'Lo Todd >Okay laddie, > >As to useful ends of glycerin, I'm at a standstill. Not everyone has an >industrial glycerin refiner down the road and few are producing biodiesel >from virgin oils, making their glycerin somewhat acceptably usable in some >manufacturing uses.
... didn't Mark say she couldn't find a buyer for the 95% stuff (or so-ish) that you get from separation? >So I think it's probably time everyone started looking at digestion as a >termination point. When I was working with separating the by-product (back in Osaka, same time as you were) I got a very reliable process, and a nice, light-coloured, clear, glycerine layer in the middle, from rather poor-quality WVO feedstock, so I'm not sure about what people are saying now that it has to be virgin oil to be usable. I still have that stuff. It just needs neutralizing (not much), and I suppose you could decolorize it with fuller's earth or charcoal or something. It will work just fine for preserving plants and flowers for instance, whereas raw by-product certainly won't. With unseparated by-product (glycerine/catalyst/soap, with or without excess methanol), Tony's method of mixing it with sawdust in a milk carton and burning it like a log works well - but you have to start up the fire with wood and get it burning hot first, and, though the glyc-logs burn hot and for a long time, it seems to require adding more wood and building the fire up again at the end of the burn, or you start getting fumes as it all cools down. Bit like starting up and shutting down an SVO system on petro or bio. So far we find separated FFAs burn much better in anything approaching a burner that you could use as a heating source than unseparated by-product does - almost as well and about as cleanly as biodiesel, in fact. Haven't done any comparative work with the separated glycerine yet though, and haven't got satisfactory results using unseparated by-product as fuel. Separation's useful - it's worth doing and then exploring what options you have with the products, what you might be able to find a market/use for, whether it all ends up being worth your while. What most people want to do with it, once they have enough degreaser to last them a couple of lifetimes, is use it for process heat in making biodiesel. It seems though that there just isn't enough of it - that much by-product will only raise the temp of your feedstock about 5 deg C at best. David Teal and Chuck (and others?) have said they use it for process heat, but so far it's not clear that they're not also using other heat sources - most likely it's supplementary. Burning it in what, a Babington or a Turk burner or a pot burner or something, I suppose, but we're finding it doesn't burn very well that way. So, yes, we're thinking more and more that chucking it in a digester might be better - again, only as a supplement, same as composting it: you CAN'T compost it, not by itself, it has to be mixed with other stuff and broken up to allow aeration and so on. Something similar with biogas, the by-product would just be a supplement. not sole feedstock. So how much can you add, to what scale/type of digester, what else do you need to add, what sort of production (methane) do you get out of it? I said on another thread (biogas) that we'd been talking to some people here and should have some more stuff to post soon... Hopefully that should start after this weekend. I also said I'd make up an annotated list of biogas resources and post them here, but I didn't say I'd do it fast - most of the work's done, but it still needs an hour or two's work. Next week soonest. Not delaying - I really want to get discussion going here on these issues, and related issues. Just don't have any time at the moment, I'm not going to be able to get at the keyboard much this weekend. >Care to unleash your plethora of information and sources upon the glycerin >bedraggled? :-) Soonest, promise - also feeling in danger of drench, I was wondering where I'm going to put the next batch of the stuff... With woodchips in milk cartons in the fire grate under our cannibal tub of a bath is where, I guess, for now. Until we get a digester in operation we look like being extremely clean persons, very thoroughly and frequently bathed, if not par-boiled. Best Keith >Todd Swearingen > > > ... or chuck the whole by-product into a digester and turn it into > > methane. Not by itself though - you also need N stuff and C stuff and > > fibre and water. > > > > Best > > > > Keith ------------------------ 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/
