I would concur with you on point number three. Right from my first test batch with 1 liter of new oil I noticed that the BD at the end of washing is cloudy and I heated it with a stainless immersion (rod) heater (in a 2 liter flask) and little drops of water would form at the heater and drop out. Now I do everything in the reactor and after the last wash I heat the whole thing again to 50 degrees C and some liquid water can be drained out. Then I evacuate the reactor until I get to 28" Hg and the BD comes out crystal clear and ready for use. It remains clear upon cooling. What I find in the liquid trap, ahead of my vacuum pump, appears to be water. I haven't tasted it ;-)
Pics of my stuff are here: http://www.nonprofitfuel.ca/Reactor.html Joe Mike Weaver wrote: >Along the lines of testing or thinking outside the box I've been up to >5 things which may be on interest: >1. Titrating - I've taken to using titrating more as a starting point >these days - now I usually make 6 - 8 mini batches >and just look to see which gives the best yield. I am putting together >a more formal system. 8 small batches of MoX and then into >8 mini "Dr Pepper" method small bottles. Since this I haven't had any >strange results. This is not to say I didn't have a lot of failures - >plenty of glop, >weird seperations and so on. Most were useful in that I learned what >not to do. >2. Been tinkering with Silica beads to absorb any left over water. >Work well in practice but haven't scaled it up yet. >3. (This not new) - been heating the final product - I have an odd >collection of home-built processors - one has a sealed glass lid so I >can watch what goes on. >Interesting thing seems to be that even with settled washed BD sometimes >I see a little residue at the end of the heating process which seems to >be water. Not a constant phenomenon. I would have to do more research >before I would say that the heat releases water? Could well be a fluke. >4. Will and have been tinkering with using ISA w/ Methanol. I don't >think this will prove too useful to anyone except me, as I have 55 >gallons of the stuff on hand. >Someone did email me curious about whether it improved the cold weather >behavior of the BD. He suggested a freezer test. The only real value I >see here is if there is any improvement of the final product. >5. As most listers know, I have been struggling off and on with using >BD to power the whole process. I have a 10 gallon stainless reactor >which I want to heat with a PetroMax stove. My current workshop it >unheated so I have been not at this recently. It's been very cold for >this part of the country. > >I am sure some of the above has been covered. If anything proves useful >or interesting I will write it up and post it. > >-Mike > > > > _______________________________________________ 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/
