2 years one of which is a commn rail, without ANY problems, filters, injectors, tank pumps or hi-pressure pumps. I have never water washed 1cc of bio, just demethed and settle, it's only 3months since I put a filter on the settling tank.. Biogirlz, are you not aware of the 50/50 soap test. How do you quantify the soap content of your bio. Of course you'll get soap dropout in your tank if you put soap laden bio in. How good was your demething, what percentage of the batch did you get back, did you do a prewash settle and drain down the glycerol then demeth or was it a whole batch demeth, did you work to the stoichiometric measure? |
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My old friend Jamesrl... Please enlighten us yanks on this side of the pond. What is UCO? I'm not familiar with this abbreviation. What kind of lye are you using? I can't imagine that NaOH would be a good candidate for this process because it would settle in the bottom of your tank and harden if it gave it a chance to cool (ask me how I know). Maybe you are using NaOH and you haven't found it to be an issue. So let's say that you demeth the whole thing, glycerin and biodiesel. It's still mixing or stirring or pumping. You shut off the mixing and allow separation but you probably don't let it sit there overnight. You drain the glycerin as soon as you have adequate separation. Then you transfer it over to an open top tank where you bubble the heck out of it for 2 hours. Then you let it settle and filter it. Let me know if I'm missing something. I think I remember Graham Laming posting something about adding in a small amount of acid to neutralize and halt the reaction so he could demeth the entire batch. Have you tried this and found it to be unnecessary? |
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How strange that UCO is new to you, I got it off this forum, it'a Used Cooking Oil the same as WVO Waste Vegetable oil.
I use NaOH lye, once the methanol is removed Glycerol/Soap dropout happens in minuites, Chug has a video of the settling speed. I think it was a 4ltr sample, it settled in 6 mins, for a 150ltr batch an hour is ample and 99% of soap and glyc will have dropped out. We haven't heard of any of any adverse effects caused by the method. Yes Graham does use HCL to neutralize the lye prior to whole batch demeth, as soon as I can get hold of the acid I'll be giving that a go. For those who haven't seen it here's my prototype 2 stage Eductor, this is the one that did the 35min reaction  |
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Ok, we're totally off topic. But that eductor is effing cool! Never seen one like that before, but it makes sense. Care to share calcs with us?
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Boy oh boy... stoichiometric, 50/50 test, Eductor... I see I got some reading to do...  As I read the posts above, one thing seems to be getting more clear to me and that is: water washing may indeed be a thing of the past and that there are now better methods for finishing the BD, so that's exciting! There are obviously many, many paths to follow in refining the raw product, so at this point I'm really confused on all the choices I should make, so need a little help shaking it all out, please. Once the reaction in appleseed is complete, I was originally thinking of performing a popular pre-wash with 10% of hot water to stop the reaction - that step may be in question now that I read the posts from jamesrl above... let's leave that one open for now. I know I have to provide adequate settle time for the glycerol to fall out to the bottom following the reaction (say a couple of hours) and then drain the glyceral out of the bottom of the reactor into a tight container. That's clear, but I'm a little confused on what to do next and how I should best proceed with methanol recovery in my space. I guess my goal would really be to remove as much of the methanol from the raw BD as possible in the simplest possible way. Need your help deciding on the proper steps to take in achieving maximum de-mething with minimum investment in equipment (and of course safety). I've read much about boiling out methanol out of BD batch by heat and vacuum and it's an appealing solution (though a little scary.. Question here: could I leave the 'raw' BD in the apple-seed after draining the glycerin and just start heating it up again (say 140-155F) and then start applying the vacuum to get the methanol to boild out of the liquid, and recover it using a version of a still (plumber's delight, or some other coil)?! Is that a good option or is that too dangerous?! Seems a little scary to tell you the truth.The other option (by jamesrl) of blowing a lot of air though the BD seems like an attractive option as well. Could that be done in the appleseed, or must it be done in a separate vessel?! Thanks again - The apprentice BD-maker, Denver CO Vehicles: 2002 Dodge RAM with Cummins Turbo-diesel; 1985 MB 300D Turbo; 2006 Honda Pilot LX |
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Stoichiometry- calculation of the quantities of the reactants and products in a given reaction. I remember this subject in High School. Basically, by performing a mathematical practice to the chemical reaction we want to perform we can calculate exactly how much of "A" and how much of "B" is necessary to carry the reaction of given quantity of "C" (WVO) to completion without wasting the reactants (methanol and lye) or having leftover A, B, or C. Said another way, how much of each is required for perfect balance without waste. That's great for theory. Theory tells us that we need about 12.5% by volume of WVO of methanol. For 100L of WVO, we will consume 12.5L of methanol. BUT practice has shown that 12.5L isn't enough to carry a consistent full reaction because the Glycerin soaks up Methanol as the reaction progresses. SO, we super saturate the reaction with excess methanol of about 22% by volume of WVO to get a complete reaction with very little unreacted WVO left over. Then we can "reclaim" the excess 12% of methanol to reuse by distillation of the biodiesel and glycerin. The practical application of safely removing and capturing methanol has been done even by a bonehead like me. The Graham Laming method of using a venturi and a water-cooling condenser works very well for me. I use it for every batch. It has since been surpassed by his push/pull design in terms of improving reclaimed methanol purity. What either method accomplishes is the same. Remove methanol. With methanol absent, the excess soap/lye will fall out of suspension in the biodiesel fluid and is not removable by a method OTHER THAN WATER WASHING. Settle, sock filter, drywash medium, or centrifuge. It's totally up to you and your goals. |
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Yeah, I've been looking at GL's Push-Pull design processor and I have to tell you - I don't think I can do that... I'm sure it works great, but it's just too complicated for me... Maybe I will look at his 'eco processor' design... see if I can adapt my junk to it - I'm frustrated and discouraged. The apprentice BD-maker, Denver CO Vehicles: 2002 Dodge RAM with Cummins Turbo-diesel; 1985 MB 300D Turbo; 2006 Honda Pilot LX |
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