after some years of humming and arrring I have finally got round to processing 80litres of oil in a Graham Laming style processor. What I have ended up with is a cloudy diesel.
My production method was a follows.
80 litres of WVO
titration was .5g NAOH which I added to 3.5g per litre NAOH
16 litres of Methonol
Processed at about 45-50deg for one hour.
added 4 litres of water and run for 20 minutes
left for just over one hour. Drained off very runny glycerin in to 4 demijons till clearish liquid came out. (16 litres waste)

rest decaneted into large drum to settle ready for washing.
Having read various theads last night and today. My questions are:
Should I have made base 5gm NAOH?
Should I have run for longer than 1 hour?
Did I had too much water?
My Glycerin waste should it have been near 20 litres eg 16litres of meth and 4 litres of water.
I look forward to any answers
Luke

Hello Luke

quote:

Originally posted by Luke_UK:
Should I have made base 5gm NAOH?

Yes if you want to pass the 3/27 test

what is the 3/27 test

quote:

Originally posted by Luke_UK:
what is the 3/27 test

Luke_UK

Have a read here
It is quite a long thread but the 3/27 test is easy and will tell you a lot about what you are doing wrong.

thanks will have a read a revised my process

have tried the 3/27 test and it says suggests i did not use enough NaoH but I knew that
Question
I put in 3.5g per litre instead of 5g base, if I put in 1.5g which is what I was short by, how much methonol should I use?

50 ml/L should is about normal for reprocessing.

Also, process longer next time and since you NOW know about the 3/27 test, pass it before you turn off your processor.

Jim...

Thanks will try the weekend

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy k:
50 ml/L should is about normal for reprocessing.
Jim...

He already added water to the batch. Reprocessing probably won't push the reaction any further. I never tried reprocessing biodiesel that already had the 5% water pre-wash but I can't imagine anything good coming of it. Wet biodiesel and NaOH sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Ken