Havent we already done this in about 3 different threads?

quote:

Originally posted by dodgeram:

quote:

Originally posted by brentsbg:

quote:

Originally posted by dodgeram:
But since we are on the subject of poor quality processing systems , can anyone tell me why this machine will not work ? OK , I admit there are really several answers to that one , but hey who's keeping score .


http://www.biodieselpictures.com/files/bio_newest_main_163.jpg

SO why doesnt my processor work? You tell me.

Are there any test results that show there has ever been real biodiesel made in on eof your systems ? Not a separation , but real high quality ASTM spec grade fuel ? I didn't think so . The reasons your system fails to produce quality fuel have been discussed at length and you always choose to ignore the facts and argue that you are being picked on like everyone is trying to single you out . It is not really worth going into again , you already know . But you don't want to make a quality system , you want to make easy money at the expense of people who don't know any better . I am only glad that you have thus far only advertised here , and probably only built the one you are currently trying to burn your own house down with . If you were actually advertising this system somewhere it would concern me greatly .

No, I have never argued that someone is picking on me, or singling me out. I just enjoy coming to the computer and seeing that sight has some updates in such a slow period. I guess I am the only person here trying to sell a plastic processor, or at least the only one making comments. I could just not say antyhing, but thats not me.

Soon enough I will have a website and better means of advertisement, already advertising through ebay now. I have sold 6 so far so its not "just the one in your garage". Compared to the other processors like mine, I feel I have the cleanest, simplest, most thought out design. I am not out to make a killing, if I was I would be charging 2000-3,000 like everyone else.

As for quality testing, I have not made a batch since we last argued this. I will be sending graydon a sample as soon as I do. I havent had anytime, building a 12,000 sq ft daycare and a 9,000 sq ft strip mall on the weekends keeps from making biodiesel I cant use until spring. Although I do not think it will help me any as I am almost certain the results will not be positive. Even appleseeders dont consistently make astm quality fuel, heck up untill about 3 weeks ago the Biopro didnt either. I am an honest person and will consider the offer to send in a sample even though it will probably get negative plublicity/results.

Brent,
I have posted about plastic processors before as well. I have used plastic 55 gallon drums before. Of course, they were unmodified, no holes drilled in them, no elements screwed into the plastic, and they are pretty thick HDPE, not the thin MDPE of which most cone bottom containers are made. I did have a heating element in it, but it went through one of the bung holes and did not touch the drum. Of course the same setup can be used in a steel drum thus negating plastic concerns. My current home processor is a 130 gallon HDPE processor. Difference being the walls are about 3/4 inch thick. And it was designed to hold warm veg oil. I heat this one with a 4500 watt element in the suction line. I am one of the ones who feel a plastic processor is OK if done properly. HTH

Yea, thats what can't be seen clearly from both sides. A couple of yahoos put heater elements in the tanks and melted them down giving the picture that they are unsafe. Done responsibly they are safe and will make the same quality biodiesel as made in a steel container.

Brent,
Notice that he said his is HDPE though & not MPDE.

HDPE can withstand more heat and the thickness on his tank was much thicker (3/4" thick).

The biggest gripe I have w/ the vendors that sell these poly tanks is that they don't sell them with HDPE or even better XHDPE tanks, but with the flimsy MDPE tanks.

The poly wash tanks made from 55 gallon poly barrels you see people make are made from HDPE. These can take alot more heat as well as do a better job of holding the heat in.

Its one of the reasons I like the stuff from EZ Biodiesel (IF I had to choose a poly tank company, they're the only one I'd feel comfortable with--they don't heat in the tank but instead heat in a metal barrel w/ an element. They also insulate the tanks so that there is minimal heat loss.

Anyway, I'm still very interested to see how your fuel comes out.

-Graydon

Good point.

Question: How long does the heat have to be maintained for a good conversion?

Given the oil is heated to 125-130 degrees and mixed for 60 minutes.

Hello brentsbg

Tests have shown that with adequate mixing the reaction takes about an hour at 50deg C to go as far as it will go with the chemicals available.
For every 10deg C the temperature drops this time doubles.
If you perform the reaction at 70deg F it will take at least 8 hours but should make biodiesel with as high a conversion as that made at 120deg F mixed for an hour.
Also, if the mixing is not particurlarly good the time will increase. Some people report they need to mix in an appleseed for over 3 hours to pass the Warnqvest test.
If in doubt mix for longer time, not for shorter time

So if the oil stays around 120-130 degrees for even an hour or two after you start it wont matter that is cooling faster than a tank that keeps the heat in for far longer time. ?

