The first is commonly called the methoxide reaction. It happens when you mix methanol with a catalyst, which can be either potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide. Always opt for stainless steel equipment when making biodiesel. Sodium hydroxide is commercially produced lye; both sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide are available online from suppliers of soap-making equipment.
Procure methanol at your local chemical distributor or race car shop race car drivers often blend methanol into their fuel supplies. In North Carolina, where I live, you can carry gallons of methanol on your pickup truck without special permits or licensing.
This occurs when you mix methoxide with oil and agitate the molecules. The product of the biodiesel reaction will be a mix of about 80 percent biodiesel and a 20 percent cocktail of coproducts.
You can either drain the coproducts off the bottom of your tank, or decant the biodiesel from the top of the tank. Step one: Find a reliable source of feedstock. Try sourcing used cooking oil from restaurants, makeup manufacturers or nutraceutical companies. Most brewers who make biofuels for themselves that is, not to sell secure a source of used cooking oil from area restaurants as feedstock for their operations.
A gallon of oil will yield about a gallon of biodiesel. Step two: Build your plant, sized to your feedstock supply. A small homebrewing operation can fit in the corner of a garage, within the footprint of a single parking space.
Allow enough space for a water heater, a tank for storing your incoming feedstock, and a tank for washing your fuel. Pigs love it, and it improves their coats, so ask around to find a local farmer who will take it off your hands. Home biodiesel production is not without risks. Be sure to check with your local zoning department, too, to see whether you may face restrictions related to fuel production.
Note that farms are exempt from zoning approval in many areas. These are truly like having your very own gas station! They're very easy to use, are extremely robust, and work extremely well!
Check out how simple the BioPro's are to use with the video below! Link to video We personally make all of our Biodiesel in a BioPro and love how easy it is to use! We've made literally thousands of gallons of Biodiesel in our BioPro and continue to make batch after batch! The BioPro's are available in 3 different sizes to meet your individual needs and can even be accessorized with equipment that can shorten the time it takes to make a batch! Check out all three below! It can make up to 40 gallons of Biodiesel every 48 hours.
It's not quite as automated as the other BioPro's and requires the user to manually drain the wash water after each wash cycle. However, it's still made from heavy duty stainless steel and is still made with industrial grade pumps and motors. It has a small footprint of 21" wide, 21" deep and stands just 57" high. It's small, compact size means it'll take up very little room while still churning out batch after batch of high-quality Biodiesel!
It can make up to 50 gallons of Biodiesel every 48 hours and can be accessorized to make it even faster! The BioPro requires a volt outlet, a water in connection, and a drain connection. Within a matter of hours you'll have golden amber colored Biodiesel that's ready to use in your vehicle for a fraction of the price you'd pay at the gas pump! Then the BioPro might be what you're looking for!
That's nearly gallons a week! We've used several BioPro 's over the years and have been amazed at how well these machines can pump out batch after high quality batch of Biodiesel! They're not even all that much bigger than a BioPro either! They stand 86" tall are 63" wide and 33" deep. The BioPro does require both a volt and a volt electrical outlet to run plus the same water in connection and drain pipe of a BioPro , but it definitely makes up for it in the volume it can output and the full automation that it gives the user to make Biodiesel!
However, over the years, some very smart folks figured out that the contaminants can also be removed by passing the Biodiesel through a column of fiber based material and polymer resin beads charged with a special chemical.
They call it Dry Washing Biodiesel and it can work extremely well! The same company that make the BioPro automated biodiesel processors manufacturer one of these Biodiesel dry washing systems and they call it a SpringPro T76 Dry Wash Tower. Inside the first tower is a fiber-based media that absorbs much of the remaining contaminants from freshly made Biodiesel.
Then, the Biodiesel is passed through the second column which is filled with polymer resin beads that final polish the fuel making it ready for use in vehicles. One of the benefits of Dry Washing Biodiesel is that you can cleanse the fuel much faster! Instead of the 24 hours that it takes to water wash Biodiesel in the BioPro's, it can wash Gallons in a BioPro in 5 hours, 2. That's fast! These include such things as oil collection drums at the restaurants, transfer pumps to move the oil around with, filters to filter the waste vegetable oil with, scales to measure out the chemicals, plus several other helpful items.
While each situation and setup is unique, we've created a great article that covers the basic things that should be considered for every Biodiesel production area; big or small. We start from the beginning and work our way through all the different steps you'll be doing when making Biodiesel and discuss the relevant equipment you may want to obtain before starting to make Biodiesel.
Here's a breakdown of the typical costs for a 50 gallon batch of Biodiesel. But let's see how that adds up. Talk about a great return on investment! Want to try out different scenarios? Download our free Return On Investment spreadsheet here. Drain as in wash one. You have finished wash 2. When water and biodiesel seperate discard water in same fashion as before. Another ml water and a bit more aggitation for about 1 min. After seperation of water and biodiesel Drain as above.
If the washing has been completed sucessfully the water should be almost clear. Be aware that in your later washes you should be able to shake mre violently although it will take considerably longer to seperate because the water forms tiny bubles in the biodiesel that take time to settle out. After a day or 2 settling and drying it will clear. You must remove all that water from your biodiesel before using it in a diesel engine or risk damaging the engine.
The oldest method of drying is settling. In this method the water settles to the bottom of the tank or container over time and can be sucked out using a small pump or syphon. For small batches it can take up to a day for the water and biodiesel to completely separate.
Over time the water will evaporate out of the biodiesel however if let in a muggy or wet environment this may not be suitable. Best just to find higher-quality WVO. Busy restaurants are like food-cooking assembly-lines. They heat their oil at the same time, at the correct temperature, and fry about the same amount of food every day.
They also change their cooking oil at the same time and in the same way every week. Other places aren't as careful, and their oil gives me less, and poorer quality, biodiesel per batch.
I get almost all my WVO from two local restaurants, and I've never had water in the oil. Biodiesel processing has become popular. Restaurants used to be thrilled when I took the old oil away without charging them. Now WVO is a commodity not unlike crude oil. The gallon processor we used here costs nearly three grand. That means we'd have to make 62 or more batches to pay back the investment, or one batch every six days--for a year.
A couple of batches can be fun, but spending every Saturday with greasy hands can get to be a chore. You'll also need to set up a place to store the WVO, the methanol and the biodiesel, all of which are flammable, and a place to work. Don't forget you'll also need to dispose of leftover poor-quality WVO, a fair amount of glycerin and the occasional batch of glop.
There's an excess of methanol and alkali remaining after the transesterification, and commercial biodiesel producers recover the methanol and use it for the next batch. Your local authorities may have an opinion as to the proper, legal disposal of glycerin.
You'll still need to run a fair amount of conventional mineral diesel in your tank along with your home-brew fuel, especially in the winter when low temperatures turn even the best-quality biodiesel into jello. Also, the current crop of direct-injection diesels don't fare well on concentrations of bio higher than 10 percent. To thermally purge the diesel particulate filter DPF , the injection system periodically injects fuel into the cylinder during the exhaust stroke to raise exhaust temperatures high enough to ignite the carbon inside the DPF.
The carbon simply burns off, leaving the DPF ready to filter out more particles. Biodiesel, more viscous than mineral diesel, sticks to the cylinder walls and washes past the rings into the crankcase. This can dilute the engine oil, potentially causing engine damage.
0コメント