Re: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Hello Keith, Malcolm, and everyone, Keith - Not being familiar w/ Japan at all this may be no help at all to you Keith, but when I go to get my bottles refilled (CO2, Argon, and OxyAcetylene) the guys there are always trying to sell, or sometimes even give away, old damaged tanks. These tanks are never old flammable tanks, for reasons Malcolm described earlier. But I have seen several inert gas tanks, without any valves on them at all, I've just never had a use for them. I was wondering if maybe some of the inert and/or flammable gas dealers there might do the same. Malcolm - Thanks for helping to keep Keith's feet firmly planted on Terra Firma, rather than in near earth orbit. Antifossil On Apr 8, 2005 5:29 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Stan If you want bottles, try places that refill fire extingishers, I've seen piles of discarded bottles of all shapes and sizes. Lucky you - we had a really hard time finding them too. Finally nailed down a coupleof small ones, one of which I used inour Turk burner. A fire extinguisher would do nicely, but I don't think I've ever seen a 9 diameter one. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll keep an eye out. Best wishes Keith stan ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net http://Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
piles of discarded bottles of all shapes and sizes. stan ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Hello Keith, I'm glad I piped up there, one health scare in a month is enough for anybody eh? :-) I think there isn't really a sound plan here unless you intend to cut it under water, scuba gear all. My acetylene bottle is 140cm tall x 24cm diam = 64l in volume (approx) Say 2/3 of the bottle is wadding the rest acetone - that gives around 21l of acetone. But not just acetone. It may seem empty but it will still have some acetylene in solution. Yep you could drill it carefully safely but you want an open ended tube out of it, that means cutting it with an angle grinder...lots of hot sparks!! Acetone has a flash point (closed cup) of -18 deg C / 0 deg F (According to Merck Index) My advice would be take it back to your engineer friend see if he has an empty Argoshield bottle (for mig welding) this would have no wadding inside the gas inside is a pretty inert mix of Argon, Co2 a touch of O2. Failing that I know you are in a remote location, but you could splash out on some steel tube from a steel stockholder, after all the East is where it's all made these days it should be cheap. Sorry to put a dampener on the weekend project Keith - but I would really advise against chopping up that acetylene bottle. Best regards Malcolm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: 07 April 2005 21:00 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product Hi Malcolm Damn, now I won't get that Darwin award I was hoping for... :-) Thanks very much! A timely warning, I was planning to do it at the weekend. (Phew!) I asked the engineer who gave it to me and he wasn't very concerned. He knew I wanted to cut it up and gave it to me for that purpose. The bottle is outside, it's allegedly empty, and what I was planning to do was to drill a very small hole, very carefully and slowly, into the top, prepared all the while to drop the drill and run like hell. I've done that before, but admittedly not with an acetylene tank. You don't think that's a sound plan then? The trouble is it's really hard to lay your hands on empty tanks here. There should be loads of empty gas tanks around that have passed their use-by date but we haven't got anywhere trying to locate a source for them. Point of safety I'll build another burner unit like the adapted Mother Earth burner described in the previous post, with a forced-air supply like the first one, but much smaller. I've got an empty acetylene tank (oxy-acetylene) about 9 diameter, and I'll use that, cut down, I wouldn't recommend cutting up an acetylene bottle!! Acetylene cannot be compressed safely to any useful degree on its own - in fact the first attempt to compress it actually killed those working on the project!!! BANG To get the acetylene to compress it is dissolved in acetone. The bottle actually contains felt wadding soaked in acetone that's why acetylene bottles, when you tap them, don't ring like oxygen bottles. PLEASE LEAVE ACETYLENE BOTTLES ALONE Safety first!! Indeed! Thanks again Malcolm Keith Malcolm ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Hm, much as I feared. Hello Keith, I'm glad I piped up there, one health scare in a month is enough for anybody eh? :-) Yes! You've saved my bacon. On the other hand, there are no regrets with a Darwin award, considering you ain't around anymore, or not in one piece anyway. :-) I'm very glad you piped up Malcolm. I think there isn't really a sound plan here