Rick,

I didn't see your post when i was doing my calculations.

Yes, I completely agree with you, its another excellent reason to plumb reliefs and vents AWAY from you and the rig.

I guess the whole reason for me putting my two cents into this discussion is that even though the person involved took the right steps to ensure that his local FD was aware of exactly what he was handling, the quantities and i think even his system configuration, not all biodieseler's do this. Insofar as quantities, I'll give you an example:

There was a US Aircraft carrier that had a fire in an engine room (have you ever seen the size of an engine room on an aircraft carrier - Think good size gymnasium (or bigger). Anyways, there was a high pressure lube oil leak which sprayed on a high pressure/high temperature uninsulated steam line. This caused the spray to ignite. At the end of the day, it took hours to put the fire out, the engine room rose to a temperature of over 1300 degrees Fahrenheit.

This resulted from a grand total of 1.5 gallons of lube oil going up in flames. It would not be a stretch of the imagination for a home biodieseler to have 50 to 100 times that quantity on hand. Your local FD is not going to make it to your house with a response time less than a dedicated fire response unit on an aircraft carrier.

All this talk about temperatures and I started thinking about the solar panels on the roof of the building that perished in the fire.

My panels were BP Solar model BP-850's. They are a thin-film panel made of a amorphous silicon embedded in an encapsulated glass envelope.

This tempered glass panels melted onto the roof and dripped off of the steel edge creating what my friend is calling "solar-sicles".

Either way I started looking up the melting point on glass.


According to Wikipedia

Melting Point of Glass

So at around 2000C (3600F) glass will begin to melt. So I think this all might be a mull point, as the temp far exceeds everything we have previously talked about.

I dunno ... Am I wrong here?

--
Jeff Brandt
Sun Break Biofuels, LLC
jeffb at sunbreakbiofuels.com

"solar-sicles" ROTFLMAO

Jeff, I think what some of us are doing is to take some lessons from your fire and apply them to the homebrew scenario. We are not trying to say you did anything wrong, in fact I think you did a lot of things right! Your contacting the newspapers was a stroke of genius. You tried to work with the Fire department, and have continued working with them after the fire. You've come on the forum and explained the details of the fire and that's great!

I don't think the glass melting on the roof changes anything, heat rises.

While the lessons for your specific situation are different, and for you to decide for yourself, there are things homebrewers can learn from your fire. I should note that not everyone will agree with me on these points.

The lessons we can take away are:
1) Heat melts poly tanks,
2) If poly tanks have fuel in them and melt, then they feed the fire with more fuel.
3) Keep methanol storage far away from your processor. (something Jeff shows us works)

Some lessons we can imply are:
1) Don't store biodiesel or WVO in your home, especially in poly tanks.
2) Don't put your storage tanks along a wall, move them away from the building a bit.
3) Steel is safer than poly in a fire.


I don't think we can use the excuse that putting biodiesel in a steel tank is more dangerous because it increases the risk of explosion. The safety experts have written it into code that the more volatile liquids (and therefore more likely to "cook off") should be in steel rather than poly. When we talk to the experts to try to convince them that poly is ok for biodiesel, we all use the high flash point as the basis for our argument. We do not use the chance of cooking off and exploding as a reason. If we did, they would just laugh in our face.

Homebrewers have come a long way with safety over the last two or three years. Most homebrewers agree that it's not a good idea to make biodiesel in open top containers with drill powered mixers. We take care to seal them as well as we can to contain the methanol fumes. Two years ago almost no one was considering putting pressure relief valves on processors, now it's common place. We have learned from the misfortune of those in our movement and adjusted our practices to make homebrewing safer. I would like to see the movement move just a little safer and get away from poly processors and storage tanks.

There is no code on biodiesel.... yet. If we self regulate with safety in mind, and continue to learn from the misfortune of a few, then we are less likely to see draconian regulations placed on us.

This is the best thread on biodiesel safety I've ever seen. How do we tie it together into an article for www.biodieselcommunity.org?

quote:

Originally posted by RickDaTech:
We have learned from the misfortune of those in our movement and adjusted our practices to make homebrewing safer.

Luckily, there has been very few accidents. despite the rapid growth of homebrewing and despite the atrocious safety practices of the Dark Ages (meaning 3-8 years ago, the Time Of The Open Top Processors). I can think of very few accidents, considering the very large number of homebrewers I think are out there.

I'd also like to point everybody to the 'talk to your fire department' article at biodieselcommunity.org :
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/storageconsiderations/
It's not named 'safety' unfortunately so some people might miss it thinking it's about shelf life or something, but is a really good resource for how to make this whole process safer for your community:
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/storageconsiderations/

Mark

quote:

That was a welding accident, not a biodiesel accident. The weldor was repairing a 1,000 gallon tank full of glycerine that contained some methanol and methanol vapor. Again, the scale is different, I was talking about plastic homebrew processors versus sealed metal homebrew processors, where we have 40 gallons of this or that, which is a slightly different situation than 1000 gallons at a permitted production facility where the (outside contractor, I believe) repairman wasn't trained properly in what he was working on.

