I'm sure we all have incidents that make us all better brewers. The info I shared was just based on my experience and the great info given at the time. I was definitely told that if I process with KOH and then demethed that I would need to settle for several days to allow the additional suspended soaps to settle out. That was my mistake.. even the great Tilly stepped up to accuse me of not being patient enough but that I defintely needed to settle for days..not hours... this was after I settled and drained my glycerin and then demethed at 250F for several hours..

Several days after my truck was in the shop I saw the soap everyone was talking about separate and settle in the BD that was left in the lines.. it was a nasty goopy ruby red soap..

so some may argue differently but I saw this 1st hand and was told why by the pro's on here. again, not saying anyone here is wrong, but thats my experience..

spence

your filtered sample is looking good, if your bio passes 3/27 then I would bubble/evaporate off any remaining meth and then filter it.

If it doesn't pass 3/27 then you may need to reprocess depending on what vehicle you run.

Lisa,

even with KOH if the bio is fully demethed the soap will settle from the top down and within 12 hours you should be able to siphon of bio that is clear and usable after a quick filtering, depending on batch size this can be a few ml's or gallons, the whole batch could take a couple of days to be soap free though, if it takes longer then in my experience it isn't fully demthed.

I prefer to use NaoH and the glyc and soap settles out fast.
you tube video here.
http://www.vegetableoildiesel....518&page=1#pid130358

Settling speed is influenced by the temperature and insulation. Warm fuel settles redisual soap faster than cool fuel. Thermal circulation from uneven heating will tend to keep soap from settling quickly as well. Under-reacted fuel that is "thicker" may settle even slower.

My 250 gallon gravity tank (old farm fuel tank on a 6-foot stand) has an empty Goldenrod filter housing that acts as a sump. Even fully demeth'd biodiesel will eventually show some additional settled product. I let it sit for a few months, until the settled product stops appearing. The Goldenrod housing has a drain fitting that allows periodic emptying of accumulated stuff. About once a month I drain it. If no more appears in the next month, then it gets pumped through a filter to the 250 gallon refueling tank, which lasts about 6 months or so. By then the first tank has finished settling and is ready to transfer. It's slow, but it's thorough.

Cheers,
JohnO

So,

With the pictures shown, do you think that the sawdust column is doing its job? From appearances alone, I would say yes.

I do have question about the 3/27 test last night, is any drop out unacceptable? And is this dropout an indicator of residual soaps/glycerol?

quote:

Lisa,

even with KOH if the bio is fully demethed the soap will settle from the top down and within 12 hours you should be able to siphon of bio that is clear and usable after a quick filtering, depending on batch size this can be a few ml's or gallons, the whole batch could take a couple of days to be soap free though, if it takes longer then in my experience it isn't fully demthed.

Chug,

If she demethed at 250F she should have removed all the methanol and most of the water. I think Lisa might be right on this one especially since she is relating her experience with using KOH. I thought there was a problem with KOH soap settling using the GL1 process. Graham says that NaOH is much easier to use for this process. I think KOH takes much longer to coagulate and thus settle. I think Spence rushed the process as he needed fuel now. Been there done that. Won't happen again.

Spencnaz,

Don't throw it away. Blend it or repro. It is not a lost cause by any means.

So should I reprocess this fuel after sawdust filtering with reclaimed or fresh methanol?

IMO I would just blend it. I drive a 1999 Dodge 3500. A finicky truck as far as the lift pump goes, but I wouldn't fear blending your almost fuel with either good BD or Diesel. I have actually blended FFA/BD cracked from glycerine byproduct with 50% diesel in the Winter. I would love for someone to start experimenting with cracking glycerine to use the FFA as fuel. I planned to do that about 6 months ago, but too many side projects on the Honeydolist.

Spence,
as long as it's not more than 0.25ml fallout on 3/27 I would use it, and if you are worried blend it. I see Johno posted, he has been around long enough to know we were all using less well converted bio a few years back with no major problems, the intro of the 3/27 was a real eye opener for a lot of folks (myself included) as to how poor a conversion they were getting, but I think some get hung up with making high conversion bio especially if it's just for an old IDI engine that will run on almost neat veggie anyway.

