Below...
on 11/30/04 4:54 PM, Legal Eagle at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Today, while pondering my reactor/wash tank set up, I wondered
about whether
> or not there would be any benefit to run the settled but yet unwashed BD
> through a fuel filter once the glycerine has been drained. Any thoughts
> accompanied by explanation?
The problem I see is that anything which might precipitate out of
solution (and thus be caught by a filter) would always precipitate
BETTER after a water wash. Filtering before water wash probly wouldn't
catch much of anything.
OTOH, if you add water while the glycerine layer is still in there
(as I always do), you DO precipitate out any gums that were still in
the oil, and those might be caught in a filter. Adding water, and
mixing very gently, while the glycerine is still present is a very
effective way to get a lot of crap (soap, glycerides, alkali, excess
alcohol, gums) into the glycerine layer and out of the picture before
risking emulsification in the water wash. (The glycerine suppresses
emulsion). The few times I've skipped that step (one just recently),
the soap level in the water wash was much higher than usual...... -K
Is it perhaps more important when making ethyl esters (as you do)
than with methyl esters? It didn't seem to make any difference when
we tried it (with methyl esters).
A deterrent for us and others is that it would rule out subsequent
use of the glyc by-product as a heating fuel, leaving a disposal
problem instead of a useful product. Somebody advised that adding
just 5% water to the by-product made it burn hotter, but we tried it
and it didn't work well, more water would work even less well.
Is it possible to separate the by-product into its components (glyc,
FFA, sodium/potassium salts) following a water wash?
Regards
Keith
_______________________________________________
Biofuel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable):
http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
