Darren writes: >I have been looking at the degumming of raw oils. Both Ed Beggs and >Michael Allen advise degumming of raw oils before their use as fuel. >Clearly undesirable oil components can be removed using this process. > >Information I have found implies that a warm (50 deg C) 2% agitated water >wash will degum an oil. Commercially this is often substituted by using >citric or phosphoric acid for degumming although I can find no references to >the processes involved. The use of citric acid gives a more desirable waste >stream.
A 2% water wash might be a bit hard to do -- I degum freshly pressed oil (after screening down to about 100 microns) with maybe half its volume of nearly boiling water. Slosh it all around with rapid stirring for a minute, and let settle. After awhile you get a flocculated layer below the oil but above the water. This is what's known as "hydratable phosphatides", mainly lecithin and cephalin. The flocs can be removed from the oil (after decanting them both off the water) by filtration, but they ARE "gummy" :-) so the filters tend to clog quickly. Stainless steel wire cloth is the easiest medium to backflush and dry quickly. That being said, those gums will also separate in a biodiesel reaction. They flocculate below the biodiesel but above the glycerine. It's probly easier to let that happen instead of messing with it beforehand. Of course, if you're burning the oil without modification, it might be a helpful step, I don't know. -K ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Sell a Home for Top $ http://us.click.yahoo.com/RrPZMC/jTmEAA/jd3IAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
