Re: Sunday's test

Making a batch this week!
------------------------------------
I'm pretty confident that the top oil from our WVO tote will react  
well after heating and settling. I'm going down tonight to pump top  
oil from the WVO tote that has good separation of oil and watery oil.  
I'll pump it into the oil heater and heat it up, let it settle  
tomorrow and react on Thursday. I will also go ahead and make a test  
jar batch of the top oil at the same time. See what it does.

The tests from Sunday were confusing. I reacted another test jar  
Sunday night, using the same oil from that was in the heater.

Tuesday - heat oil (settle overnight)
Thursday - react a batch
I'm going to plan on making a full batch from the top oil in the WVO  
tote on Thursday. I could use some help then.
Saturday - We will need some people to drain the glycerin, run a 3/27  
test and get the fuel into the wash. I'll be out of town, so we need  
some people to step up and help.


List of immediate things needing to be done
----------------------------------------------
--Drain off WVO "BBQ" drum until watery swill turns to oil. Put this  
oil in one of the totes.
-- Find and purchase a 50 micron filter for the WVO. This is what we  
will use to aid water settling.
-- Fix oil heater #2 wall switch. The switch doesn't turn off the  
circuit when the switch is in off position!
-- Complete fittings to allow pumping reacted fuel into the new  
settling tote.
-- Install Camlock fittings for wash tote: find, purchase and install
-- Purchase round aluminum "stack" with elbow bend for dryer.
-- Purchase window screen or steel wool to stuff in stack as demister.
-- Fix pipe leak in washer tote.
-- Find and purchase 26 foot polyethylene hose and PCB pipe to  
replace the patched methoxide hose. -- Route the hose through the  
pipe at ground level.

List of things that need to get going
------------------------------------------------
--Band heaters for the WVO "BBQ" drum. The more I think about this,  
the more sense it makes. We can turn it off in the summer, but for  
cold weather, I think it will make a difference.
--Conex clean-up. We need figure out a rotation for cabin detail.  
Mopping, rag washing, material purchases, etc. I'm not doing all that.

The Bigger Picture
---------------------------------
-- We need to solve the water in oil problem. We're hoping filtering  
the oil before heating will make the difference in water settling. If  
not, we will do two heat-and-settles before reacting. If not that,  
then two-stage reactions are in order.
-- We should shoot for producing 50 gallons of fuel each week  
starting now.
-- By the end of May, we should aim to get to 100 gallons by setting  
up the second reactor vessel.
-- By July, we should be producing fuel two days/nights a week and  
getting 200 gallons.

Time for a Mixmaster Meeting
-----------------------------------------
Karen,
Can you go ahead and send out a call for a mixmasters meeting, so we  
can get some more people involved? Please also add it to the  
gobiodiesel calendar.

Helping Hands
------------------------
Mich,
Can we arrange to meet and discuss how to source some help for these  
tasks? I'm not going to really on responses to lists, emails or web  
postings any longer. They don't work well. We need to contact  
members, give them some concrete tasks and times and get them working.

On Mar 12, 2007, at 10:36 PM, Felix Kersting wrote:

> Zac,
>
> If I heard you right on the phone message, the middle oil passed  
> the 3/27, but the oil from the top of the tank didn't.  Glad to  
> hear that one test was good, but dismayed to hear that the other  
> was bad.
>
> Glad to hear you are redoing the tests.  I understand that you are  
> also going to test some top oil.  Will you heat and settle the top  
> oil or try it straight?  Straight sounds good to me.  Can I suggest  
> 3 tests from each sample.  It's a lot of work, but it's good  
> validation.   Somebody stop me if I am blowing smoke.
>
> Let me know as soon as you have consistent results.  I would like  
> to brainstorm with you and others how we will provide a constant  
> supply of good oil to the process.  Heating and settling sounds  
> like the best bet if we get good results, but we will be flexible  
> from the equipment side.
>
> Thanks again for your hard work on this.  Soon we will be back in  
> production and there will be eager hands to lighten the load.
>
> Felix
>
>