I'm getting ready to make my first batch of bio-diesel, and have had a 55 gallon barrel of WVO settling for about a week now. There is a layer ( 5-10 gallons) of light brown milky looking stuff near the bottom of the barrel, right above the water that settled out. Is this usable, or should it be discarded? The oil above this level looks nice and clear.

The oil is canola oil that came from a restraunt/bakery.

Thanks,
Jeff

OK, so maybe this was a stupid newbie question. After reading some posts about de-watering oil, I wonder if milky layer possibly hydrogenated oil?

If so, can I drain it off, and use it in the summer when the warmer temperatures will not cause it to thicken up?

yup .. good plan

Trc

I've had thesame problem with some of the wvo that I got in the jugs I collected. I thought it was rinse water that bonded with the oil, but I don't know. I haven't used the stuff I set it aside and thought maybe the water would separate in the winter by freezing.( another unknown)I would fill my reaction tank with oil from the top of barrel and after its loaded , blend it up ,pull a sample ( 1 liter)do your titration and then do a Dr. Pepper test to see how the reaction works. I do this before I do my 35gal. reactions to make sure it should work. The one time I didn't I ended up with awhole batch of glycerin. It wasn't fun to clean up, I don't know what went wrong? Maybe someone in the forum can enlighten me.

Often this is tallows, or animal fats, and are fine to use. Try taking a sample and heating it to 130 or so, if it goes clear it is likely that and is fine, in my opinion, to use for biodiesel production.

I'ii have to try heating it up like you said. So what your saying its frying pan scrapings that blended into the fryer oil? I'm still curious why one complete batch turned into glycerin ,it titrated at 8 so I used 13 grams lye / liter 20%methanol.

Not scrapings really, but when you fry chicken for example the chicken fats liquify and become part of the oil. These fats are more solid than the vegetable oil and solidify when the oil is cooled. These fats, just like the oil, will convert to biodiesel when treated with lye and methanol. Heating it up just melts these fats and the oil becomes clear.

Heatbeater,
The load that became glycerin probably was really mostly soap. When oil is treated with NaOH and water it makes soap. This is why you need dry oil so that the reaction makes biodiesel instead.

There are ways to test the oil to see if its wet and this should be done. Try dropping some oil in a hot pan and see if it sizzles. There are also ways to dry oil.

Foxden, Ican only heat my oil to about 145 I don't know of any way to get rid of the water except to boil it off ,unless the water near the heating element will vaporize . There seems to be some movement in the reaction tank as its heating up. I don't know!I switched to caustic potash instead of lye . I think lye tends to cause washing problems ,but I'm not a pro at this. not a bio-pro in other words. An interesting thing to me is why does the glycerin solidify with lye but stay liguid with caustic potash? I don't know what take place there.

quote:

I don't know of any way to get rid of the water except to boil it off

If you use the search function on this forum you will learn about many better ways to dewater oil.

Search glycerin pre treatment, it is one method that works. But first do determine if your oil is wet or just full of other fats. That is what my suggestion about heating to see if it clears was about.

Thanks Foxden and JG for the advice I have some things to try out, right now we're buried in 3ft. of snow.

Are you getting oil that look like this? Some of this oil I bought and unsure exactly were it came from so it might have water in it. I have seen oil that does have water in it but its really to hard to tell what this is. Also I have oil that I pick up for free and after sitting for weeks I get this layer on the bottom and this oil has never been outside.



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http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z229/77volvo245/Biod...odiesel007.jpg[/IMG]

quote:

Originally posted by 82volvo265(Diesel):
Are you getting oil that look like this?

Yup, some of it looks like the stuff on the left.

quote:

Originally posted by 82volvo265(Diesel):
Are you getting oil that look like this? Some of this oil I bought and unsure exactly were it came from so it might have water in it. I have seen oil that does have water in it but its really to hard to tell what this is. Also I have oil that I pick up for free and after sitting for weeks I get this layer on the bottom and this oil has never been outside.

I assume some of this layer comes from frying food dipped in batter. There could also be some grease and fat that solidifies at room temperature. How do you process oil in this state. I am not in a position to be picky about the oil I get.

that looks like the dreaded transfats they add to the fryer oil to improve the tasy of food! They don't use that stuff here anymore, and since then, I haven't run into that crap! Tom

Hello. I wondered if anyone is familiar with a super effective WVO filter that is being made in Asheville? I've heard it's been testing for a year and can handle almost anything poured into it. Thanks. Claire