Thomas, Sodium sulfate may have some additive property for soils, as many benefit from additional sulfur. On the other hand, it's not as "universal" a fertilizer as potassium phosphate.
As for glycerin (glass) soap? You may wish to take a look at the enormous heat and alcohol inputs (energy inputs) that are required to achieve the clarity. Clear soap doesn't clean any better than opaque soap. Rather, it's more of a vanity/decorator/designer "thang." A couple of thoughts: 1) Make your own soap from scratch and put some "scratch" back into your wallet. Homemade soaps have glycerol in them already. Industry removes the glycerol making hard bars that may very well last longer but are drying to the skin. In turn, they add the extracted glycerol to emollient products such as conditioners and "glass" soap and charge premium prices. Essentially, they make a problem and then profit off the problem they make. 2) Hard bar soaps are made using NaOH. Liquid soaps generally use KOH, as the soap base can be diluted more readily than harder sodium soaps. 3) Glycerol from the FFA recovery process will be discolored and could easily maintain some of the same odour as the parent stock. Be careful when choosing the parent stock from which you'll use the glycerol for cosmetic purposes. 4) If you want a hard bar, the recovered FFAs will better accomplish this, as they are free of glycerin. 5) No different than in intentional soap making, it helps to pick your parent stock in order to control the finished soap's properties. Coconut lends to lather. Saturated oils and phats lend to harder bars. I'd suggest the "Soapmaker's Companion" by Susan Miller Cavitch. It's one of the best soap making books ever published, with numerous overlaps with making biodiesel (unintentional, but none the less incredibly applicable). Todd Swearingen > Good Day To All, > I agree with Todd S. "As for producing NaCl from any process? > The intent should be to steer processes away from creating waste > products, not creating more." > I now have 10, 5gal. containers of byproduct in my shed, and > more on the way. The only reasonably priced H3PO4 I have found so far > comes in 55 gal drums .... much too much!!! I was looking at using > another acid ex HCl in order to get FFA's to burn in my in-laws > heating system. I want to attempt methanol recovery from the > glycerine, and my wife would like to try to make glycerine soap. Would > using Sulfuric acid be better in that it produces Sodium Sulfate? ... > a fertilizer ... (I'd better switch to KOH, and locate H3PO4, huh?). > I'm biting at the bit to do something w. the byproduct other than > composting it. > I need some help with the chemistry. > Ken Provost wrote: > "HCl works fine -- the FFA will gradually rise to the top as an > odd-smelling reddish oily liquid, and the glycerine will be left in an > aqueous solution at pH 3 or so (you have to overshoot the acid quite a > lot to get separation of FFA, due to the buffering effect of the > soap/FFA system)." > > At the prices I've seen for smaller quantities of H3PO4 (500ml $18 > + shipping) I'd like to be conservative w. it. > > Isn't the amount of acid needed to overwhelm the buffer system > related to how much soap was produced in the process? Which, in turn, > was formed by the FFA's present in the WVO, and that we neutralized > with NaOH (or KOH)? > If this is so, can't we get at least a ballpark figure of the > amount of acid needed to separate the glycerine/FFA from a particular > BD batch? > JtF: "We found that it takes about 1.5 to 1.7 ml of 85% phosphoric > acid for each gram of sodium lye used in the process." > 3.5g lye/L + titration (g/L) = g lye/L > g lye/L X 1.5 or 1.7 ml/g lye = roughly the ml H3PO4 > > Are we striving for a pH of about 3 or does it vary w. WVO used? > I ask, because if a particular pH produces the sparation couldn't > we use a pH indicator?(As w. Phenolphthalein - for titration of WVO) > Bromcresol green (pH 3.8 - 5.4) > Bromphenol Blue (pH 3.0 - 4.6) > Methyl Red (pH 4.2 - 6.2) > If we titrated a small (1L) sample to the desired pH, we could > calculate at least roughly the amount of acid needed to separate the > larger batch. And this would work even on mixed batches. > > This list is like a morning newspaper to me (or what I'd like one > to be). There is a cast of characters here, including > Todd S. and Ken Provost, whose responses I read, regardless of topic, > because they have insight that I envy and a world of knowledge that I > am trying to come to grips with. > I appreciate your responses. Thanks, > Tom > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Ken Provost <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > *To:* Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > <mailto:Biofuel@sustainablelists.org> > *Sent:* Sunday, October 30, 2005 7:28 PM > *Subject:* Re: [Biofuel] Separating Glycerine/FFA > > > > > On Oct 30, 2005, at 2:19 PM, Thomas Kelly wrote: > >> >> I'm having difficulty getting Phosphoric Acid. Can I use >> Hydrochloric Acid > >> to separate the Glycerine/FFA ? It will produce Sodium Chloride >> rather than > >> Sodium Phosphate (I use lye), but other than that, any objections? > > > > > HCl works fine -- the FFA will gradually rise to the top as an > odd-smelling > reddish oily liquid, and the glycerine will be left in an aqueous > solution at > pH 3 or so (you have to overshoot the acid quite a lot to get > separation of > FFA, due to the buffering effect of the soap/FFA system). When using > H3PO4, I bring it back to pH 7 with ammonia, to give a fairly benign > fertilizer solution for the compost or garden. Obviously, with HCl > and lye, > the NaCl will be fairly destructive, so the glycerine will need to > be sewered > or otherwise wasted. > > > -K > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _ > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
