John, I am a novice at this too so others should feel free to criticize my
remarks.
I would suggest you titrate. This is not so easy at this stage because any
free fatty acids in your fuel as you went into the base process are now
soap, that is they are neutralized with Na. To convert them back to free
fatty acids, I have taken say 10 ml of the product, and mixed it with
vinegar strong enough to drop the pH back down to say 3 or 4. This will strip
off the sodium. Separate this 10 ml of oil from the vinegar. Now you
can titrate as if it were any waste or new oil. I think you are correct in
assuming that you should have titrated in the first place. If you find
that the free fatty acid is above 1 g/l equivalent NaOH then you will need to
be careful when washing not to add much water to the first few washes.
Check out the University of Idaho process. They use 5.5% to start out with and
mix it up before the glycerin phase is separated off. Then settle for
as long as it takes to get clear. But that process assumes you have the
correct amount of NaOH or KOH added to your mix in the first place. Since
you did not titrate first, you may not have added enough NaOH to neutralize the
FFA's as well as catalyze the reaction. So the reaction may not have
gone to completion. If you think that that is a possibility, You could always
separate the glycerin, titrate as above, add 1/4 the original methanol
and enough NaOH to both neutralize as well as catalyze. Then re-react. This
second product will probably not drop any glycerin unless there was a lot
of unreacted oil.
I would probably let this batch settle and make a new batch with proper
titration. You will learn from the new batch how to deal with the old.
John Guttridge
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
com> cc:
Sent by: Subject: [Biofuel] methanol
recovery/first batch results
biofuel-bounces@
wwia.org
10/21/2004 09:16
AM
Please respond
to biofuel
what kind of a methanol recovery rate can I expect once I start doing that?
I got the product of my first conversion this morning and it looks straw
yellow but a bit cloudy, should I let it sit to clarify or should I wash
it? will the cloudiness wash out? does that mean that my reaction is
incomplete? should I add more lye and methanol and reprocess? should I
have titrated in the first place?
John Guttridge
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