And here is a testiment to Ken's process. I spent last saturday morning with Ken making a batch or methel-ethel-esters and it went just fine. The process is very low tech and although there are some specifics; no water in the oil or eth/meth, more KOH, titrated oil below 1ml, glyc remix. The process is very organic and can be done by anyone, so try not to think of this as some mystery conversion. Ken also has ways to "massage" batches that have some trouble with conversion with a methoxide 'kicker'.
I think that the real important parts of doing a meth-eth conversion are as little water as possible (ie. boil off water), and low titration on the oil (ie. good oil). The batch we made titrated at .5 and was a mix of restaurant oil and crude olive oil. Ken showed me a batch of coconut-methel-ethel-esters which smelled like you could eat it (pinapple/coconut scent). It was just awesome! BTW, Follow the directions accurately, to the tee and don't add other process confusion into it. James Slayden On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Ken Provost wrote: > Murilo writes: > > >The tips given by Ken Provost do not help a lot, since > >at the end even he says that it is like lottery (matter > >of good luck and fervent prayer)..... I cannot get > >reproducibility in my lab tests. Sometimes it works > >and sometimes not, as he said. The same recipe! > > > >600 g refined oil (for soy oil, 0.2 acidic index) is > >firstly treated with1.5 g of CaCO3 at 120ºC and filtrated. > >Then 182 ml anhydrous ethanol previously mixed with > >2.5 g NaOH is added to the oil. After 20 min mixing at > >60ºC, 3.5g of NH4Cl is added (catalyst poison). Then > >filtration of the precipitate and addition of 17 ml of HCl > >(36%). Then settling for a couple of hours, separation > >and washing with water + bicarbonate. The authors say > > >that the HCl acid is added to enhance settling of glycerol. > > I don't know the point of the calcium carbonate, or the > ammonium chloride, or the hydrochloric acid -- I've > never heard of using any of them in this way. The stated > ratios of NaOH, alcohol, and oil seem about right for > methanol, but I would use twice as much NaOH for ethanol, > and KOH would be better still. All that said, I don't think > I'd have much trouble with "refined oil" (what's acidic > index mean in terms of % FFA?) and anhydrous ethanol. > The problem comes when you try to use waste oil and > ethanol that have water contamination. -K > > Yahoo! Groups Sponsor > ADVERTISEMENT > > 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. > 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/