unless you intend to cut it under water, scuba gear all. My acetylene bottle is 140cm tall x 24cm diam = 64l in volume (approx) Say 2/3 of the bottle is wadding the rest acetone - that gives around 21l of acetone. But not just acetone. It may seem empty but it will still have some acetylene in solution. So I feared. Yep you could drill it carefully safely but you want an open ended tube out of it, that means cutting it with an angle grinder...lots of hot sparks!! Yikes! :-( I'd perhaps have managed the little hole okay, but then I'd have probed it somehow or another, and might not have continued if I'd hit anything but emptiness. Acetone has a flash point (closed cup) of -18 deg C / 0 deg F (According to Merck Index) Not a job for a warm spring day then. My advice would be take it back to your engineer friend Um, yes, I'd already decided that, we'll be visiting him next weekend. see if he has an empty Argoshield bottle (for mig welding) this would have no wadding inside the gas inside is a pretty inert mix of Argon, Co2 a touch of O2. I don't think he has any other bottles, but I'll try. Failing that I know you are in a remote location, but you could splash out on some steel tube from a steel stockholder, after all the East is where it's all made these days it should be cheap. Nothing's cheap in Japan, it's either expensive or free (gomi, junk). Actually not quite true, there's quite a lot of stuff from China here now, good quality, low prices, made for Japanese companies that sub-contract there. I don't think it's such a good idea to buy this stuff, considering the working conditions in some (many) of those factories, and it's taking work from small local companies here, which are suffering. Same story everywhere! But how do you resist a high-quality angle cutter for $15 when you need an angle cutter and the others are $50? We're not exactly rich, pennies really count. I badly needed a new vice (vise, LOL!) and found one yesterday for $10, a third of the price of the others, and again, good quality. So we bought it, of course. Nice piece of kit. I've got some steel tube, but it's a little too small for this, only 7. And I think that inward curve at the top if you cut a 5 or 6 hole in the top of a 9 bottle is useful. I'll keep looking, I'll come up with something. There's no great hurry. Perhaps time for another bash at defunct homegas bottles, fruitless as it's been before. Sorry to put a dampener on the weekend project Keith - but I would really advise against chopping up that acetylene bottle. I'm deeply thankful for your dampener Malcolm! I'll certainly take your advice. This list is great! What would I do without it? I've learnt so much here. Thanks again! All best Keith Best regards Malcolm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: 07 April 2005 21:00 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product Hi Malcolm Damn, now I won't get that Darwin award I was hoping for... :-) Thanks very much! A timely warning, I was planning to do it at the weekend. (Phew!) I asked the engineer who gave it to me and he wasn't very concerned. He knew I wanted to cut it up and gave it to me for that purpose. The bottle is outside, it's allegedly empty, and what I was planning to do was to drill a very small hole, very carefully and slowly, into the top, prepared all the while to drop the drill and run like hell. I've done that before, but admittedly not with an acetylene tank. You don't think that's a sound plan then? The trouble is it's really hard to lay your hands on empty tanks here. There should be loads of empty gas tanks around that have passed their use-by date but we haven't got anywhere trying to locate a source for them. Point of safety I'll build another burner unit like the adapted Mother Earth burner described in the previous post, with a forced-air supply like the first one, but much smaller. I've got an empty acetylene tank (oxy-acetylene) about 9 diameter, and I'll use that, cut down, I wouldn't recommend cutting up an acetylene bottle!! Acetylene cannot be compressed safely to any useful degree on its own - in fact the first attempt to compress it actually killed those working on the project!!! BANG To get the acetylene to compress it is dissolved in acetone. The bottle actually contains felt wadding soaked in acetone that's why acetylene bottles, when you tap them, don't ring like oxygen bottles. PLEASE LEAVE ACETYLENE
