Re: moving forward on oil and water

Felix,

We will bubble test the filtered oil after heating and settling.

Here is a recap on the last month's efforts:

WATER IN OUR OIL
---------------------------
We discovered that water in our source oil is causing incomplete  
reactions. We can make a jar-sized amount of fuel from this oil and  
then test it using the 3/27 test (mixing fuel with methanol to see if  
unreacted glycerides precipitate out).
It is not clear whether this discovery was caused by the cold  
weather, which, in turn, prevented water from settling out of oil in  
our storage totes OR whether this discovery was a long term problem  
which we only found when we  testing for fuel quality late last year.  
It is possible that this summer, when we were not testing, we were  
having incomplete reactions and simply did not know it.

THE BATTLE TO DE-WATER
----------------------------------
We have been unsuccessful at settling out water from the oil in the  
current duo of water heaters we are using. We are not sure if this is  
because:

? - we aren't heating the oil long or hot enough
? - the oil is so poor quality as to be inseparable from water
? - the shape of the water heaters limits water settling out
? - the oil has too much water to be removed successfully without  
boiling

We have tried various combinations but have been unsuccessful. The  
oil fails the bubble test, even after attempts to remove the water,  
and the resulting fuel fails the 3/27 test.

Boiling and two-stage reactions
There are two sure approaches to getting a good reaction. We are  
coming close to using one of them, because of our failure to remove  
water in other ways.
One approach is to boil the water completely out of the oil. The  
problem with this approach is that it is energy intensive.
The other approach is what is known as a two-stage reaction, where  
you react with a portion of methoxide, settle, remove glycerin, and  
then react with the remaining portion of methoxide. The supposed  
benefit of this approach is that water will be removed during the  
first stage and the second stage will result in a complete reaction.

The reason we haven't used these approaches up until now is that one  
is impractical (boiling) and the other will be more time intensive  
than we would like. However, if we do not have luck this weekend with  
our latest approach (see below), we will be forced to try the two- 
stage reaction.

FILTERING THE OIL
---------------------------------
Our current thinking is that the lack of success in de-watering is  
caused by the heavy sedimentation in the oil. This sediment acts like  
millions of tiny sponges which hold the water suspended in the oil,  
even in the presence of heating.
We have filtered some oil and we will try heating and settling it  
during the next 5-7 days and then boil testing. If the boil test  
shows a reduction of water content, we will make a jar reaction and  
perform the 3/27 test.

To be efficient, we have tried to address all the de-watering  
questions above. Specifically, we are looking at the effects of both  
filtering and container shape. We have 3 "experiments".

#1. Unfiltered oil in a cone-bottom reactor - test if the same oil we  
could not de-water in a water heater will settle out better in a cone- 
bottomed container.
#2. Filtered oil in a water heater - test if the same oil we could  
not de-water when unfiltered will have better results when filtered.
#3. Filtered oil in a cone-bottom reactor - test whether a  
combination of shape and filtration will together make an impact on  
water removal where one factor alone would not.


CONCLUSION
-----------------------------
I apologize to everyone who has been waiting for fuel. It has been a  
long haul since last November when we a) first started testing for  
fuel quality and b) suspended operations for almost 2 months to  
perform safety upgrades. A few weeks ago we were visited by two  
biodiesel specialists, "Girl Mark", who holds biodiesel workshops  
around the country, and John Bush, who works with a cooperative in  
Colorado and hosts the annual Local Biodiesel Conference (http:// 
www.b100.org/). They both indicated that the problem we are having  
isn't just because we are incompetent. It is a difficult issue, which  
most home-brewers skirt simply by working with higher-quality oil.

We are not currently in a position to change our oil sources that  
radically. And I believe that we can make good fuel from used, medium- 
quality oil.



On Mar 29, 2007, at 9:30 AM, [email protected] wrote:

> Zac,
>
> After last night's experience, I believe that what we see settling  
> to the bottom of the totes and oil containers is sediment, not  
> neccisarily other fats, or water.  Others may have already come to  
> this conclusion, but I had not. The oil  that came thru the filter  
> was so clear - it was very convincing.
>
> One thing we didn't do was to Bubble T test the filtered oil (I  
> don't think).  I would like to see those results.  Filtering to 1  
> micron is completely possible and, if it takes out all the water  
> carrying crud, would be a lot lower energy than heating.
>
> Speaking of which, note that there is no real difference in heating  
> oil up to 130 or 140 degreees then cooling and settling and then  
> reheating to react to 130 to 140 degrees than boiling the oil to  
> get rid of the water and using the hot oil for immediate reaction.   
> That is 140 - 70 = 70: 70 *2 = 140 degrees net temp rise for X  
> quantity of oil.  70 + 140 = 210 - just about boiling.  There's  
> just that little bit of heat of vaporization to add.....
>
> We'll see what happens.
>
> Thanks again for your hard work on this mess,
>
> Felix