on 6/18/03 1:48 AM, mark schofield at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi, > > Just a passing thought. Vacuum recovered methanol > at 50mBar boils at around 15-20'C. The water > content ought to be quite low but methanol forms > an azeotrope with water. Therefore, if the > recovered methanol were mixed with CaO (quick > lime) to remove the water content the soap > producing element ie water plus Na+ ions and FFA, > could be reduced.
You may be thinking of ethanol, which forms an azeotrope with water. Methanol does not, meaning that it IS possible to achieve 100% by (fractional) distillation alone. However, simple distillation will carry over a portion of the water present, tho always less in the vapor than in the liquid below. I would recommend molecular sieve rather than CaO to remove the residual water from the methanol, if for some reason you can't construct an adequate fractionating column. -K ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/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/