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Hi Keith, I'm glad to hear you've decided against doing a bit of backyard bomb disposal!!! Nothing's cheap in Japan, it's either expensive or free (gomi, junk). Actually not quite true, there's quite a lot of stuff from China here now, good quality, low prices, made for Japanese companies that sub-contract there. I don't think it's such a good idea to buy this stuff, considering the working conditions in some (many) of those factories, and it's taking work from small local companies here, which are suffering. Same story everywhere! But how do you resist a high-quality angle cutter for $15 when you need an angle cutter and the others are $50? We're not exactly rich, pennies really count. I badly needed a new vice (vise, LOL!) and found one yesterday for $10, a third of the price of the others, and again, good quality. So we bought it, of course. Nice piece of kit. It's the old globalisation thingy - an uncomfortable position for all but inevitable. Who can blame China for wanting to get in on the act. Our or for that matter any nations history has its fair share of exploitation in its quest for market share. I don't know the ideal answer to be honest I don't think there is one. Whatever the approach someone somewhere looses out, some more than others. If you buy British, workers here keep their jobs, but the Chinese workers have to endure non existent health safety for longer. Buy from China health safety can be introduced sooner as their economy grows, but jobs are lost in Britain. Anyway, I'm no economist, as my bank manager will confirm, so I'll have to leave that debate for others, before I get out of my depth. Suffice it to say I've been in a similar dilemma when needing to buy a piece of kit - it's a hard choice to make. I've got some steel tube, but it's a little too small for this, only 7. And I think that inward curve at the top if you cut a 5 or 6 hole in the top of a 9 bottle is useful. I'll keep looking, I'll come up with something. There's no great hurry. Perhaps time for another bash at defunct homegas bottles, fruitless as it's been before. Couple of other ideas: Would boiler / stove flue or the galvanised steel ducting that's used in sawdust extraction systems in woodworking shops be of any use? I'm sure something will turn up - it usually does if you hunt around enough. Good luck with it Take care!! Malcolm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: 08 April 2005 08:53 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product Hello Malcolm Hm, much as I feared. Hello Keith, I'm glad I piped up there, one health scare in a month is enough for anybody eh? :-) Yes! You've saved my bacon. On the other hand, there are no regrets with a Darwin award, considering you ain't around anymore, or not in one piece anyway. :-) I'm very glad you piped up Malcolm. I think there isn't really a sound plan here unless you intend to cut it under water, scuba gear all. My acetylene bottle is 140cm tall x 24cm diam = 64l in volume (approx) Say 2/3 of the bottle is wadding the rest acetone - that gives around 21l of acetone. But not just acetone. It may seem empty but it will still have some acetylene in solution. So I feared. Yep you could drill it carefully safely but you want an open ended tube out of it, that means cutting it with an angle grinder...lots of hot sparks!! Yikes! :-( I'd perhaps have managed the little hole okay, but then I'd have probed it somehow or another, and might not have continued if I'd hit anything but emptiness. Acetone has a flash point (closed cup) of -18 deg C / 0 deg F (According to Merck Index) Not a job for a warm spring day then. My advice would be take it back to your engineer friend Um, yes, I'd already decided that, we'll be visiting him next weekend. see if he has an empty Argoshield bottle (for mig welding) this would have no wadding inside the gas inside is a pretty inert mix of Argon, Co2 a touch of O2. I don't think he has any other bottles, but I'll try. Failing that I know you are in a remote location, but you could splash out on some steel tube from a steel stockholder, after all the East is where it's all made these days it should be cheap. Nothing's cheap in Japan, it's either expensive or free (gomi, junk). Actually not quite true, there's quite a lot of stuff from China here now, good quality, low prices, made for Japanese companies that sub-contract there. I don't think it's such a good idea to buy this stuff, considering the working conditions in some (many) of those factories, and it's taking work from small local companies here, which are suffering. Same story everywhere! But how do you resist a high-quality angle cutter for $15 when you need an angle cutter and the others are $50? We're not exactly rich, pennies really count. I badly needed a new vice (vise, LOL
