Hello Kurt, Brian Wow, the Dark Ages are back! LOL!
Um. Look, I really don't want to put a damper on your enthusiasm so I'll try not to but I'm in wonderment at the way you're going about it. This just isn't what it's all about. I think you're missing the point. At least one, IMNSHO. You've got it all going your way, great information resources, and a bunch of people here to discuss it with who've been doing it a long time. But! There was a recent thread here or maybe two with a bunch of messages encouraging newbies having difficulty with the wash-test, saying how they'd also struggled but got there in the end and they're glad they persevered, they did it by removing the variables, checking their techniques, improving their practices. That's quite a strong contrast with this thread. There are a lot of newbies here these days, by the way, much more than usual, hundreds of them just one or two steps behind you and watching how you're going about it, and what they're seeing from you now is how to get away with being sloppy. Here we are, at the Biofuel list, in the year Anno Domini 2005, after six years of this, being sloppy. When you follow a planned step-by-step course into learning how to do something complex, in the early steps you'll probably be learning more than you're aware of, if the course is up to much. Since it's been developed in accordance with user-experience here it probably is up to much. Why make small one-litre test batches anyway? So that you don't risk messing up right at the outset with a 150-litre first batch and end up facing a barrel of intractable and discouraging glop, right? It's much more difficult to make one-litre test batches than 150-litre batches. Kurt, do you think you're going to need the new 0.1 gram scale to measure the lye for a 55-gal reactor batch? Sure you'll use it, but you won't need those tolerances. With a one-litre batch it gives you a margin of error of 2.9%, kind of wide, but with the bigger batch it would be accurate to within 0.01%, ridiculously narrow, no need. The smaller the batch, the bigger the error, the more accurate your measurements have to be. A good reason to learn precise techniques doing small test batches, starting simple and adding one variable at a time, with quality checks not only of the fuel you make but of your procedures too, is that no matter how experienced you get, you never quite know what fiendishly cunning little challenges the next batch of WVO might be holding in store for you. The quality checks and test-batches aren't just for newbies, you do it with every batch. Many case-hardened biodiesel brewers do "Poor man's titration" bracket tests and quality checks with every batch, they've said so on the list. The more accurate and precise your measurements are the more your tests will tell you, and the less grief will fill your days. "You have to get a 'feel' for it," they say. Like when you tie your shoelaces, you just do it, you don't even have to look, your fingers do it for you, it's easy. Actually it's a complicated series of operations, tying your shoelaces, it wouldn't be so easy to program a computer to do it. I don't think you get a good feel for it by trying to take it by storm, deciding it's not going to kick *your* butt, so you hurl volleys of random test batches at it and hit a wall of emulsion. So in the end you buy accurate scales after all, like everyone was telling you. But now you're advising Brian how not to need one. Now you've got the scales, but you also have the idea lodged in your head that you can measure half a gram of lye by volume in a beaker because you tried it and it "worked". If you go teaching your fingers stuff like that you're going to find yourself tripping over your shoelaces a lot. You already are. You abandoned one-litre batches in favour of 300 ml batches in the hopes of getting less moisture in the lye because you think smaller measurements will take less time (76% humidity isn't so much, it's higher than that here now). So you set yourself the task of measuring even smaller quantities without an accurate scale. For a 300ml batch, 3.5g/litre of lye works out to 1.05 grams, and the volume would be 0.495 ml. You're measuring 0.495 ml of lye in a beaker? And it gave you some of your "best results". But I think with these methods your best results are just as randomly chaotic as the worst ones. But you get it right by bending the wash-test your way. And then advise another newbie to do the same. Brian, meanwhile, is starting in the wrong place and forgot he needs to weigh something or other, and forgot he needed a blender to mix it in too. Sheesh, Brain, how can you be so scatter-brained? Don't you even make notes? You're not just boiling an egg you know. Why aren't you starting with virgin oil? But you want to start with WVO, why waste time, and you're going to titrate it. Only you don't have scales and you're going to use old litmus paper from a soil test kit. And the way you're going you'll pick your way unerringly through this jungle of variables to a glorious result, right. Meanwhile you're already moving on to better things, next stop the acid-base method. Sorry, chums, this ain't the way to do it, either not even for beginners or especially not for beginners, take your choice. Eg (closes eyes and chucks a dart)... >I do recall that that ambient humidity messes with the methoxide >mixing. Should I wait until the rain quits to continue with the >experiment? What difference does it make, if you've carefully measured out your lye into plastic bags keeping it dry as advised and you're mixing methoxide the easy way, as advised, in a closed HDPE container with both a bung and a lid? But if you've prepared zilch for your first attempt at making biod, after talking about it here for months, well...! Go back to the beginning. Start here: Make your first test batch http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#biodnew Keep going, step by step. Study everything on that page and the next page and at the links in the text. I suggest you make some print-outs Brian. But please no more sloppiness!! Best wishes Keith >Ok very cool I just might try it now and close everything up tight >while working. >Brian Rodgers > > >On 10/15/05, Kurt Nolte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > On 10/15/05, Brian Rodgers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > I do recall that that ambient humidity messes with the methoxide > > > mixing. Should I wait until the rain quits to continue with the > > > experiment? > > > > Lye is hygroscopic; it absorbs water quite readily. > > > > Yeah, I'd suggest waiting for it to quit raining, as ambient humidity > > increases will throw off your measurement of lye on both a mass and > > volumetric basis because of absorption into the pellets or grains. > > > > Now if the humidity in your house is still low, you could always quickly > > measure it out and put it in a sealed container with your methanol, then > > hustle outside to mix it; I use Mason jars to mix my methoxide in for test > > batches. > > > > -K > >>Great thanks Kurt >>This is what we were looking for. We even attempted to find the >>specific gravity of lye, but that didn't pan out. It was getting too >>complicated for us. A trip to town would be simpler we figured. >>On 10/15/05, Kurt Nolte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > Hey Brian >> > I've run into problems with measuring lye myself, and >>ultimately managed to >> > work out a loose but somewhat workable way to measure out the >>lye by volume. >> > It produced some of my best results to date, too, so I think I'm safe to >> > share it with yas. >> > >> > Sodium Hydroxide has a density of 2.1 grams per cubic centimeter. Since a >> > cubic centimeter = a milliliter, you can use your beaker with mL >>scale on it >> > to measure out the lye volumetrically. For a test batch with >>virgin oil it's >> > going to be some incredibly small number; under 2ml, I believe. I was only >> > doing a 300mL test batch, so I needed under a milliliter of NaOH. >> > >> > Using the density of NaOH, convert your titrated grams into milliliters, >> > then measure them out volumetrically and add to your methanol as >>per normal. >> > I'd suggest erring on the side of caution when measuring it out though; >> > unless your beaker is graduated in .01mL increments it might be >>hard to get >> > a truly accurate volume. >> > >> > I decided when I tried it to err on the low side, as an >>incomplete reaction >> > I've read can be reprocessed but too much lye is worse news on the washing >> > step. >>We will try this. >> > In the end though, all these guys on the list are right; there's no >> > substitute for a good, accurate gram scale. >>I agree but you know how it is with the first step in a new process, >>we want to see where it goes even if it does not work at all. >>Experimenting in New Mexico, >>Brian Rodgers >> >>Just picked on up myself, in >> > fact, measures out to .1 grams with a 500g capacity. >> > >> > Good luck to ya! >> > >> > -K _______________________________________________ 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/
