Yes, extremely useful. Thank you for the excess of information, its (literally) more than I knew to ask for!

As for my lye-and-alcohol brew damaging a #5 PP (which I now know is PolyPropylene) box, no damage. So that's what I'm going to use.

--Jim

"Errors have been made. Others will be blamed."

Tilly et all:


Hello all testers. The test today included two separate samples of waste oil. One from domestic uses canola oil, one from a commercial source.

Utilizing the Dr. Pepper tech (pat pen) both oils separated after transesterification. The difference is the colour. One is a light honey coloured product (the domestic), the commercial waste oil, is a darker maple syrup colour. This sample needs to be candled (in front of a bright light source) to see the separation.

Is the dark colour sample still useable?

I have read Doug the tree huggers’ thread about darker oils. I think I am experiencing a different colour. It is more like a dark soda, like Coke. But it does separate and the glycerin is much darker in colour. No titration was done just one teaspoon measured in two different containers for control for each of the four batches. So the NaOH has been consistent with a 250 ml of methanol. I seem to have good separation. Is there another test to try before the 1.6VW engine?

RAVeman
My mother taught me IRONY.
"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."

You can improve the colour and the smell by mixing it for a few hours with a mixture of 1% activated carbon/fullers earth at 50C and then filtering it cold.
Graeme :-)

quote:

---

Tilly - NO appreciable pressure is generated during this mixing.

---

I accept that this is the case at sea level however in my location (East of the black stump) at 1200 ft above sea level I do get a very sinificant pressure increase immediately on shaking. Using a screwcap jar (jam jar) and without my Chemistry experience a newbie could get into difficulty. The pressure is such that the contents will spurt out of the tight lid if the jar be upside down.

Certainly this might not happen with a Dr Peppers bottle which could well expand compared to a glass jar.

I now have modified your technique at this point as follows:

Shake upright for 2 quick shakes; immediately release the lid a fraction while continuing to hold upright.

Retighten the lid and give 5 more shakes holding upright; again release the pressure.

Retighten the lid and shake vigourously for 10 seconds/40 shakes etc.

A la Sharmon I do then gently swirl it for 5 minutes but of course this is not your method.

I am at 1250 ft elevation

There is a slight pressure increase due to the air heating up inside the bottle and expanding. This pressure increase is slight and quickly subsides. The reaction itself does not produce pressure.
I would refrain from holding the jam jar upside down.

The shape of a Dr Pepper Bottle has been scientifically optomsied for producing biodiesel.

Rev Tilly KE

Dr. Pepper Method (pat pend) with photos:

http://www.kitchen-biodiesel.com/

Rick

THanks! for taking the time to write out the DR Pepper method... sounds very helpful. I'll try first batch next week...

I made as the method of dr. Pepper, mixing mixture, metoxido the 3,7 NAOH g and 250ml of methanol in 1 liter of new oil. The BD and the glycerin separated wonderfully, but for some reason the glycerin composed 85% of the volume. A dark color 15%, biodiesel, was in top and a clear color 85%, glycerin, almost transparent, were under. It has more glycerin of that biodiesel. What I must make now for obte, to remove greater amount of biodiesel of this portion, amount/mixture that I made? How to extract, to recoup or to get total biodiesel of this mixture in the separation? I must heat the separation/mixture BD with the Glycerin? How do to happer more biodiesel?

toakiuai,
Looks as if you have't used enough NaOH.
3.5 gramm/litre was found to be too litle. Try again with 4.5 or 5 gramm.
To try and get more from the batch you made, add 1.5 gramm of NaOH to 20 millilitre of methanol, make sure it is well dissolved then add it to your batch. Shake it up well and then keep it warm (around 50 C) for an hour. Leave it to stand overnight and see what you get.

Also, no need to use 250 millilitre of methanol 200-210 is enough.
regards
dva

tried a batch in a dr peppr bottle .
first one i could not wash out.
treid it again and still am haveing problems
getting the water to clear.7 washes so far and water is still pink from pheno.
Am i using to much lye.koh ??
oil titrated at 2.5 grms (koh solution)
i then added 7 grms plus 2.5 for a total of 9.5
first batch had 250 ml of meth second i tried
300ml.
Any ideas??

Why is your water pink from Pheno

Pheno is not something used in the reaction.

If you allow the fuel to sit for a day or 2 before washing it washes a lot quicker.

It often does take a number of washes, just keep washing or allow it to sit.

Thanks tilly.
yes the second batch is coming cleaner
I did let it sit overnight. than drained the glyc.
i got 165 ml of glyc using 25o ml of meth
and 190ml of glyc using 300ml .
Should i be getting more? like 250/300 respectivly . I put some of the washwater in a graduated cylinder and dropped a few drops of phenolpthalein(thats where i got the pink from)
into it to see if it would indicate above 8.5 or so. only the last wash did not turn pink so i am getting there.Water is not quite clear though.

I think you used way too much lye.

I had great success with 4.5g/L + titration of 2.4g/l in what amounted to about 500mL of alcohol.

That was with WVO. The 7g/L is the "rough" estimate of base for WVO.

OB1 CANOLA

The extra glycerine in the 300ml batch will be mostly methanol.

I can not recall what the ratio of input to output should be.
If you are titrating with KOH then my understanding is that you should be using 7gKOH+ titration in 200ml methanol.
I never used KOH so do not have first hand knowledge.

koon
were you using KOH or NAOH??
500 ml of methanol seems a bit much
thats 50% .or were you using 2 liters of oil?

What i have read for koh is 7 g Plus titration.
i think i will try a batch with 2 gr less
and see how it washes.

I was using lye. Sorry for the potential mis-information. I did not catch the KOH part in your original post.

I agree the 500mL alcohol was excessive but was called for in the Dr. Pepper recipe. And it worked, regardless.

As I understand 22% is the standard for methanol.

Here's a couple of thoughts about methanol excess:

the more methanol you have, the more complete the biodiesel can become (assuming everything else is 'right' like amount of catalyst, and mixing the methanol/methoxide into the oil thoroughly). Remember that you can't really very easily 'see' the differences between batches based on conversion.

However, over a certain amount of methanol, it sometimes becomes harder to get the glycerol to settle because the methanol is a great solvent for both glycerol and biodiesel, so it holds them together in one 'phase' instead of letting them separate.

So I've heard that 25% methanol (what's in the Dr Pepper directions) is about the upper limit for what's practical before the methanol becomes too much of a solvent and makes settling of glycerine difficult.

The other factor is that the methanol is expensive and people want to skimp on it because of cost.

22% is a compromise between cost and 'using lots of it'. I just started recommending that one day but it's not a magic number or anything (neither is 20%).

Mark

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

ok so my second batches water came clear about
and i drained the water off the bottom
and i put a small sample of the undried still cloudy biod in a pint mason(lid off) to see what happens over time.
I than brought the temp of the rest of biod up to 275 and drove off the water it became crystle clear.Quite pretty, if i do say so myself, sort of like very clear maple syrup(not as thick).
I put some of that in a mason jar(lid on) to watch over time also. So my next batch has a little less koh (7.5 grams) and the glyc has dropped out.
i am going to let it sit with the glyc for
48 hrs or so and see what it looks like.

This is so much fun..

Dear DVA,
Thanks about your sugestion, I loved, it gave certain, was wonderful, I made as you it said, the glycerin separeted +ou- 15% glycerin and 85% biodiesel. It´s wonderful, now I go make wast/used oil. I am very happy, today. Thank you very much.

Toakiuai