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Hello Tim, They have a porous plug at the top of the cylinder to contain the acetylene. But no complete liner to my knowledge, the books I have are old though so things may have changed. In one respect for sure cylinders have changed, the old cylinders used to have a safety valve at the base, but mine hasn't, I think they are incorporated in the valve at the top these days. In case anyone is interested: (taken from Welding by S M Algar pub 1962 An Arco Handybook) Also confirmed in The BOC Handbook for Oxy Acetylene Welders pub 1943) Acetylene cannot be compressed safely above 30 - 40 lb/sq in. Above this pressure it decomposes often explodes. British law prevents it being compressed higher than 22 lb/sq in. Then it was discovered acetone at atmospheric pressure will dissolve 25 times its own volume of acetylene 375 times its volume at 15 atmospheres. The packing material within the cylinder can be charcoal, balsa wood, kapok or special porous cements (I presume nowadays that means ceramic fibre wadding) The purpose of the filler material is to effectively reduce the volume into smaller pockets to help prevent an explosion wave from forming. All this enables acetylene cylinders to be filled to 225 - 250 lb/sq in. (15 - 16 atmospheres) Cylinders should be stored upright. Laying them on their side or in the sun can result in a fountain of acetone coming from the valve rather than the desired acetylene. Regards Malcolm Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Ferguson Sent: 08 April 2005 15:24 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product Malcom, If memory serves me correctly...acetylene tanks are also made with a somewhat porous inner wall to aid in containing the acetone. Am I correct on this? Best wishes, Tim ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
We are getting on to some tricky territory here. My recollection is that volatile flammable substances tend to be absorbed in the pore space of the metal in drums etc. When the metal is heated they come out of the pores and are ignited. I believe there is a protocol for working with such drums and tanks by welding etc. I believe it involves filling them with water or an inert gas. Don't believe me or anyone else on the net in this matter. FIND OUT! from someone who knows what they are talking about. Government fire safety people or technical training people will know. Doug Woodard St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada On Fri, 8 Apr 2005, bob allen wrote: Couldn't one just purge the tank with a couple dozen volumes of water to remove any residual acetone/acetylene and then start cutting, drilling etc. ? Tim Ferguson wrote: Malcom, If memory serves me correctly...acetylene tanks are also made with a somewhat porous inner wall to aid in containing the acetone. ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Hi Bob, Although acetone is miscible with water I think the packing material in the cylinder would prevent the water reaching anywhere significant into it, let alone the bottom of the cylinder, leaving an unflushed pocket of unknown size. Still risky in my view. Not recommended. Regards Malcolm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of bob allen Sent: 08 April 2005 19:37 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product Couldn't one just purge the tank with a couple dozen volumes of water to remove any residual acetone/acetylene and then start cutting, drilling etc. ? Tim Ferguson wrote: Malcom, If memory serves me correctly...acetylene tanks are also made with a somewhat porous inner wall to aid in containing the acetone. -- Bob Allen http://ozarker.org/bob Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves - Richard Feynman ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Hi Keith, I'm glad to hear you've decided against doing a bit of backyard bomb disposal!!! Thanks to you... but I was more bothered by the Keith-disposal aspect. Nothing's cheap in Japan, it's either expensive or free (gomi, junk). Actually not quite true, there's quite a lot of stuff from China here now, good quality, low prices, made for Japanese companies that sub-contract there. I don't think it's such a good idea to buy this stuff, considering the working conditions in some (many) of those factories, and it's taking work from small local companies here, which are suffering. Same story everywhere! But how do you resist a high-quality angle cutter for $15 when you need an angle cutter and the others are $50? We're not exactly rich, pennies really count. I badly needed a new vice (vise, LOL!) and found one yesterday for $10, a third of the price of the others, and again, good quality. So we bought it, of course. Nice piece of kit. It's the old globalisation thingy - an uncomfortable position for all but inevitable. Make it corporate globalisation, fortified by neoliberal economics. Nobody argues with globalisation, just with the form it's taking, which is not inevitable, there are far better options. Who can blame China for wanting to get in on the act. Blame? No. But there's no act left to get in on. Western style industrial development is no longer an option, not even for the West. Our or for that matter any nations history has its fair share of exploitation in its quest for market share. I don't know the ideal answer to be honest I don't think there is one. Whatever