Thanks again Keith,
I had great confidence in the tests at JtF before but even more now. I
make them all a routine part of processing - when I have oil. That
problem is starting to work out so today the future is not as black as
yesterday. I also would like to say thanks for the organic gardening
and composting side of JtF. My compost is really something this spring
- My Garden will now have a foot of soil for planting!
Thanks,
Jim
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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