After settling my glycerin, I decided to wash and neutraliza it. I first used vinegar, but noticed the pH level whent down very slowly, and I was rather diluting the glyc with too much water from the vinegar "acetic acid solution". So I reached for the HCl 35% (muriatic) acid. pH started going upwards, say, 1 pH level per 2 ml (very roughly from what I can recall). I was also heating to remove the excess methanol. We know that any NaOH will react with vinegar (CH3COOH) to form CH3COONa (a salt) + water. with HCl, the reaction forms table salt (NaCl) and water, and table salt wouldn«t represent a problem if I were to use the glycerin as a soap... so: I continued adding HCl, until suddenly the pH whent down drastically, sort of as in a buffer effect.
This is quite possible, as a buffer solution isone which will tend to maintain a certain pH for a given ammount of acid or base added. These can be made from a) a weak acid and an ionic soluble salt of the weak acid, or b) a weak base and a soluble ionic salt of the weak base. For example, CH3COOH (acetic acid) and CH3COOH. So I suddenly forced pH too low, but in the meantime, big flocks of something like waxes or thick creamy greasy looking things started forming in the mixture. When I finished the heating, and adding some NaOH solution to return to pH 7, the remaining liquid was a mixture of glycerin and water below (probably + soluble salts), and something atop which looked like very dark brown biodiesel.Now, at room temp, there«s a mixture of liquid brown "something", plus floating and submerged spots and bubbles and skimming floating layers of other whiteish solid things (guk). Could these be esterified FFA remains with longer chains that remail solid at room temp? How could this be if supposedly FFA react FIRST with the catalyst, and then with the WVO, and my yield for that batch seemed perfect? Any ideas? Regards, Christian [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Kwick Pick opens locked car doors, front doors, drawers, briefcases, padlocks, and more. On sale now! http://us.click.yahoo.com/ehaLqB/Fg5DAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
