After 2 days of hard work in the kitchen, I now have 5 liters of BioDiesel. The first one had a steep learning curve, I SNAFU'd the math and wound up with a liter of goo. The next 4 bathces went well and I was even able to re-processed the first.


No explosions.
No setting off the smoke detectors.
No messes.
I must be getting older or wiser...

It went like this... filter the veg, or even just strain it through some cloth. Then heat it up to boil out any water.

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The chemistry part...
-PH testing (aka titration).
If we were using new oil we wouldn't have to do this. Unfortunately the oil's PH has changed from the food cooked in it and from being heated/cooled so many times.
The goal here is to determine the PH of the oil and to figure out how much lye needs to be added to it to get the PH between 8 and 9.
Add 1ml of veg to 10ml of isopropyl alcohol. In a separate bottle, add 1 gram lye to 1 liter of distilled water. Using a PH test solution or a meter, add the water/lye cocktail until you get the PH between 8 and 9. Write down how much water/lye it took to get the PH in range, using 1/4 milliliter incriments. Mine took 1.5ml.

-Mixing
For every liter of veg you need 200ml methyl alcohol and 3.5 grams of lye. You also need additional lye as per the PH testing step. Since I had to add 1.5ml of the water/lye soltion to the alcohol/oil mix to get the PH in range, I need to add an additional 1.5g of lye per liter of veg. 3.5g + 1.5g = 5g per liter.
For methyl alcohol I used fuel system water remover. For the lye (sodium hydroxide) I used drain cleaner from Lowes. A cheap crack scale off Ebay works great for the dry measurements, some disposable beakers for the wet...

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Add the methanol and lye in a bottle and shake, shake, shake! After it's compeltely disolved, you now have a very caustic chemical called methoxide. The methoxide when added to the veg will strip out all the fat and will cause it to fall to the bottom as glycerine. The rest will be BioDiesel. This requires lots of shaking and then lots fo waiting.

When your math if off, the result is always the same... goo...

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Luckily I didn't screw up too bad and I was able to re-process it...

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After letting them sit for an hour, you could clearly see the separation well under way...

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By yesterday afternoon I had this little collection going on.

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All that's required now is to drain the glycerine off the bottom. The Biodiesel can then be poured right into the fuel tank of a Diesel vehicle, however additional washing is encouraged. In order to thoroughly remove any residual glycerine still suspended in the Bio. There are a few ways to do this, both with water or chemically... but that's for another day.

The next stage is to scale up production a little..... for which I found the "perfect" vessel ;D

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nice man! i was going to do this but the cost of methanol and lye i guess are on the rise for me and that combined with labor keep me from doing it. what did the methanol and lye run you? where do you live?

Time to scale up, big time.

Methanol is $3.50 and lye (sodium hydroxide) can be had for .94 cents a pound here in the Kansas City area. My batches cost around $1.00 gallon, but that with buying expensive lye ($4/lb) and not including cost of heating the oil (few bucks per batch). Don’t forget time, yes it takes some time, but diesel is going to be 5 bucks a gallon here fairly quick. Time to make time for it...?

Washing highly advisable, you won’t want the suspended soaps, lye and glycerin going through your injection pump. Good luck.

And where does the yuccky byproduct glycerine go?Is there a market for it?

And where does the yuccky byproduct glycerine go?Is there a market for it?

Working on a methanol recovery system (still). Or it can be turned into shop soap, although who need 10 gallons of shop soap every other week? Also, thought about building a stove to burn it, pretty cold here in Missouri in winter time.

Not a market I have personally discovered.

You must be single or have a one-of-a-kind Wife.:bow:

If I got caught in the kitchen with that she'd kill me..lol

You must be single or have a one-of-a-kind Wife.:bow:

If I got caught in the kitchen with that she'd kill me..lol

Maybe she works weekends...:D

Thanks guys!

I got the bottles of fuel dryer (methanol) from Pep Boys for $1 each, 10 ounce bottles (300ml). A big bottle of lye was $7 from Lowes. Distilled water was $2 per gallon at some other auto parts store. I already called the local race track and they sell methanol but only in 55 gallon drums, $220 = $4 per gallon.

I'm going to play with water washing tonight and order some dry wash, like Purolite.

Not including the natural gas I'll use to heat it, cost per gallon will be just over $1. I've been running veg with a 2 tank system for years, I only want to make enough bio to cover my start-up and shut-down needs.

My girlfriend is a great gal.

Donnie,

Looks great. When you go to a larger setup how are you going to do the vigorous shaking since you can't hand mix it w/out smelling the toxic fumes?

Working on a methanol recovery system (still). Or it can be turned into shop soap, although who need 10 gallons of shop soap every other week? Also, thought about building a stove to burn it, pretty cold here in Missouri in winter time.

Not a market I have personally discovered.

I make liquid soap and wash my clothes in it and wash dishes with it too!

Not including the natural gas I'll use to heat it,

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: OMG! Be careful!!!

My girlfriend is a great gal.

Please be careful!

I decided to skip the 3 gallon fire extinguisher and jumped right into building a 50 gallon reactor. I just got done wiring the pump and hot water heater elements (instead of using gas). Now all I have to do is find a little time to hook up a vent and route it out side...

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Legit! Did you use a kit or one of those plans or just do it by your ideas/thoughts?

I bought most of it off someone I met. I immediately tore it apart though and only re-used the stand and some parts. It is my own design... but after I got it together, I realized that it's the same thing as an "appleseed" processor.