Hello brentsbg

Provided your mixing is adequate, the reaction is finished in an hour at 50deg C

Legal,

I do find it revealing that Tilly spends so much effort trying to argue plastic tanks as safe or safer than steel. It would seem more productive to admit their faults and discuss ways of making them as safe as metal processors. It can be done, but it's not all that cheap. But then again Tilly is great at cheap fuel, not necessarily processing safely.

quote:

Originally posted by Legal Eagle:
Tilly's question is only loaded because it clearly states that the reactor does not have heat applied to it, and THAT is the hick.
WE are talking about applying heat to a plastic reactor therefore there is no question set affoot. There is a bit of misdirection, but no pertinent question as to the subject matter at hand.
Only a fool stores large quantities of methanol in the same room as a heat source for processing, and mixing methanol in plastic is a non starter, no heat is present, nor will there be.
This entire discussion is centered on the application of heat to the plastic. Where no heat is there is no expansion and no leakage therefore no safety hazzard potential.
I suppose that is why most of the pics we see of the Plastic Reactors come with plastic fittings eh? They are not just being cheap, it is actually safer than metal pipes due to the expansion factor,the plpastic fittings expanding more easily than it's metalic counterparts. Of course none of the other factors, such as drying of the fittings and eventual cracking, are not adressed, but by then they've made off with a profit line and it is no longer their problem. IMO.
The original question:
"Can someone explain why it is fine to mix methoxide in a plastic drum, Fine to use the plastic methoxide mixer drum as the methoxide dispenser into the reactor, fine to store WVO in plastic drums, fine to wash biodiesel in plastic drums, fine to dry biodiesel in plastic drums and fine to store biodiesel in plastic drums but apparently it is unacceptably risky to use a plastic reactor that does not contain a heater." (colour is mine).

Dodgeram;
The answer to your visual is: where's the pump ?
It's always in the details, those pesky details.

Hello Rick,

Revealing? Only in the shower.
I can not recall arguing that plastic tanks are as safe or safer than steel tanks. Indeed, I have advised people on several occassions that if they are likely to have a Fire in the area they will have the Reactor/Tank, then if it is made from plastic it is more likely to burn than if it were metal.
I am sure you will be able to provide a link to my statement that plastic tanks are as safe or safer than metal tanks.

My view falls more in the "Cars that do not have airbags are not as safe as cars with airbags" type of argument.
There are many cars out there without airbags that have covered lots of mileage safely. As a mater of fact, it was only last year that I first purchased a car with an airbag. I have never had an accident and never suffered from not having an airbag.
2 of the cars I now drive have airbags and 2 of them do not. I choose which car I will drive by what makes the most sense at the time without even considering whether it has an airbag.

If you can show me that reactors/tanks made of plastic are any more unacceptably risky than driving a car without an airbag, I would like to see the information.
If you can show me that reactors made from plastic can not make ASTM conversion biodiesel I would like to see the information.

It always makes me feel good when a person who considers himself an expert thinks I am "great" at something.

PS When you say "It would seem more productive to admit their faults and discuss ways of making them as safe as metal processors." are you implying that you have "Jumped Ship" from the "All Plastic reactors are evil" group

quote:

Originally posted by RickDaTech:
Legal,

I do find it revealing that Tilly spends so much effort trying to argue plastic tanks as safe or safer than steel. It would seem more productive to admit their faults and discuss ways of making them as safe as metal processors. It can be done, but it's not all that cheap. But then again Tilly is great at cheap fuel, not necessarily processing safely.

I gotta say , I just love the internet . Where else can you walk out on an argument and go to bed , get a full nights sleep , wake up and drive half way across the state , check into a convention , get a room at the hotel , relax and have a drink , and finally sign on to check your emails only to find that it was as if you never left . Man this internet is really great .


Brent , the question should be how long do you want to trust a tank that melts at 140 degrees to hold that amount of weight at just below it's operational limit . If your temp gauge is jsut a little bit off you are going to have one big mess .

Tilly , Why should the burden of proving the system inadequate be on anyone but the producer of the system ? Any other commercially sold system and the burden of proof is the responsibility of the builder . Why not these as well ?

Rick , I would be carefull it looks like Tilly might be trying to get you into the shower . Kinda sounds like an invite to me .

Tilly,

quote:

It always makes me feel good when a person who considers himself an expert thinks I am "great" at something.

