Hi All, As near as I can tell the first stage is going to produce water. It is an acid esterifacation, right? You need to somehow get rid of that water let alone any that may have been in the starting reactants.
Tom Irwin -----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Kron (CEO) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 4/10/05 5:51 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Aleks Kac's 2 Stage Method Gregg, Are you sure there was no water in the WO before beginning? Sounds like you have a ton of soap if you are not getting *any* separation. At a minimum the alcohol layer should separate back out. Remember when you mix the methanol with the oil you are basically creating an emulsion. When you stop mixing the only thing that's going to hold them together is soap. kk Gregg Davidson wrote: Hello Everyone, I started on a new batch of biodiesel this past Friday. I'm using Aleks Kac's 2 Stage Method & had a lot of success last year with it. Now it seems that I've hit the proverbial brick wall. I've cafefully calculated the volume, 25 litres of WVO, warmed the WVO to 35* C, added 2 litres (8%) of methanol, mixed for 15 minutes rather than 5, then added 25 mls of 98% sulfuric acid. Maintaining 35* C mixing for 1 hour, then shut off the heat & mixed for another hour. Afterward s, the WVO sat overnight. Saturday morning I started Stage 2. I had mixed the m ethoxide Friday night & let it settle. I used 3 litres of methanol & 87.8 grams of NaOH. I used the full 3.5 grams of NaOH that Aleks mentioned due to oil pur ity questions. Prior to heating, I added 1.5 litres of the methoxide to the WVO & started the stirrer. I allowed the mixture to stir for 15 minutes to ensure a complete mixing. Afterwards, I heated the WVO to 55* C. The burner I was usin g is a bit tricky to r egulate & the heat varied from 55* to 61* C. The process went on for 2.75 hours, & all seemed well. I po ured some of what I thought was biodiesel into a 2 litre beaker so I could moni tor the settling. No noticable settling had occurred after 24 hours, & generall y you start to see settling within a few minutes. I backtracked & thought that perhaps it just needed some extra methoxide, so I made up some more using the v olumes Aleks says to use, 750 mls methanol (3%) & 24 grams of NaOH (.75 grams + 25% as I thought my NaOH had carbonated), reheated the WVO to 55* C, added th e new methoxide solution, maintaining heat & stirring for 1hour. Afterwards, I found that I had the same problem, no separation of glycerine & esters. I was not able to get a pH reading on the oil as I do not have a meter at my di sposal. I may have just undershot everything. I'm not sure if there is a point that WVO can reach that this method would deal with to render a quality biodies el. I know that the base reaction needs a pH of 8 to 9, but what pH does the ac id reaction need to crack the FFA's. As always, any help, suggestions, or critisms are welcome. Sincerely, Gregg Davidson --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2]http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: [3]http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): [4]http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ -- Kenneth Kron President Bay Area Biofuel [5]http://www.bayareabiofuel.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 415-867-8067 What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. [7]Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. References 1. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel 3. http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html 4. http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ 5. http://www.bayareabiofuel.com/ 6. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust _______________________________________________ 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 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/
