have just brought 4.2 diesel landcruiser 1992, made two batches of dr pepper method, both with 1lt of wvo, first with 250ml methylated spirits and 7g caustic soda crystals ( mixed at room temp in june uk, turned to a jelly like substance with in few hours but no 10 min reaction, slowly producing liquid that is clearer and runnyer than oringinal oil but this is after 3 weeks and still only produced about 300ml and still jelly based in bottle, second used 250ml methylated spirits and 10g of caustic soda as before , oh my god i've just invented brown mayonnaise!!!! which hasn't changed in two weeks, also got a price from catering suppliers of approx £15 per 20 litre drum of fresh veg oil, yet people are quoting any where from 25 to 42 pence per litre ( not a cold fusion scientist so my maths may be a little out but to me that doesn't work ), and as for tritration, easy for people who say their already doing it, but not even a four year old can understand the explanation on here, i've tried and my daughter kepps asking for the cbeebies web site, acn any one help with a recipe that should work with wvo with out tritration, or a tritration recipe that works, before bankrupcy sets in from fueling tne landcruiser,

many thanks

Hello totalcheapskate, welcome to the colourful world of biodiesel.

Methylated spirits is typically about 95% ethanol and 5% water in ลึก ประเทศอินเดีย . This is EXTREMELY unlikely to make biodiesel.
You need to obtain some 98- 100% methanol for the reaction.

On the positive side, your failed batches will not count towards your annual allowance of 53.459 litres of Royalty free biodiesel

cheers tilly, thnaks for the direction, i have tried to locate methanol from two local chemical traders, one frefused to sell me any as it would be private sale and they only sell to companies (told they have a responsability of care for whom they sell to so as they were confused by the whole bio diesel explanation they refused, second company had loads of people buy methanol off them for bio-diesel but no one return a second time , they were charging silly price thet made the whole process more expensive than fossil fuel. any advice to were to purchase and are they different qualities/ ie gold/silver/bronze quality etc, also are you based in uk?

cheers

TCS

quick thought, could i boil methylated spirits to remove water as can be done with oil? may be a stupid question but if you don't know the answer it isn't a stupid question!

cheers

Hello totalcheapskate

I understand that methanol is hard to get in the UK. If you do a search on this forum I believe there are a few UK members that do sell methanol.
Another thought is that Model plane fuel is made from methanol+ other things. Here in ลึก ประเทศอินเดีย it is common for Model clubs to have a drum of methanol to sell to members. You may find something similar in the UK.

Hello totalcheapskate

No, 95% is about the best you will get out of a still without adding another chemical.
In any case you will end up with ethanol which is not particurlarly reliabel in the biodiesel reaction.

quote:

Originally posted by totalcheapskate:
quick thought, could i boil methylated spirits to remove water as can be done with oil? may be a stupid question but if you don't know the answer it isn't a stupid question!

cheers

Hi Tilly,

Something funny happened. A week or so ago I made my first test batch using the Dr Pepper method. Worked great! I let it sit for a while and it became very clear. Then, yesterday I bumped it and noticed little bubble-looking things that were floating DOWN toward the glycerin. Then today, the biodiesel seems slightly cloudy. Not super cloudy, just not super clear like it was before I bumped it. Note that it didn't fall over, just moved a little bit. I didn't even swirl it.

What happened?

Hello James

Did the biodiesel get cold? If it got cold it could be high melting temperature esters solidifying and settling the bottom of the bottle kind of like it is snowing.
This can form a white layer on the bottom.
If you move the bottle this layer will often look like smoke moving .

Hi Tilly,

I don't think it would have gotten colder than about 68F. It didn't seem like snow, more like bubbles floating down. Anyway, now it's clear again. Funny.

Hi Tilly,

Update - I just checked the temperature outside and it's 66F. I think this is about the coldest it gets during the night. And, it's cloudy (the biodiesel, that is). Is it temperature-related?

Hello all. I just did my first test batch using the Dr Pepper methode. I used 250 ml methanol, 4g NaOH, and 1 liter of new oil. After shaking for about 10 seconds, it started separation about 5 minutes after. After 2 days, it has cleared some, but not as much as I expected. But then maybe this is all it will clear? I moved it around a bit a while ago, and I noticed some gel formed on top of the glycerine. There is also a thin film of what may be soap on top of the biodiesel.

