Dear Ken, I«m not quite sure if I can answer the first question. You should always use as little lye as necessary to neutralize FFA, plus a little extra to transesterify the WVO. And the Methanol is calculated by stoichiometry. But all this falls down in practice, «cause it«s an equilibrium reaction, and maybe "the little extra lye" will take ages to transesterify all the WVO, and maybe the "exact" ammount of methanol will impede completion of the reaction.
I can say I«ve heard of people using pure methanol, and then using the BD straight after settling. The washing is used to get rid of varius impurities. I somewhere read that in the "fresh" BD, half of the methanol is in the BD phase and half of it in the glycerine. There«s also soaps and sodium ions (and other stuff), which all usually are carried away by the water. I still think the washing stage might be imperative. I just don«t quite understand how nobody has come up with this issue before. I mean, water could cause rusting and other problems in the motor, and everyone seems to have no trouble with this. Is it simply than noebody on the list (actually using their BD) has ever measured it«s water content? The ASTM standard set the limit at 500 ppm fore some reason! This is just some more thinking. I«m aware this does not quite answer your question, but I really don«t have a clue. I know as much as you do on this subject. Best wishes, Christian ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Saturday, June 08, 2002 6:04 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] water Christian, Is there a way to calculate how much catalyst would be needed for how much a reaction time. The reason for washing is to get rid of the catalyst in the newly reacted BD and lower the ph right? so if we can use lesser catalyst then washing might not be necessary. As for the excess methanol/ethanol, airing it for some time takes care of that. Regards, Ken At 12:05 AM 6/8/02 -0300, you wrote: >Hi all. > >I ran some lab tests on my BD (from M. Pelly«s recipe), including IR spectrometry, Flash point, Pour point, Cloud point, Density, Viscosity, Residual Carbon and free water & sediment. > >My findings showed quite a good BD, except for the water. > >ASTM requires 0,05 % vol max of water. I bubble washed my BD, following the Univ. of Idaho«s method, and it seems that my level of fre water whent up to a value of roughly 0.2% (4 times more than required by ASTM). > >I will further treat the BD with anhydrous CaCl2 (calcium chloride), though the lab technician also suggested I should use a saturated solution of sodium chloride (tablesalt... i.e., brine) to wash the BD. He said that this would reduce the presence of water in the washed BD. > >The point is: take care with the bubble washes and water washes in general. Maybe I was just unlucky, but you should try to check the content of water in your BD as the presence of it could be harmful to the motor. I«ve heard some people use pure methanol directly to get a BD pure enough to use without washing... (I don«t know how good this might be). My BD was very transparent. Even more crystaline than diesel fuel bought from my near by gas station. > >Comments welcome. > >Regards, > >Christian > > >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > >Biofuel at Journey to Forever: >http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > >Biofuels list archives: >http://archive.nnytech.net/ > >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/ > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ 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/ ______________________________________________________________________________ mensaje enviado desde http://www.iespana.es emails (pop)-paginas web (espacio ilimitado)-agenda-favoritos (bookmarks)-foros -Chat Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ 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/
