Bio diesel plant

Im slowly gathering the parts together to build my own bio diesel reactor. As far as im aware the process is basically... Filter to 10 micron or less, heat to remove moisture, mix in methoxide solution at 60 degrees, stir for 20 mins, leave to settle and cool for a few hours before tapping off glycerine, wash with water til soaps are out and water is clear, dry.
Am i missing anything? Is anyone making and using their own and do you have any tips?

my father in laws been making it from WVO for at least the last 6 months, PM me if you need any advice.

I'm thinking of going down this route just 'cos I enjoy making stuff anyone got a parts list ?

Very easy to do just pipe, valves, transfer pump and vessel to heat it up in. The hardest bit is getting the veg oil for free.

shirehorse said:

Very easy to do just pipe, valves, transfer pump and vessel to heat it up in. The hardest bit is getting the veg oil for free.

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Thats what I was thinking. Surely anyone that has a large amount of used oil knows it is worth big money these days. Ive seen it being sold on ebay for silly money in its raw state.

What is methoxide? Is meths and drain cleaner?

Abimogen said:

Im slowly gathering the parts together to build my own bio diesel reactor. As far as im aware the process is basically... Filter to 10 micron or less, heat to remove moisture, mix in methoxide solution at 60 degrees, stir for 20 mins, leave to settle and cool for a few hours before tapping off glycerine, wash with water til soaps are out and water is clear, dry.
Am i missing anything? Is anyone making and using their own and do you have any tips?

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I've been making it on and off since 2004, from 20litre batches to 160litre batches.

Your settling time is a little off, I would be inclined to let it sit for a day minimum. It could potentially be ready sooner but I found in the earlier days when i made it that the glycerine was still seperating out after up to half a day, which was ending up in my tank/sedimenter and settling there! Had I not sorted this sooner I could have been into some serious blockages.

You will be lucky if you can tap off the glycerine - on a good batch it will be solid.

The best bet is to work out how big a batch you can realistically make in any one go. I based this on how much oil I had available to me. No point in delaying production because the chip shop is not due to change it's oil.

Then work out how much sodium methoxide is required to react that much WVO, 150ml for every litre in my case, so say you want to make 100 litres batches, get your reaction tank and pour in 15litres of water + 10% so 16.5litres of water.

Now, take the top of this line to be where your glycerine will sit more or less.

Drill a hole and install a tap to the TOP of this line.

Now, when you put in your 100litres of warm prefiltered oil and 15 litres of sodium methoxide and and stir it up well (a big slow geared motor with a paddle on it that sits on a frame and can be lifted out would be good). After an hour of agitation pull it out, put a lid on the tank to keep the heat in and leave it so settle for at least 24hours, or just forget about it and leave it for a few days.

Now after the wait, turn your tap on and let a few hundered ml pour out - discard this or keep it for the next reaction, this will carry any glycerine out that settled in or around the tap. Now run off a litre into a beaker and inspect it using a good light source.

If it all looks good and clean then I would suggest your ready to tap off the bio. The remaining stuff sitting below the tap can be poured out and used in the next raction, or used to light the fire.

Now you can use it, but you shuld wash it really. It's up to you.

Washing is relativly easy, spray water into the top, that then sinks through and carrys out glycerine, methanol and sodium hydroxide. Do it two or three times till the water at the bottom is clear and not milky.

gregc said:

What is methoxide? Is meths and drain cleaner?

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No, meths is methylated spirit, it needs to be 99.9% pure Methanol.

The Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) is indeed drain cleaners (crystal form) but it's usually not pure enough. You can also use Potassium Hydroxide (KOH).

shirehorse said:

Very easy to do just pipe, valves, transfer pump and vessel to heat it up in. The hardest bit is getting the veg oil for free.

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To be honest buying it new and making it into bio is still cheaper than DERV.

