It seems to me that since the biodiesel process requires heat and in many climes home heating is a major cost of living the prime use of "waste" glycerol would be energy production/heat.
Our initial attempts at modifying the "flame guns" used in fuel oil furnaces to burn glycerol are showing (as an earlier post from a member of this group warned) a build up on the guns and in the combustion chambers. We are also noting some corrosive effects on the unit pumps which may be due to the glycerol quality. Strait WVO seems to work better (as we suspected it would) and so would seem to be the prime candidate for home heating oil substitution since it requires minimal processing. Accordingly glycerol would seem to be most useful as a heat source for biodiesel production. Has anyone accumulated some hours using glycerol in a non-injected type fuel oil furnace? Some of our older members (myself included) recall a "drip type" fuel oil furnace that was simplicity itself but cannot find a source for them. They were not thermostatically controlled. The maintenance consisted of an annual cleaning of accumulated "clinker" from the combustion chamber. In cold climates such as ours in MN a primary furnace of this type could be used to provide for a constant heat input to a home and the existing furnace could be used to provide supplementary heat when the primary units capacity is not sufficient. I also recall seeing a fuel oil domestic hot water heater (several decades ago) which worked on the same principal and would adapt beautifully to heating WVO for biodiesel production. Is anyone aware of a source for either one of these products? A third, more complicated use for glycerol might be electrical production using a steam powered generator. In my younger days I was involved in fluid bed reactor research and some of our bench test units would cleanly combust nearly anything. Combined with a steam generator they were actually quite efficient and simpler to build than a Biodiesel production unit. Is anyone aware of a simple to build steam engine design or a source for inexpensive steam engines/turbines in the 10 HP range? Efficiency would be raised substantially if the glycerol could be combusted and used for electrical production and the cogenerated heat could be harnessed for Biodiesel production use or even home heating. Dana Linscott __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
