Using the Biodiesel Appleseed Water Heater-based Reactor (for plans on building it see www.veggieavenger.com/media, I'm planning on updating the plans soon and making them more readable)
1. fill the reactor with oil using the reactor pump (difficult and optional). This pump won't draw up liquids very well, especially the first time you use it. The better solution is a rotary barrel pump ($40 at Harbor Freight Tools), with it's outlet hose attached to the drain/fill tube of the reactor (the pump will pass liquids right through). If you do use the Clearwater Pump on the reactor, you will need to close off the main valve between the tank and the plumbing manifold, and stick the drain/fill hose into a bucket of oil as close to the pump as possible. You will also have to open the vent at the top of the reactor 2. test oil (titration and water tests) 3. start heating the oil 4. at the same time, measure lye or KOH and add to the carboys of methanol. Give it an initial shake 5. shake methoxide carboy every 20 minutes while oil heats. This can also be done the night before or even earlier. 6. check that lye is dissolved by looking through the bottom of carboy for clumps 7. connect methoxide delivery lid to carboy. Put carboy on a shelf above the reactor pump 8. open the vent at the top of reactor. It should have a hose leading to the outdoors attached to it. 9. Check temperature by circulating oil (which moves it past the temp gauge probe in the plumbing) until the needle stops rising. You will probably have to set a water heater thermostat to it's highest position to get the temperatures to 130F, and this will take some tinkering the first few times you make fuel since the thermostats don't have numbers on them. . When oil is at temperature (130F if your thermostat goes that high, turn off the heater. Turn on the pump. Open methoxide valve fully. Look at color of oil in the pump output tube. If it does not change when methoxide valve is open, then you're not drawing in any methoxide (due to pump being wimpy and the difference in pressures between the tank and the carboys). In this case, close the main oil valve between the reactor and the rest of the plumbing SLIGHTLY. You want to have as much oil and as little methoxide going through the pump as you can, to ensure a good mix. You are looking for a slight color change (to turbid) in the pump return tubing. A faster pump would be helpful here. When one carboy is empty, exchange lids for the other one. You may need to adjust the oil or methoxide valves throughout methoxide addition to compensate for the changing methoxide/tank pressures. 10. Once methoxide is all added to reactor, close the vent valve on top of reactor to avoid losing methanol to the atmosphere. Make sure the heating element is unplugged! Circulate mixture for 1-2 hours. Temp shouldn't drop below 120, if it does, you may want to add more insulation to the tank (conventional bubblewrap works great) 11. Let glycerol settle for 8-24 hours. Longer settling time is always better- as microscopic droplets of glycerol and soap take a long time to settle in a sealed reactor- the excess methanol keeps them suspended. 12. drain glycerol. If you've used NaOH lye, and titration results are over 2 ml on the titration, your glycerol may solidify. IT's a good idea to drain most of the glycerol as soon as possible, then settle longer and drain more (see #11) to prevent solid clogging of your plumbing. If it solidifies, you can turn on the heat for a short time, and could pour hot water over the solid in the plumbing, or use a blow dryer to warm the plumbing or pump up. I recommend using KOH instead of NaOH as none of these problems would happen. If you use nice oil this won't happen at room temperature either. Use carboys or buckets to drain the glycerol/soap/methanol byproduct. Don't sniff it- there is methanol present. 13. You will get at least 2 gallons of intermixed glycerol/biodiesel. You can tell that this is coming out of the drain by looking at the color of the liquid, and may notice that it drains faster than the glycerol. Save this intermixed liquid to settle further in a carboy, then pour off the biodiesel into your wash tank once glycerol settles. Another trick is to slow down the drain valve once intermixed biodiesel/glycerol appears- this will cut down on the amount of biodiesel that enters the intermixed layer. Also, you may want to install a valve before your pump, so as to avoid glycerol hiding in the pump plumbing and mixing into your drained biodiesel. 14. Use pump and it's fluid transfer manifold valves to pump the settled biodiesel into the wash tank. Wash according to instructions in washing articles. 15. if you have a standpipe wash tank, you can then use the standpipe to drain off the settled washed biodiesel. This can also be pumped through a filter or to storage by using the reactor's pump- close off the main oil valve on the reactor to isolate the pump from the reactor, drain anything that's in the pump tubing, and connect the standpipe wash tank's standpipe drain tube with the drain/fill tube of the reactor (using barbed coupling and hose clamps). You also will want to make sure it's only biodiesel, not water, coming out of the standpipe first before attaching the pump to it. With a standpipe wash tank, you will then leave behind some water to reuse on the next wash. You can also gravity filter, but it is excruciatingly slow. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! 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