Good Day All, I am getting confused as to what I am doing wrong. I have currently made two batch of biodiesel 4L each. Batch A and Batch B as I will refer to them.. I having difficulties with both.. I have created a mini-processor very similar to that shown on the web-site. All suggestions are certainly welcome.
Batch A 4L batch of virgin SVO. Followed instructions on web site.Pre heated SVO to 120F. Place in bath of 120F water, add 800ml of Methanol and 21.g of KOH solution. Agitated it for an hour then let stand for 24hrs for settling.. Got both the biodiesel layer and glycerin layer as described. Did a 'quality' wash test on it using 250ml of water and 250 ml of biodiesel. I got what appeared to be and 3 layers, Biodiesel, middle layer(white and some what foamy apprx. 1/2in wide,unprocessed FFA), and water. Reprocessed 3L of Batch A using 100ml of Methanol and 5.3 g of KOH per liter of oil.. Final product looked like biodiesel except no Glycerin layer on bottom.. Nothing!! Did the wash test of 250ml of bio and 250ml of water. When I put the water in the container with the biodiesel ther instantly separated, I then shook for 10 sec. Looks like "Milk".. After 30min of settling still looks like milk.. GOT MILK?? Suggestions.. Is it time to go kill the grass with Batch A and start from scratch??? What went wrong? Did I assume incorrectly think the first quality test failed, should I have been more patient to let stand for a while to see if middle layer was paper thin?? Batch B I am making a 4L batch of biodiesel, I preheat the oil to approx. 120F then place it into a container sitting in a bath of 120F water.(very similar to the setup shown on the website) I am adding 800ml of Methonl with 21.2g of KOH (5.3/L). Agitation is by for one hour, this time settling was done for 12 hrs. Did quality test using wash of 250ml bio and 250 water. Again very similar results as Batch A. Bio on top, a foamy white layer in the middle, and water on bottom.. Do I need to process the 4L batch longer than one hour of agitation after putting in the Methanol/KOH solution?? What can I be missing here?? I would appreciate some good advice as how to get over this first hurdle.. Regards, Shawn Patrick I am trying to do the quality test using washing method. I add 250ml of biodiesel and 250 of water. Shake vigoursly for 10 20 sec then let settle for 1/2hr.. My results are as follows. I am getting separation _______________________________________________ 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/