the approach someone somewhere looses out, some more than others. More omelettes and eggs. I think when that question arises it has to be rejected, it's a sure indication that you're on the wrong path - and possibly, I'll admit, that you've left it too late for real solutions. If you buy British, workers here keep their jobs, but the Chinese workers have to endure non existent health safety for longer. It gets a lot worse than that. Think slave-labour, all too often, or very close to it. Buy from China health safety can be introduced sooner as their economy grows, but jobs are lost in Britain. Trickle-down? Actually what happens is that the income gap widens, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It's within the intersts of the rich and powerful to maintain a large excess reservoir of desperately poor people. It's usually only when they get a bit more prosperous, if they ever do, that they begin to protest, exert pressure, revolt. Until then it's feudal, industrialised or not. I've seen estimates that there are between 200 and 300 million floating unemployed in China. Anyway, I'm no economist, as my bank manager will confirm, so I'll have to leave that debate for others, before I get out of my depth. Suffice it to say I've been in a similar dilemma when needing to buy a piece of kit - it's a hard choice to make. Indeed it is. I've got some steel tube, but it's a little too small for this, only 7. And I think that inward curve at the top if you cut a 5 or 6 hole in the top of a 9 bottle is useful. I'll keep looking, I'll come up with something. There's no great hurry. Perhaps time for another bash at defunct homegas bottles, fruitless as it's been before. Couple of other ideas: Would boiler / stove flue or the galvanised steel ducting that's used in sawdust extraction systems in woodworking shops be of any use? I'm sure something will turn up - it usually does if you hunt around enough. I'm sure it will, we'll find something suitable. We always do, even if it takes time. Good luck with it Thankyou. Take care!! Yes! I always do. But what is one to do when an engineer gives you such a thing, knowing what you're planning to do with it? He's a nice man, he's not out to kill me, but I'll have a word or two to say to him. Regards Keith Malcolm snip ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
If you want bottles, try places that refill fire extingishers, I've seen piles of discarded bottles of all shapes and sizes. Lucky you - we had a really hard time finding them too. Finally nailed down a coupleof small ones, one of which I used inour Turk burner. A fire extinguisher would do nicely, but I don't think I've ever seen a 9 diameter one. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll keep an eye out. Best wishes Keith stan ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
[Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
have about 500 litres of it that we were hoping against hope to use as a winter heating fuel, but that seems to be out (see previous). First of all, this Turk-type burner here: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_processor10.html Journey to Forever 90-litre processor Scroll down a bit more than halfway to The pre-heating tank. On the right is our Turk-type burner, which burns raw by-product from the biodiesel process. It burns very hot! It's made out of a sawn-off fire-extinguisher, 4 in diameter, a stainless steel mug (the wick), and a curry can. The fuel reservoir is salvaged from a dead kerosene space heater, the squirrel-cage fan from a dead kerosene water heater. It takes less than an hour to heat 60 litres and uses 700 ml of by-product to do so. The outlet (lid) of the fuel tank has a valve that keeps a constant level of fuel in the reservoir below; connected by a 1/4 copper pipe, the same fuel level is maintained in the burner. The fuel tank level solves the problem of continuous feed, but it doesn't really help - it burns for about 45 minutes or so, which is enough to pre-heat the oil, but then it gets so gunged up with sticky black stuff that it chokes itself to death and has to be cleaned out before you can continue. Which is why there's not more information about it at our site - useful, but limited. I don't think any Turk burner can get hot enough to burn this stuff without getting gunged up. I see lots of talk about Babington burners, but, please tell me if I'm wrong, from what I can make out what those people mostly seem to do is fiddle about with them. At any rate I don't plan to fiddle with Babington burners and tiny holes in doorknobs and so on. I'll build another burner unit like the adapted Mother Earth burner described in the previous post, with a forced-air supply like the first one, but much smaller. I've got an empty acetylene tank (oxy-acetylene) about 9 diameter, and I'll use that, cut down, with the air-pipe going in the side instead