Superorb:

Yep...crystal clear after only three hours in the sun venting yesterday but it stayed cloudy until it was washed. Washing went just as Tilly said with gentle agitation at the beginning until about wash 5. By wash 5 the water was relatively clean...although I did notice more foam and bubbles in the water layer with the harder agitation. I also noticed a slight drop in yield after the wash.

Slight drop in yield is normal. Good job When I left cap off to vent, dust settled in mine. I had to strain through a coffee filter. I've got a jar sitting on my desk at work

Well, just when you think you've got it, then you try a dirty oil 2 liter bottle and get SMOKED.

I don't have my titration kit so I thought I'd be clever and get the guy who gave me the old oil to do the titration. That's all good except he has KOH and I have KaOH(?). I remembered that it took 63mL per the test so I plugged that number in and attempted to use THAT result to and use MY catalyst. BIG mistake.

The stuff never did 100% dissolve in Methonol and as soon as I poured this mixture into the oil it all coagulated in a big, marbled nightmare! It looks like a brown-sugar/oatmeal explosion in a 2-liter bottle.

SO I guess the obvious fix is titrate using KaOH since that's my catalyst and go with THOSE numbers, not the KOH numbers. Still kind of funny (by the way, does 70 grams of soda lye sound like a lot for 1 liter of WVO?).

Hello Raptor

Do you mean 63ml or 6.3ml

An NaOH titration of 6.3 is on the high side and likely to give you problems.

It took several full pipettes plus 3 (ml?) on the final which seemed to yield a total of 63 units. I thought it was ml of suspension and then you divide that number by 4(?). Again, I didn't do it myself but merely recorded the result. Chalk it up to me being lazy.

But yes, it took quite a bit more solution to turn and hold color compared to a new batch that I watched him do last week.

quote:

Originally posted by Tilly:
Hello Raptor

Do you mean 63ml or 6.3ml

An NaOH titration of 6.3 is on the high side and likely to give you problems.

Yep, I screwed up and screwed up BIG. The end result of 63 ml of solution was based on FOUR ml of test oil, not one. The end result, 63, MUST be divided by 4 and then added to the base amount. I should have used somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 grams of catalyst and instead attempted to introduce SIXTY EIGHT GRAMS.

I have successfully made a batch that looks like oatmeal mixed with brown sugar...kind of like a "ship in a bottle."

As promised, photos of the ugly, the bad, and the good...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83123420@N00/sets/72157605...how/with/2582954730/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: UT_Raptor,

quote:

Originally posted by UT_Raptor:
Superorb:

Yep...crystal clear after only three hours in the sun venting yesterday but it stayed cloudy until it was washed. Washing went just as Tilly said with gentle agitation at the beginning until about wash 5. By wash 5 the water was relatively clean...although I did notice more foam and bubbles in the water layer with the harder agitation. I also noticed a slight drop in yield after the wash.

follow on to this was that I should have let the post-wash settle much more than I was after violent agitation. Next time around, I will allow much more time for settling after washes 4 and 5.

I also noticed that Tilly's method of ONE 10-second shake using WVO seems to work far better than the 5 second shake every 15 minutes. I had good separation after the first 10 second shake and should have left it at that (see pics above) but I wanted to test the 15 minute interval agitation to see if I got better yield. Instead, I once again got somewhat of a congealed mess as I did with SVO. Catalyst could also be the culprit, as the scale I'm using isn't as accurate as it should be.


But this does leave a big question for me...once I nail down the catalyst and period of agitation to produce acceptable fuel how should I interpret those results towards use in an Appleseed? I ask because it would seem that with pump agitation that I may have the same problem as I did using the 15 minute interval shake...where one violent shaking period yields good fuel while intervals seems to mess things up a bit.

Hello-

I just ran my first ever batch (Dr. Pepper method) using wvo I got from my brother in law who is a chef. The fryer oil he gave me was quite dark, about as dark as doctor pepper, it has been sitting for about an hour and all I can see is about 3/4" of somewhat clear fluid on the top, the remainder is as dark as it started.

I have not found any info on dark oils in your forum or in the DR. Pepper Method pages. Do I need to go to a wvo forum? Or can someone help in this forum? Should I do a titration or is this oil simply burned or to full of FFA'S or did I mess up somewhere?

I followed the dirctions for the WVO ...it has been sitting for a few weeks after I filtered it with a 100 micron mesh filter.

Thanks-

Belugas

Hello belugas, welcome to the forum

Hold a light behind the Dr Pepper Bottle and see what it looks like

quote:

Originally posted by Tilly:
Hello belugas, welcome to the forum

Hold a light behind the Dr Pepper Bottle and see what it looks like

Thanks for the welcome-
with a light behind the bottle, the bottm half inch is a white sludge, the next 6" layer is dark coke color liquid, the next layer is a paper thin layer of a tan precipitate, and the top layer is light amber clear layer about 1" tall.

When I heated the oil I might have over heated it a bit because it did smoke a bit. Also, my wvo starts out as dark as root beer. No titration yet.

What you think?

Thanks-

belugas

Hello belugas

I suspect that you have some high titration oil and you will need to do a titration

I also want to make my own methoxide but I'm quite hesitant. I just can't stand the risk that my neighbor had just been through yesterday
_____________________________
Powered by Auto Repair and Maintenance

Hi all, did my first test sample yesterday using new oil, i got seperation almost stright away. I shook it for 20 sec quite hard, is this too much?. i now have BD with small white bits floating around and the stuff on the bottom is a light brown colour, also my BD is cloudy but think i may of shook it to much. do i need to leave it longer to clear up, or do i need to wash it. i used 6g of sodium hydroxide any help anyone ....... thanks in advance

anthony111

Hi all. I too just finished my first test batch using new oil. I followed Tilly's Dr.Pepper method to the letter. After shaking a dark amber liquid settled to the bottom. I removed the glcryn and did the water washes. The top fuel was cloudy and the water was cloudy also but got more clear after each wash. After the last wash the water was almost completly clear. I set the fuel out in the sun with top off and after about an hour it turned crystal clear. It did have two small droplets of water remaining in the bottom, but still after two days the fuel is crystal clear..I'm very happy with the results and getting ready to try it again..thanks again to Tilly and the Dr. Pepper method...