Welding accidents involving repairs of tanks happen all the time- and it was very unfortunate that this took place at a well-intentioned commercial biodiesel production company.

I guesss this makes it even more troubling - the fact that it was a commercial operation and a contractor working on the tank. Now I'd really be worried about the folks doing it in their garage on a limited budget cutting corners.

quote:

I guesss this makes it even more troubling - the fact that it was a commercial operation and a contractor working on the tank. Now I'd really be worried about the folks doing it in their garage on a limited budget cutting corners.

It was an 8,000 gallon tank with 1,400 gallons of byproduct. This does not compare to anything we do in homebrewing. That tank had more methanol vapor in it than the average homebrew has in liquid form. A 2" diameter vent probably would not have been big enough to relieve the pressure built up from burning that much methanol.


From: The Steel Tank Institute

quote:

USA, NY, STATEN ISLAND
JUNE 5 2005.
FUEL EXPLOSION IS ATTRIBUTED TO A REPAIR
By Kareem Fahim and Janon Fisher
City officials said yesterday that a spark from a grinding machine possibly caused the explosion that killed a 45-
year-old contractor on Friday as he worked in the storage lot of a Staten Island company that makes environmentally
friendly fuel.
The police said that the man, John Drury, of Little Silver, N.J., was apparently repairing a pinhole leak on an
8,000-gallon drum when it exploded. He was found dead at the scene, the police added.
A woman who answered the telephone yesterday at Mr. Drury's house declined to comment.
City officials said they had not yet determined what was in the tank that exploded. But Thakoordeo Harnanan,
who works as a production manager at the company, Environmental Alternatives, said that the tank Mr. Drury was
trying to fix contained 1,400 gallons of glycerin. Mr. Harnanan said glycerin is a waste product of biodiesel fuel,
which the company makes from soybean oil.

The lesson for homebrewers in this one is to dispose of your byproduct quickly. 1,400 gallons of byproduct contains roughly 400 to 500 gallons of methanol.

OK, I see everyone comparing metal to plastic (to be a little generic) and towards the end, even mention of pressure relief valves.

But what I don't see anyone discussing is the difference in Fire Ratings.

There is a very large difference in the Fire Rating of a HDPE tank and a Steel Water Heater. When one equates the Water Heater to a bomb, they are assuming both that the water heater has no pressure relief device AND that the fire is burning for an unlimited amount of time with no Fire Suppression efforts whatsoever.

It is highly probable that the HDPE tank will fail prior to the Fire Department arriving on the scene, but for the water heater to fail, the pressure relief device would have to fail to open and the Fire Department would have to ignore your pleas for help.

I also would hope that when Jeff rebuilds his facility, that he places his storage tanks in an area with at least a 2-3 hour fire rating (or even behind a cinder block wall). That way if the fire is not related to the storage tanks themselves, the tanks should be able to go a couple hours before risk of failure, even if they do remain plastic.

Just some food for thought.

I also forgot to mention that if the facility is rebuilt using a pole barn structure as opposed to the wood barn that it was originally in, a repeat incident is highly unlikely to produce as much damage.

I'm betting that Jeff is regretting the cost savings of reusing the existing wooden barn, but of course hindsight is 20/20.

quote:

But what I don't see anyone discussing is the difference in Fire Ratings.

I had to look up Fire Ratings. According to US dept of commerce National Bureau of Standards
Fire Resistance Rating is:

The ability of a construction to prevent the spread of fire may be expressed in periods of fire resistance, that is, the time for which the construction may be exposed to a fire of standard intensity without collapse, passage of flame or the transmission of heat sufficient to cause ignition of combustible material.

quote:

Originally posted by gatzdon:
I also forgot to mention that if the facility is rebuilt using a pole barn structure as opposed to the wood barn that it was originally in, a repeat incident is highly unlikely to produce as much damage.

Actually the building was a pole building with a metal roof and metal siding. However within it was a 12' x 24' office with 2x6's rafters 12" on center with a loft over head.

You are correct though, the rest of the building is less damaged due to the sparse use of wood throughout the rest of the structure.

I like your idea of a cinder wall, or perhaps a concrete barrier dividing the office from the building.

I hate to say it, but I'll really attached to having the office on the facility. Perhaps people in here can convince me otherwise.

I'll post a "rough" conceptual drawing I've been working on in a bit.

--
Jeff Brandt

has no pressure relief device AND that the fire is burning for an unlimited amount of time with no Fire Suppression efforts whatsoever.

That's the rub. Unfortunatley not all pressure relief valves function or are tested (regularly) to ensure that they do function. This is especially true when you start exposing them to fluids and gases that they were not originally intended to be exposed to. Also, you say "unlimited", but, if you are talking about equipment for which there is no established "standard" of how long it can stay in a sustained fire, then, in the most conservative sense, 5 minutes might as well be the say thing as an hour.