of the top and a 6 hole cut in the top for the heat to emerge so it can be used as a stove. I'll use it with 5% meth biodiesel to heat the by-product for methanol reclamation. You get most of the methanol back by the time the temp reaches about 105 deg C; to get all of it you'd probably have to take it up to about 150 deg C. Up to now, for us at any rate, even 105 deg C has meant more energy input than the reclamation is worth. But this way it's more or less free, so it would be worth it. Our biodiesel is an economic proposition anyway, even without reclaiming the methanol, so any methanol reclaimed is jam on the top, if it can be done cheaply. We should get enough methanol back to make about 600 litres of 5% biodiesel, lots of winter heat for nothing. We might also use the stove for pre-heating the oil for biodiesel, but on the other hand our roarer pressure stove running on biodiesel does that very well, and probably with less fuss - there's not a lot of room there at the pre-heating tank, and the burner will be much bigger than the pressure stove, especially with its fuel tank and the fan. So much for the methanol, but the question remains of what to do with the rest of the by-product. Separating it into its components with phosphoric acid would give us FFAs (which might burn well in the forced-air burner), plus industrial grade glycerin, plus potassium phosphate salts - chemical fertiliser, but we don't have any use for chemical fertiliser, we don't have a market for the glycerine, and phosphoric acid is expensive. And we'll have removed the methanol by then, so it won't separate anyway (though we could separate it first and reclaim the methanol from the glycerine portion). Separation's here, by the way: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycsep.html Separating glycerine/FFAs I'm sceptical of claims that people make soap out of it of a high enough quality to sell. Anyway we use KOH, not NaOH, so the by-product is always liquid and I don't think it could be made into a solid bar soap. No doubt you can make soap out of it that works okay but isn't good enough to sell, but that would be far more soap than we could ever use. As a cleaner and degreaser it's effective but it's very caustic, rough on the hands. We're working on a soapmaking process that we hope will give us a liquid product that's as effective as a degreaser but won't be so harsh. Even so, we don't expect that will account for very much of our by-product production. Now the weather's warming up and the soil's coming to life again I'll start a series of tests on composting it and adding it to soil direct, not so much as a disposal method but to see if it can be done with benefit to the compost and to soil fertility. I'm not sure how this will work out, but I want better information than what seems to be available, that you can dispose of it via composting if you mix it with enough dry, brown stuff
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Point of safety I'll build another burner unit like the adapted Mother Earth burner described in the previous post, with a forced-air supply like the first one, but much smaller. I've got an empty acetylene tank (oxy-acetylene) about 9 diameter, and I'll use that, cut down, I wouldn't recommend cutting up an acetylene bottle!! Acetylene cannot be compressed safely to any useful degree on its own - in fact the first attempt to compress it actually killed those working on the project!!! BANG To get the acetylene to compress it is dissolved in acetone. The bottle actually contains felt wadding soaked in acetone that's why acetylene bottles, when you tap them, don't ring like oxygen bottles. PLEASE LEAVE ACETYLENE BOTTLES ALONE Safety first!! Malcolm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: 07 April 2005 16:03 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product The problem, as such, remains - what to do with the by-product? We have about 500 litres of it that we were hoping against hope to use as a winter heating fuel, but that seems to be out (see previous). First of all, this Turk-type burner here: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_processor10.html Journey to Forever 90-litre processor Scroll down a bit more than halfway to The pre-heating tank. On the right is our Turk-type burner, which burns raw by-product from the biodiesel process. It burns very hot! It's made out of a sawn-off fire-extinguisher, 4 in diameter, a stainless steel mug (the wick), and a curry can. The fuel reservoir is salvaged from a dead kerosene space heater, the squirrel-cage fan from a dead kerosene water heater. It takes less than an hour to heat 60 litres and uses 700 ml of by-product to do so. The outlet (lid) of the fuel tank has a valve that keeps a constant level of fuel in the reservoir below; connected by a 1/4 copper pipe, the same fuel level is maintained in the burner. The