So my question is, what should I do about it? Should I remove the biodiesel and do the Dr Pepper bottle wash? Thanks in advance. Here is a pic of my first test batch.

100_0386.jpg (2,429 Kb, 54 downloads)

Hello mp11, welcome to the forum and congratulations on your first successful batch of biodiesel!
It looks perfect.
4g NaOH is a bit short, but yes, go ahead and do the wash.
And remember, Gently, gently, gently is the prime directive.

And...just to follow up. Here's a pic of the sample after washing and drying. Doesnt look too bad actually.

On a side note: I did a second 1 liter test batch using a blender. The blender actually churned much too fast and I made a nice batch of soap basically. Kept trying to wash it, but wound up with more and more soap and less and less biodiesel in the dr pepper bottle. So I gave up on that.

100_0392.jpg (2,279 Kb, 52 downloads)

Hi Tilly, I keep reading that CARTRIDGE RESPIRATORS DO NOT WORK WITH METHANOL in several of your posts. I was wondering which type you recommend and where do you get them. Thanks

Hello BDMike

The only respirators that are safe to use with methanol are the Supplied Air variety

Hi,

Well I finally went shopping for soda bottles and new vegatable oil to try my first refining of biodiesel. I used the addended method of shaking 4 times over the course of an hour. and after 24 hours I have a bottle that looks like mp11's first picture, clear glycerin on the bottom and not so clear bio on the top. For whatever reason, like mp11 I was expecting something more clear on the top... Should I wait another day or is it good to wash?

Also, I'm easily confused, I separate the bio & glycerin first? Any prefered method for this? Just pour off the bio? Won't the glycerin try to come to the bottom as I pour...

I've started reading into the almost 400 posts on this thread and someone mentioned something about the glycerin solidifying...is this something I should expect? Want?

In other forums I've asked about disposal of the by-product and people have suggested making soap and such, but I've read here that a fair percent of the methanol is in the by-product... Isn't this highly toxic?

Thanks for the help and Tilly thanks for putting this on the net to make getting started easy for the rest of us.

Hello Kylie, congratulations on your first successful batch of biodiesel!

What you describe is as it should be.
It is ready to wash.
Yes, seperate the glycerine and biodiesel first.
If you used NaOH/Caustic soda, the glycerine will likely eventually solidify, but as you have used new Veggie oil and plenty of methanol it will take some time.
Yes, the "glycerine" straight from the reaction is toxic.
You are welcome.

Hey guys,
I have a quick question. I tried the Dr.Pepper way two times. The first time I used Zep 10 min drain opener. And when I did it it didn't turn brown at all. Today I saw a lower darker color layer on the bottom, not much at all. So I went and bought the Robeic crystal drain opener displayed on the site. This didn't "change color from a "Chocolate milk to a rich, darker brown" in the beginning or in the next 10 mins like your site says. I am using the cheap walmart brand vegetable oil and the yellow Heet. Using 4g of NaHO and 250ml of the Heet. I don't know if this is normal to miss the dark brown stage . Am I doing something wrong. Is there a variable I'm not seeing.
thanks
rich

Hello psi3000, welcome to the forum

It sounds like you are using new veggie oil.
If you look at the instructions it says,
"If you used New Oil, the colour change is not nearly as great and you may have problems seeing much of a colour change at all.
If you reacted New Oil the glycerine layer on the bottom will not be much darker than the oil you started with and the biodiesel will usually be very light in colour.
The biodiesel will be very cloudy, and it will take a day or two more for it to clear."

Check to see if you can see two layers in the bottle. The bottom layer will usually be slightly darker and clearer than the top biodiesel layer.

OK, I see that now. And yes, there is the darker layer on the bottom of both test batches. However, I washed one of the batches three days ago, like described on the site, and the one I did'nt wash is way more clearer than the one I did wash and it has been three days. I did these test runs because my friend has 55gal of filtered twice veg oil that he used for his SVO VW he used to own. So I am going to use two 55gal drums welded together for my primary tank, and I just wanted to make sure I had the theory and idea/what to watch out for, before I ran a 55 gal batch through the process. So I think my final questions are: Is this normal or do I just have to wait longer? Do you have to wash clean veg oil?