Keith, well done! Super stuff and great information in the on-going
wars of words regarding home brew quality.
For my own clarification, all these tests were on acid-base process
batches, correct? Any chance of getting similar testing done on
single-stage base method, just for comparison purposes?
Darryl
Keith Addison wrote:
> Greetings all
>
> I mentioned a few months ago that we're doing some research
> collaboration with a local biofuels company here. They have biodiesel
> projects running in Japan and Southeast Asia, along with a business
> partnership with the chemistry professor at a major Japanese
> technical university in Tokyo. So we get access to the university's
> chemistry department GC, the Gas Chromatograph ("gaskro" in
> Japanese), to test our biodiesel, among other things.
>
> They ran the first test for us last October, of a sample of our
> normal full-scale production run WVO biodiesel, not test-batch stuff.
> The chemistry department's comment on the report sheet was "Very
> clean biodiesel!" The cleanest they'd seen, they said later - how do
> we make such good biodiesel from WVO?
>
> Anyway, it showed an ester content of 98.5%, compared with the EU
> standard requirement of minimum 96.5%, very good completion.
>
> So this is what you can achieve by using the quality tests at the
> Journey to Forever website Biodiesel section to guide your processing.
>
> It's very close, but not perfect - despite the high ester content,
> both the monoglyceride and diglyceride levels were higher than the EU
> standards specify. Completion is the crucial factor, and with such a
> good completion rate the excess MGs and DGs didn't bother me a lot,
> and it could easily be adjusted anyway.
>
> This is an advantage of acid-base processing. Not for novices! we all
> warn - unless you know what you're at, when you hit that inevitable
> problem batch you'll be thrown by all the extra variables in the
> acid-base process and you won't know how to troubleshoot it. So learn
> the basics first.
>
> Truly. But when you do know the basics, all those variables make it
> easy to identify where a problem lies and very easy to fine-tune the
> process. There are more controls you can use.
>
> We just got the results of a further series of GC tests of three
> production-run samples which demonstrate this quite well. The figures
> show a curve.
>
> 21 Oct 2005 - Handmade Projects biodiesel 1st test results
>
> 10 April 2006 - Results of Handmade Projects samples #1 Biodiesel, #2
> Biodiesel, #4 Biodiesel (sample #3 was not biodiesel)
>
> Standard - European biodiesel standard EN 14214 of 2003.
>
> Ester content (% mass)
> EN 14214: >96.5
> 1st test: 98.5
> #1 Biodiesel: 98.49
> #2 Biodiesel: 98.73
> #4 Biodiesel: 99.09
>
> Monoglyceride (% mass)
> EN 14214: <0.8
> 1st test: 0.93
> #1 Biodiesel: 0.77
> #2 Biodiesel: 0.65
> #4 Biodiesel: 0.62
>
> Diglyceride (% mass)
> EN 14214: <0.2
> 1st test: 0.57
> #1 Biodiesel: 0.74
> #2 Biodiesel: 0.61
> #4 Biodiesel: 0.28
>
> Triglyceride (% mass)
> EN 14214: <0.2
> 1st test: 0
> #1 Biodiesel: 0
> #2 Biodiesel: 0
> #4 Biodiesel: 0
>
> Sample #4 has very good completion and the MG level is now well
> within spec, but the DG level is still 0.08% too high.
>
> We'd planned a further two tests and we'll go ahead with those now (I
> just ran the batch for the first sample today). These tests will
> vanish that excess 0.08% of DGs, and teach me much besides.
>
> I wouldn't have done all this if I didn't have such good access to
> the gaskro. If someone had told me we had good completion, well above
> spec, but the MGs and DGs were too high I'd have gone straight to the
> second of the two tests I'm doing now and fixed it in one step. But
> it's great to be able to get such accurate confirmation of how these
> variables work. We'd never be able to afford these gaskro tests here
> any other way, testing just one sample at commercial lab rates costs
> US$6,000.
>
> Anyway, it's further confirmation that the backyard brewers' cheapo
> kitchen-sink quality tests will indeed guide you to a high-quality
> product, and that the one-step-at-a-time learning path is the way to
> go.
>
> The tests are here, by the way:
>
> Biodiesel and your vehicle: Quality testing
> http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_vehicle.html#quality
>
> And the how-to:
>
> Make your own biodiesel: "Where do I start?"
> http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#start
>
> Best
>
> Keith
>
>
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>
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>
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>
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>
>
>
--
Darryl McMahon http://www.econogics.com
It's your planet. If you won't look after it, who will?
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