I really don't consider myself an expert, just another guy trying to learn all about biodiesel. It seems like the more I learn the more there is to learn.

quote:

My view falls more in the "Cars that do not have airbags are not as safe as cars with airbags" type of argument.
There are many cars out there without airbags that have covered lots of mileage safely. As a mater of fact, it was only last year that I first purchased a car with an airbag. I have never had an accident and never suffered from not having an airbag.
2 of the cars I now drive have airbags and 2 of them do not. I choose which car I will drive by what makes the most sense at the time without even considering whether it has an airbag.

If you can show me that reactors/tanks made of plastic are any more unacceptably risky than driving a car without an airbag, I would like to see the information.

I sometimes have trouble with Queens English and don't always understand the difference between various leaglistic arguments. I'm from flyover country. We like black and white right and wrong. Hair splitting the minutia seems to me more about pissing people off than providing useful or meaningful information.

For me:

poly tanks = fire hazard.

I dont know much air bags, but I'm sure the insurance companies have very detailed statistics showing they are safer or they would not offer discounts on cars with them.

I really don't have a clue about the advantages of mounting airbags on a processor.

quote:

If you can show me that reactors made from plastic can not make ASTM conversion biodiesel I would like to see the information.

I have no desire to try to prove a negative. But I would really like to see some information showing it is possible to make ASTM conversion biodiesel in a plastic processor. There have been a number of people publish ASTM conversions using Appleseeds, but I can't recall any of the Fuelmeister knockoffs posting passing GC test results. It should be possible for them to pass, but where are the test results?

quote:

PS When you say "It would seem more productive to admit their faults and discuss ways of making them as safe as metal processors." are you implying that you have "Jumped Ship" from the "All Plastic reactors are evil" group

All Plastic reactors are fire hazards. No one has shown me one that is not. It may be possible, to mitigate the fire hazard issue, but so far no one has shown me a plastic processor that is not a fire hazard. Until I see one, all plastic processors are fire hazards.

There's only been one company I've seen that sells poly based processors out there that claims their Biodiesel can hit ASTM specs.

I have no way of proving or disproving this claim as I've not spoken to any of their customers.

It's this company:
http://www.extremebiodiesel.com

I spoke to the owner on the phone once and asked him about it. He said that he had a customer that "passed all the quality tests" but when I probed for more information he was somewhat vague in what the "quality tests" were.

Again, if there's someone out there that's willing to test their Bio made in a poly processor and pass the tests great! Let's see it.

I've just not seen it yet (however, I've offered to help anyone that wants to to get it tested to see if it will or won't pass). There's also that oh-so-handy 3/27 methanol test that can be done on it too...

I have a sample from an EZ Biodiesel processor that I'm going to have tested and a few other samples that I'm going to have tested soon.

I've personally seen the test results from an Appleseed pass the Total Glycerin ASTM test. It was one I built. We were able to pass it three times in a row.

If the test results can be shown, I'm interested. If more of these vendors we've listed would start selling XHDPE tanks I would also be extremely happy (most still sell the lousy MDPE tanks that don't take heat well).

Tilly brought up a good point too...proper mixing. Even the Appleseeds can suffer from poor mixing. If there was one drawback about them it's that the mixing could be drastically improved if you could figure out how to mix inside the water heater.

A lot of the poly processor vendors I've noticed recently are all "upgrading" their equipment with much much bigger tanks but are not upgrading their pumps and are selling them as processor capable of producing "high-quality Biodiesel".

As Tilly indicated, if it can't mix well, it's just not going to make good biodiesel.

One of the other reasons I rag on these vendors all the time too is because of the piss-poor support they offer to their customers. I've spoken to many of them (they usually call or email me when their vendor can't figure out how to fix a mess they've made in their processor).

I've also spoken to several people that have bought poly based processors from a variety of vendors only to get a product that leaks right out of the box, breaks, won't work as advertised, or just plain comes broken.

I had one guy actually say that when his processor arrived from [an unnamed poly based processor vendor] it looked so poorly put together that a 9 year old could've done a better job.

I can understand some of these guy's desire to make and sell a processor made from poly tanks. It's a quick buck! There's a few reputable ones out there, but they're few & far between.

Most of them have bought a fuelmiester, had a poor experience with it, done a search on US Plastics, realized they got scammed into overspending and thought, "Well, heck, I can do better than that! I'll just build my OWN processor out of the same stuff and SELL it! Surely I can make a better processor and people will come in droves!"