Eurocab
Not wishing to argue but high temps don't necessarily mean all the methanol is removed, I judge it by the amount recovered against the amount started with. Going on what folks in the UK tell me, and post on the goat forum, I think it's roughly 50/50 whether they use KOH or NaOH, and I believe the majority now demeth and settle and I've not really heard, or seen reports from those using KOH of their soap taking that much longer than NaOH soap to settle out, the only comments I've seen are that it doesn't set solid.

The way the old IDI was running on this stuff really alarmed me. This 6.9 can run on boiled horse pee and not have any issues. I had run unwashed bio through it for years and never had a problem aside from really smoky startups.

Of course with those unwashed batches, I was processing with pure methanol as well so there wasn't the water contamination issue. These recent batches are my first attempts at making biodiesel with recovered methanol to drive down my costs.

Thanks for all the inputs thusfar. I just hadn't encountered this before (especially the suds developing on top of the sawdust barrel) and needed to know if this was going to be usable fuel. From what I've seen, after running through the sawdust and blending with some straight diesel, I should be ok.

However, I must be more stringent on my methanol quality. That shouldn't be a problem as I've fixed and upgraded the methanol condenser with help from an engineer well versed in thermodynamics.

I used to do a 5% prewash and then the recovered methanol would come back lower purity, around 90 -92% but it still made good bio, just made a little more soap too and slightly less yield, so your 95% should be ok, but since I stopped doing the 5% prewash, the recoverd meth is usually 98%.

Pulled and replaced the fuel filter last night. End of surging that's for sure. Took a pic of the contents discovered when the filter came out. Enjoy the greasy goodness.

Spence, When i recover methanol from BD I too get that frothy stringy guiness foam on top..wierd. I bet if I did the WBD this wouldnt be a problem as the glycerine tends to solve these problems.

Also did u do a soap titration on your finished product? - might help eliminate some possibilities.

Not sure what temp you demeth at, but first time I did it, i cooked my biodiesel and polymerized it a little bit.

Reece,

WBD? I don't remember that acryonym. As for the soap titration, I still need to learn how to do that or buy a kit.

whole batch demeth.. so you demeth the whole lot then drain the glycerine.

Compared to react, settle, drain, then demeth only the biodiesel.

Yeh a kit, or just buy a pH meter for $30. That way u never need to buy indicator again.

You did do a water/biodiesel shake test?

Thanks for the information.

I've not done the shake 'em up test on the fuel, but did at 3/27 test and had about .25mL of dropout on the sample. The drop out looked like chicken broth, which is understandable since it's probably loaded with lipids.

I like the idea about demething everything at once, biodiesel/glycerin in the tank to increase the glycerin drop out rate once residual methanol is removed. I'm however concerned about doing this with recovered methanol below 95% purity. Right now I'm seeing 90% purity in my methanol recovery barrel due to a water leak in the recovery condenser that was dripping into the methanol recovery container.

On the shake 'em test, do I use equal parts biodiesel and water to look for soap formation? I really never worried about it before, but since doing to a drywash system and having the fuel made with recovered methanol now has given my quality control further impetus.

If you do not have soap titration or measuring equipment at least do the shake em test. Its quick and easy and gives you a good idea of how well washed your fuel is.

You're exactly right. Equal parts bio and water. Roll the wrist back and forth to shake. Let settle. Water should be crystal clear. With good quality bio you shouldn't have to wait too long at all to see if its good fuel.

If the water is white, you know you have some soap left over. Doing dry wash process, some form of soap testing is a must imo. I use purolite. I Test my BD after settling and before the resin (make sure its under 500ppm soaps so i dont burn out my resin and $$$ in a hurry). Then do a final test on my finished fuel.

Even though the final fuel always passes with flying colours, gives some piece of mind and if there is a problem down the track it eliminates some possibilities.

I also soap test, but not so much. The shake test is a pretty good guide if you allow the BD to settle out the soaps prior to filtering through the hardwood shavings. You get a feel for how long you need to let the soap settle. I normally allow the demethed BD settle for a couple of weeks. I still use resin, but wouldn't if I didn't already own it.

Ditto on the soap testing and settling.

quote:

Yeh a kit, or just buy a pH meter for $30. That way u never need to buy indicator again.

Can you elaborate on that? I dont understand how the PH meter can be used in determining soap PPM.
Spenc, pour yourself a tall glass of your favourite bevvy and read all about Chug's WBD method HERE, its well worth the read!
Jon