If you;re in the US, that would be 'lye' - drain cleaner- the Red Devil brand specifically. It has to be pure 100% lye- (and Red Devil says so on the label in TINY little letters if you squint hard enough). The other odd varieties of drain cleaner (crystal,foaming,newformula,liquid whatever) have other ingredients and wo'n't do the job (and are probably not safe combinations of chemicals to try playing with). Red Devil is still economical enough to make cheap fuel, even though it's 4 or more tiimes as expensive as buying bulk lye- but you won't have to deal with storage if you just buy it a couple cans at a time. Keep it closed- it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and it can react with carbon dioxide, so measure it quickly... otherwise when you're ready to make large amounts of biodiesel you can get 25 lb or 50 lb bags of 100% (or 99% probably) lye from industrial chemical supply houses. When I buy a big bag like that I divide it quickly into sandwich bags and keep them in a sealed bucket. Try KOH sometime, too- much easier to work with (ie dissolves faster, doesn't absorb moisture as fast and comes in bigger chunks that probably are the cause of that), though it's more expensive and you'd use more... Try and get it in 90% or better purity... good luck, Mark
At 08:39 PM 1/20/2003 -0800, you wrote: >Is there a typical non-commercial source of sodium hydroxide? I was >reading on the journey to forever page that it is something you can get at >a hardware store - what would it be called?? > >Could I just walk in and ask for a bottle/tub of NaOH or is there a >layman's term for the stuff? > >Thanks >Robin > > >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > >Yahoo! Groups Sponsor >ADVERTISEMENT ><http://rd.yahoo.com/M=241773.2861420.4212388.1925585/D=egroupweb/S=1705083269:HM/A=1394045/R=0/*http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/pac_ctnt/text/0,,HGTV_3936_5802,FF.html>5383f08.jpg > > >5383fee.jpg > >Biofuel at Journey to Forever: ><http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html>http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > >Biofuels list archives: ><http://archive.nnytech.net/>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 the ><http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 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/