> Hello Allan, welcome >The biodiesel by-product "cocktail" is a mixture of >glycerine, soap, the catalyst (lye or KOH) and the >excess methanol.
I was aware of that. > >is basically the same process as seperating ethanol from water. > > If you mean distillation, it's only the same up to a point, and the > differences are important to biofuellers. When you distill ethanol > from a "mash" it's mixed with other things, other alcohols, fusel > oils, etc, but the methanol is already pure, all you need do is > separate it, much simpler. Also, unlike ethanol, there's no > azeotropic effect with methanol, so there's no remaining water > problem. With ethanol the fact that the last 4% or so of water can't I think it's 4.4%, but yeah.... > be removed by distillation causes much difficulty for people wanting > to distill their own ethanol to make ethyl esters biodiesel, for > instance. Can you say "Quick lime"? sure you can.... > Purifying the glycerine? Do you mean separating it from the other > components? If you want relatively pure glycerine you should separate > it from the other components before removing the excess methanol, > otherwise it won't separate. See"Separating glycerine": > http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycerin.html#separate > > On separation, the methanol does go with the glycerine component >and can then be reclaimed the usual way, by means of a simple >condenser. > This will give you "industrial-grade" glycerine, 90-95% pure or > something like that, for which you might be able to find a niche > market. Purifying it further is another matter, very energy- intensive > - the boiling point is 290 deg C, 554 deg F. See "Purifying > glycerine": > http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycerin.html#purify > As I said in another reply The glycerine can be "composted" (sorta) by introducing it to an ongoing yeast fermentation, as glycerine/glycerol is one of the intermediate steps of the complex enzymatic reaction we know of as "yeast fermentation" And while Glycerine would be "useful" to some people ethanol would might be more useful... BTW, if I understand correctly it's necissary to switch to KOH when using ethanol in a Bio-D conversion, is that correct? Allan ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Domains - Claim yours for only $14.70 http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z1wmxD/DREIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
