Hello Tom That's glycerine/FFA/catalyst you were working with? Or rather soap, not FFA. If you separate it: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycsep.html Separating glycerine/FFAs
... you're left with about 95%-pure glycerine (somewhat acidic), and FFAs, and the catalyst on the bottom. The glyc and FFAs won't mix, but either of them burns well, especially the FFAs, and I think the FFAs should be cleaner burning than SVO or WVO. I'll be doing more work soon on just how well they burn in what, how best to use them as fuels, but they do both burn. Another method people have experimented with is to mix the raw by-product, unseparated glyc/soaps/catalyst, with wood chips or sawdust, but this is where concerns over proper combustion arise. Top-down gasifier should do nicely though. I want to do some work on this soon too. Regards Keith >I've got a couple years experience with burning glycerin. I had to do it, >I've got such a large accumulation of the stuff. I've tried it in a couple of >wood boilers and in a babington burner. The stuff does burn, but it takes >special conditions to keep it going. Basically, without being exact about the >fine details, it takes about 1000 degrees of temperature to keep the stuff >going. Below that temperature and you'll mostly just burn off the methanol >component, leaving a heavy vegetable based "tar" residue. It tried it in a >babington, but it does not burn above about a 25% mix with oil. In a wood >boiler it burns on top of coals well, but when the wood fire dies out it just >accumulates the glycerin without much reduction. > >My current burner has a babington burner running on vegetable oil into a >masonry stove with a separate drip of glycerin onto a hot steel plate. It >burns very cleanly and VERY hot. Absolutely no emissions visible. Now I have >to find out what to do with over 1000000 btu's per hour. > >Tom Leue > >In a message dated 1/11/03 3:59:45 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > I looked up a few of those commercial oil burners for use with WVO. > > Sounds pretty interesting, though pricey... something to try and find > > secondhand, maybe? > > > > Then I got an email from a farmer nearby, someone who grows oil crops, > > asking about biodiesel production for on-farm use, and about ways to reduce > > waste in the process, all the usual questions people have. We were talking > > about 'glycerin' and ways to deal with it besides disposal... > > > > Does anyone on this list have experience burning their glycerin for shop > > heat or process heat, using some kind of waste oil burner, either one of > > these commercial units or one of the homebuilt ones off of > > Journeytoforever? > > > > I know that burning glycerine can produce some toxic gases if not done > > properly. What is 'properly' in this case? some particular temperature, > > some particular combustion environment? how does one know, using a > > Babington or a waste oil burner to burn glycerine byproduct, that it is > > safe to do so? > > > > Also I do the 'ffa recovery' process sometimes- purifying 'glycerine' with > > an acid to break down the soaps into salt and ffa, and producing a cleaner > > glycerine for degreaser use. Like everyone I know whose tried this, I've > > got a bit of ffa byproduct sitting around in my 'odd chemicals' collection > > now (I believe Ken Provost experimented with using that same ffa in > > soapmaking?). > > > > Todd Swearingen said something once about ffa being a potential fuel source > > for a Babington Burner, and has said somewhere that he thinks it could be a > > fuel in other situations. Anyone experimented with this, or any of you > > engineers out there have any ideas on how well it'll combust and under what > > conditions? (I don't have anything to try burning it in at the moment). > > > > Thanks, > > Mark Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