I have been making biodiesel for nearly five years and its not quite as simple as people have said but still very worthwhile. You have to be very aware of the dangers (methanol fumes will make you go blind, mad then dead and sodium hydroxide will burn right threw you) and build a processor which is safe from the start.

My advice would be to join the Vegetable Oil Diesel forum and do a lot of reading and ask questions before you start building anything.

http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/forum/index.php

They are a good bunch with a wealth of knowledge who are always ready to help.


There is also the bio powered WIKI

Main Page - Biopowered


And Graham Lammings site, he is the daddy of biodiesel

Graham's biodiesel docs.

This is probably the best site to start on and follow his design for his Eco System processor.

This is where I started and I am so glad I did.

Thank heavens for IanFi's comments. Jesus Discomania I'm surprised you're not blind or mad yet!!

When you get the hang of it home brew biodiesel is incredibly simple and easy, but it takes some time and caution to get to that point.

You can build your own reactor or find someone to build one for you on the vegetable oil diesel forum - the absolute essential forum for all biodiesel stuff.

The main things are that when you are reacting the oil and chemicals you are at risk from the methanol fumes in 2 ways - firstly if you breathe them in they will gradually kill you - its a cumulative toxin, your body has no way to get rid of it, hence you go mad, blind, then dead over years of lots of exposure. It's also topically active, meaning that if you spill it on your skin you'll absorb it into your body.

the second way is that the fumes are explosive - methanol is highly flammable and so are the vapours.

In practice the safest way to mess with biodiesel is to use a sealed reactor - not one where the lid some off. It's also good practice to get a methanol fume mask (3M o a good one for about £30). Graham Lamming designed a fantastic system using a central heating cylinder, he supplies the parts lists and plans on his site - just follow IanFi's link. Most good reactors are based on these designs with slight variations and improvements.

Another classic is the James RL reactor - he can be found on the vegoildiesel forum. He can make the reactor for you or supply parts for a reactor you're making and some of his stuff is incredible.

Best not to stick a heater in the same tank as your methanol and oil, good practice is to have a 3 tank setup.

First tank has your oil in it and you heat and pump this round to get the oil warm and dry it out a bit.

Second tank is where you react the oil and chemicals. It's best if the heater element of this tank is an inline heater, separate from but connected to the tank - this reduces the chances of the heater being exposed to the methanol vapours.

You heat the oil in the second tank to about 55C, then unplug the heater and add in the chemicals - methanol and potassium hydroxide is what I use. Best to mix it via a venturi system so the chemicals aren't exposed to the air.

Then you leave it to react for about an hour. Drop a bit of the mix and test 27/3 (27ml of methanol with 3 ml of bio) to see if the reaction is complete. If it's complete allow it to settle for an hour, then drain off the glycerol.

The reason your glycerol is solid Discomania is because you're using Sodium Hydroxide. If you use Potassium Hydroxide instead you won't have solid glycerol.

After draining heat up again to over 61C and run a condenser to distill off the excess methanol.

After a couple of hours stop the distilling and pump the bio into tank 3 - the settling tank.

At this point its best if the bio is still over 61C, then add in a bubble ring attached to an air pump and pump bubbles through it for about 6 hours - this helps get rid of the excess methanol.

Allow to settle for a couple of days and then best to polish with a dry wash tower filled with eco2pure. Then stick it in your car - and remember to add winteriser in the winter months to stop it freezing.

You use excess methanol to force the reaction to completion. But you need to get rid of the excess afterwards because otherwise it will hold soaps in the bio. Provided you get rid of it and allow the bio to settle then dry wash you should be fairly soap free.

I personally avoid water washing because so many people encounter difficulties with a high water content in their bio afterwards. Bio loves moisture, so I find dry wash is easier and simpler.

plant needs to be vented-unvented plant is very dangerous

wow that's an expensive way of making bio

Here’s an idea!! Spend Sunday afternoon with your family or in the pub with your mates and buy you fuel from a pump!