I'm still not saying "plastic is better than metal", I'm simply advocating good housekeeping practices to minimize the possibility that any amount of fuel stored in any type of container ends up in a situation where it can be exposed needlessly to a fire.

I am by no means an expert on Fire Ratings, Pressure Relief Valves, nor pole buildings. I was just trying to stimulate the discussion on topics I thought were possibly getting overlooked.

I think dogma has a very valid point. The pressure relief device that comes with your water heater is designed for water. Most pressure relief devices commonly found in or near a hardware store are meant for air compressors. I have come to learn that biodiesel is very capapable of corroding a brass pressure relief valve possibly rendering it useless.

plus there's the methanol - additional corrosion issues.

If i'm not mistaken (which, i may very well be, and I will surely be corrected if I am) the pressure relief valves on hot water heaters are designed to relieve a liquid vs. a gas.

In any case, its a good idea to frequently inspect and test the pressure relief valve.

quote:

Originally posted by girl mark:
Dogma,

fire codes disagree with you on the safety of this. otherwise heating oil could be legally stored in plastic tanks, which I"m pretty sure it can't (legally).

dunno about the US, but when my parents built their house in germany (we moved in when i was 12) we had 3 2000-liter tanks for storing the heating oil, and they were plastic, probably HDPE or something similar. but they were in a room by themselves, in a basin big enough to hold more than those 6000 liters, painted with several layers of special oil-resistant paint, and apart from the tanks and their contents there was nothing combustible in that room. the room itself was separated from the rest of the house by a foot-thick massive brick (or was it concrete?) wall. the only access to that room was from the outside of the house through a fire-resistant steel door. except when the door was open, there was no ventilation, so any fire would have suffocated itself.
then, a couple of years ago, they switched to a gas heating system and got rid of those tanks.

quote:

Originally posted by Dogma:
...even if you somehow managed to get the entire contents of the hotwater heater up to 800C (not going to happen unless you keep adding fuel to the fire) the maximum pressure you should see is about 50psi - well within a hotwater heaters pressure rating).

don't forget that heat weakens steel. a tank might be rated for 60 psi at 100 C. in that situation 50 psi wouldn't be a problem. now heat it up to 800 C and start pressurizing. you won't get anywhere near those 60 psi. i guarantee you that the tank will burst at a substantially lower pressure, maybe as low as 10 or even 5 psi.

yes, fires are dangerous, we know. I feel like we're belaboring a theoretical point here about what'd happen to a steel tank.

HOWEVER, the residential fire codes say certain things (apparently in Germany they say stricter things based on the above post), which are based around:

a. full tank of home heating oil/diesel in the basement or on the side of a residential structure, usually just about right against the wall of the building. I believe there's no pressure relief on those tanks, though there's a breather vent that might act as one. There's certainly not a big wide burst disc.


b. standard diesel is stored for home heating oil in a steel tank (in American fire jurisdictions anyway)



For those wondering what I do, I'm building a system similar in size to what Jeff Brandt had on his farm, in a steel shipping container with spill containment built in (I was going to do it that way before Jeff's accident, but feel even better about the plan now).

This is NOT in residential zoning, nor is it a residential-size system- it's for a farm.


I'll report, when I find out, what the local fire marshalls say about it = it's a few months away.

quote:

Originally posted by harry747:

quote:

Originally posted by Dogma:
...even if you somehow managed to get the entire contents of the hotwater heater up to 800C (not going to happen unless you keep adding fuel to the fire) the maximum pressure you should see is about 50psi - well within a hotwater heaters pressure rating).

don't forget that heat weakens steel. a tank might be rated for 60 psi at 100 C. in that situation 50 psi wouldn't be a problem. now heat it up to 800 C and start pressurizing. you won't get anywhere near those 60 psi. i guarantee you that the tank will burst at a substantially lower pressure, maybe as low as 10 or even 5 psi.

The scenario you describe would have already incinerated every single piece of plastic, all the fuel and the entire structure as well before the steel weakens enough to burst.

I do not mean to sound like I have an agenda but....

Heavy Duty plastics have several advantages:
1) Cost (Much Much cheaper)
2) Do not rust
3) Easier to work with. You can drill plastic, no welding or easier welding, does not conduct electricity and lighter.
4) Product availability

I point this out not because I sell plastic but I work in environment that involves corrosive liquids, VOCs, and oils. Polypro is almost always is the best product. If the price was equal yes I would go for Steel but that is never the case. With money I saved I would buy a fire surpression system.

The biggest disadvantage to plastic is that you CAN"T weld it easily. have you worked on biodiesel and HDPE? A fire suppression system is many many thousands of dollars. A used steel tank is $free much of the time.

Most people don't know how to attach plastics to each other (I've done spin-weld to HDPE and it's s beyond most people's available equipment, and cheap plastic weldors don't tend to work well at all), whereas the knowledge of how to weld metal securely is very widespread.

Sure , polypropylene is pretty sturdy stuff, but I"ve NEVER seen it in use by homebrewers as a tank, and it's not cheap. People tend to use flimsy MDPE polyethylene, which is very low-melting-point material.