They do the math in their head (Hmmm...let's see....buy a $250 set of tanks, add some $10 hoses, add a few fittings, buy a cheap Harbor Freight pump, up the price a couple thousand & sell that bad boy! Yeah, that's the ticket! I'll be RICH!!!)

If you don't think that's the case, I encourage many of you to call these vendors and start asking the hard questions.

1- How long have you been doing this? (if the answer is "less than 3 months" you may want to look elsewhere)
2- How many batches did you make in a processor before you decided to start selling them?
3- Have you tested the fuel it makes to ensure you're getting proper reactions?
4- Do you offer technical support?
5- What kind of a warranty do you offer?
6- If it breaks, will you support it?
7- Can you explain what Transesterification means? How about Esterification? (they usually say, "Esterify what?" (I seriously had someone say that to me...it was a Fuelmiester dealer. I about died....)
8- Do you offer training?

If they can honestly answer these questions with answers that you're comfortable with, great! If not, well, you may really want to consider making a processor yourself or looking elsewhere.

I'm dead serious about the vendors that don't even know what they're talking about. I've heard about it over and over. They buy a fuelmiester, think they can do a better job, slap some PVC plumbing on a set of tanks they picked up from US Plastic and put the thing up for sale....long before they've ever researched or sought to understand what it's going to take to make good fuel.

ok.....I'll go back to just watching the post again....figured some of you oughta know where my view of them comes from though.

Also, Tilly, I absolutely agree with you. It IS possible to make high quality biodiesel in a poly tank processor when it's done right. But, most of these vendors can't even explain what "high quality biodiesel" even means or how to make it.

-Graydon

Hello Steve

That is the pump you bought off e-bay? It is a big jump from a 10gpm Pump to a 21gpm pump.
I take it you are happy with it.
Did the biodiesel pass Warnqvest?

quote:

Originally posted by steved:
With my new pump the plastic hose going to the top of the processor shakes. I may have to put steel there. It pumps really hard. It's like my processor has warp drive ! I am not sure you would want to use plastic with this pump or put it on a plastic processor. It might shake it apart.

http://biodieselpictures.com/viewtopic.php?t=160

Hello Dodgeram

quote:

Originally posted by dodgeram:
Rick , I would be carefull it looks like Tilly might be trying to get you into the shower . Kinda sounds like an invite to me .

Do I detect a note of concern in your post?
Don't worry Big Boy, I'm not trying to move in on your territory.

Hello Rick

quote:

Originally posted by RickDaTech:
Tilly,
I really don't consider myself an expert,

See, we agree on some things.

quote:

Originally posted by Graydon Blair:
Again, if there's someone out there that's willing to test their Bio made in a poly processor and pass the tests great! Let's see it.

I've just not seen it yet (however, I've offered to help anyone that wants to to get it tested to see if it will or won't pass). There's also that oh-so-handy 3/27 methanol test that can be done on it too...

Man! I wish I was still working in the chem lab! I was operating 12 HP 5890 GC's. We had 2 HP LC's as well (I think they were 1150's?) Anyway, Earlier, in Neutrals base/base thread, I posted results from a batch I ran. It passed Warnqvist and it was made in..... Are you ready?.....my 130 gallon plastic processor. I have not run a GC test on any of my BD.

Tilly brought up a good point too...proper mixing. Even the Appleseeds can suffer from poor mixing. If there was one drawback about them it's that the mixing could be drastically improved if you could figure out how to mix inside the water heater.

Yeah, mixing is very important. I have kind of a nozzle in my processor. It returns the fuel under force and at an angle to the tank, thus causing a good vortex and pretty good mixing. It doesn't just splash the BD back in the top. Since I use a gear pump, I could have like a fire hose effect inside the processor if I wanted, but I dont think that's necessary. I have also suggested a way to get better mixing in an appleseed. Using a 1/2 inch pipe screwed inside the 3/4 inch pipe that goes into the top of the Appleseed. Plug the end and drill holes in the side of the pipe for a jet effect. It could reach down into the Appleseed as far as you wanted. Number and size of holes would be determined by experimentation. Back pressure on the HF pump would be the only concern. Since I don't have an Appleseed or a HF pump, I can't say how well this would work. Any takers?


As Tilly indicated, if it can't mix well, it's just not going to make good biodiesel.

-Graydon

The tests your all talking about, are these an equivalent to ASTM testing? Sorry that I don't know more about that but shouldn't that be the target quality?