fuel tank level solves the problem of continuous feed, but it doesn't really help - it burns for about 45 minutes or so, which is enough to pre-heat the oil, but then it gets so gunged up with sticky black stuff that it chokes itself to death and has to be cleaned out before you can continue. Which is why there's not more information about it at our site - useful, but limited. I don't think any Turk burner can get hot enough to burn this stuff without getting gunged up. I see lots of talk about Babington burners, but, please tell me if I'm wrong, from what I can make out what those people mostly seem to do is fiddle about with them. At any rate I don't plan to fiddle with Babington burners and tiny holes in doorknobs and so on. I'll build another burner unit like the adapted Mother Earth burner described in the previous post, with a forced-air supply like the first one, but much smaller. I've got an empty acetylene tank (oxy-acetylene) about 9 diameter, and I'll use that, cut down, with the air-pipe going in the side instead of the top and a 6 hole cut in the top for the heat to emerge so it can be used as a stove. I'll use it with 5% meth biodiesel to heat the by-product for methanol reclamation. You get most of the methanol back by the time the temp reaches about 105 deg C; to get all of it you'd probably have to take it up to about 150 deg C. Up to now, for us at any rate, even 105 deg C has meant more energy input than the reclamation is worth. But this way it's more or less free, so it would be worth it. Our biodiesel is an economic proposition anyway, even without reclaiming the methanol, so any methanol reclaimed is jam on the top, if it can be done cheaply. We should get enough methanol back to make about 600 litres of 5% biodiesel, lots of winter heat for nothing. We might also use the stove for pre-heating the oil for biodiesel, but on the other hand our roarer pressure stove running on biodiesel does that very well, and probably with less fuss - there's not a lot of room there at the pre-heating tank, and the burner will be much bigger than the pressure stove, especially with its fuel tank and the fan. So much for the methanol, but the question remains of what to do with the rest of the by-product. Separating it into its components with phosphoric acid would give us FFAs (which might burn well in the forced-air burner), plus industrial grade glycerin, plus potassium phosphate salts - chemical fertiliser, but we don't have any use for chemical fertiliser, we don't have a market for the glycerine, and phosphoric acid is expensive. And we'll have removed the methanol by then, so it won't separate anyway (though we could separate it first and reclaim the methanol from the glycerine portion). Separation's here, by the way: http
RE: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product
Damn, now I won't get that Darwin award I was hoping for... :-) Thanks very much! A timely warning, I was planning to do it at the weekend. (Phew!) I asked the engineer who gave it to me and he wasn't very concerned. He knew I wanted to cut it up and gave it to me for that purpose. The bottle is outside, it's allegedly empty, and what I was planning to do was to drill a very small hole, very carefully and slowly, into the top, prepared all the while to drop the drill and run like hell. I've done that before, but admittedly not with an acetylene tank. You don't think that's a sound plan then? The trouble is it's really hard to lay your hands on empty tanks here. There should be loads of empty gas tanks around that have passed their use-by date but we haven't got anywhere trying to locate a source for them. Point of safety I'll build another burner unit like the adapted Mother Earth burner described in the previous post, with a forced-air supply like the first one, but much smaller. I've got an empty acetylene tank (oxy-acetylene) about 9 diameter, and I'll use that, cut down, I wouldn't recommend cutting up an acetylene bottle!! Acetylene cannot be compressed safely to any useful degree on its own - in fact the first attempt to compress it actually killed those working on the project!!! BANG To get the acetylene to compress it is dissolved in acetone. The bottle actually contains felt wadding soaked in acetone that's why acetylene bottles, when you tap them, don't ring like oxygen bottles. PLEASE LEAVE ACETYLENE BOTTLES ALONE Safety first!! Indeed! Thanks again Malcolm Keith Malcolm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: 07 April 2005 16:03 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Biofuel] 2 - Mother Earth News burners and glycerine by-product The problem, as such, remains - what to do with the by-product? We have about 500 litres of it that we were hoping against hope to use as a winter heating fuel, but that seems to be out (see previous). snip ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
