I wondering if anyone out there could help me out in de watering my oil. I'm looking for a easy cheep and easy way. I hooked up with a resterant that can give me 45L a week and that is more than I could ever need. But the oil is hydrogenated canola oil. I never use this type of oil before , but it tils very good.I have been having some problems with my test batches. My glycerine comes out like jello or I should say it doesn't. I can turn my settling jug upside down and pour out the BD and the glycerine doesn't move. I must say it makes seperating easyer but now I'm left with a mess on the bottom of the jug.

You eon't get many folks agreeing with me, but you might consider vacuum distillation to remove water. I heat the oil to reaction temp and then turn on my vacuum pump (can be a free refrigerator compressor) and draw a vacuum on the processor through the plumbers delight. Water boils at a lower temperature under vacuum. Usually within a half hour I am done dewatering. I use the same setup at the end of the reaction to remove methanol (that takes longer more like an hour)./

Yeah well you can add fresh glycerol at the rate of 20% to your oil and wait till it settles...2 - 5 days and take teh pure oil off teh top...

Works for me and some others

Tim c Cook had another recepie to do it over on the vegie side with kitchen reagents.

The cheapest method is time! I will let my WVO sit quietly for a week or so and the water will definitely settle out. Always check by cooking some oil and listening for the sizzle/pop of water.

More thoughts, I will also move the drum into the heat of the sun to dry and preheat the WVO for processing. If it's still not dry, I have a separate drying tank with a recirculating pump, open top and fan blowing across the surface.

You could also add salt to the mix. Certainly Neutral would say so. I would add it (dry or in concentrated water solution) to the oil before mixing in the glycerol.

Theory? You use a/the biggest difference you can find in a mixture and accentuate it to separate the component substances. Here you are using solution methods based on the fact that oil is non polar and water is polar.

Glycerol and salt are also polar compounds and will attract all polar substances in the oil... glycerol and water being heavier goes to the bottom (salt too)... (using the different densities and gravity); it could be speeded up by centrifuge.

Kinda the complementary side of the prewash addition of water where you are using the same polar type method to more quickly drop the glycerol (and water) out of the BioD. And incidentally, there as well, salty water works best...

BioD and oil are characterised as non-polar in solutions chemistry.

pig on a lecturne

YOOW Frenchy

did it work or whadda ya doin?

thanks guys for all of your help...I'm sorry to say I havn't tried anything yet...I haven't had the proper time...I'm trying to make an appleseed...and up size my operation....it's just I have a problem with space....I'll fine a solution yet before spring...when I start to make BD again.