Now not that I'm against Bio fuels as anyone that knows me will already know, but that just a very long winded way round! and you will still need either used oil from a restaurant (rocking horse ****) or new oil from Costco and so once you factor in all the other cost it's simply not worth it! Plus heating a vat oil oil for hours on end – your OH is going to love you when your eleccy bill lands!!

but 20ltr of oil from costco (around £16) add in 12.5% petrol from the pump and drive off!! simple!! (2.5 Litres per 20Litre box of oil) Much less drama!

Also Dry wash is crap and expensive!! People having problems with washing bio have not made it correct!!

Make 0.5 litre test batches and upscale before you do anything!! Trying to solve bad batch by skipping washing or dry washing is no good!

Best and simplest is the 2 stage using methoxide.

Thats not strictly true on cost-my bio costs less than 15p a litre all costs ,leccy,chems etc factored in.
All my waste oil is free.It does take some time,but most of mine is made overnight.
My 300 tdi has not been to a forecourt since 2008-How much is derv these days?

biolandy said:

Thats not strictly true on cost-my bio costs less than 15p a litre all costs ,leccy,chems etc factored in.
All my waste oil is free.It does take some time,but most of mine is made overnight.
My 300 tdi has not been to a forecourt since 2008-How much is derv these days?

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Dunno - I don't use Dino Diesel :tea:

I use mist wash and have no problems what so ever - if you are worried about moisture then run it through a water trap or centerfuge

For best bio method take a look at "no titration " best by far and easiest and liquid glyc with NaOH.
It is win win

Johnny Crash - what are you on about??

Your cost saving method costs 85p a litre, mine costs max 25p/litre, that's with waste vegetable oil and all of the chemicals, leccy, winteriser added in - in summer its closer to 15p/litre.

Takes me a few hours to make 100litres, no biggie. Every 100 litres costs you £85, me £25, so I'm making £60 for a few hours, and that mostly involves sitting on a sofa watching TV drinking tea, occasionally popping out to the shed to move the batch onto the next stage.

Expensive?? I don't think so. It cost about £1500 for the setup and so far its saved me at least between £3000 and £4000, add on another £2000/year to that for each year I'm making it.

That's compared to pump costs though. Compared to your costs though I've saved £2500, and I'll save a further £1500/year, so which way's expensive??

Yeah, its a bit of a faff, but I like it. I like the fact that the veggie oil has already had its use - it's been used to cook food for people, now rather than going into land fill its getting another use - more environmentally friendly than either running on dino diesel or straight veggie oil.

Dry wash crap and expensive?? Really?? In the past 30,000 miles of bio my landy hasn't had a problem with it at all. The Eco2Pure I use in my dry wash tower costs about £25 for a 5kg tub delivered. That 5kg tub will dry wash over 1000 litres of bio, so it costs me 2.5p per litre, woah!!!

I've read more about problems with mist washing than dry washing. For me if I can avoid water going near my bio then that's the safest way. No point adding in the cost of a centrifuge - an extra £400+

Biolandy - if anyone follows Graham Lammings plans they will be building a vented system - sealed doesn't mean it isn't vented, sealed means you don't use a system with a lid that comes off, like many of the cheap death traps available on ebay.

Basically if anyone's interested go to Vegetable Oil Diesel's forum where there are far more people who know far more about it and can give straight accurate advice based on years of experience, anything else is just my mate down the pub said...

biolandy said:

For best bio method take a look at "no titration " best by far and easiest and liquid glyc with NaOH.
It is win win

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glad you like it

Yup been a member of the veg forum for 4 yrs and info pop even longer.
I can save you money,next time you are going to buy ecocrap,don't bother ,get some dry oak shavings instead.You can usually pick up a sack free from bespoke cabinet makers(they pay to have it collected) and the bonus is there are no pump damaging silicates in oak shavings-just saved you 2.5p per lt.
A loose lid is far safer as long as vapour tight,for if anything should go wrong,it can easily blow off,rather than the clamped ring type which blows like a grenade.