experience with animal fat?

[jmf Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close jmf]

hello all, i am trying to learn more about converting animal fats into useable fuel for a heating system/cars at a small slaughter house in vermont. does anyone have any experience using rendered fat instead of wvo? can fat just replace wvo in the standard recipe or what? i am still very new to this (obviously) but the slaughter house has a near endless supply of fat that we all excited about turning into fuel...any help would be wonderful!
thanks,
jamie

[Terry Syd Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Terry Syd]

Re: experience with animal fat?

Tallow makes a great biodiesel. You use the same technique as for WVO, except it is slightly easier to make because the FFA is lower (less soap to contend with). The biodiesel comes out a pretty yellow colour. The smell when it burns isn't all that great as it has an 'animal fat' kind of smell. It has a high cetane and more energy per litre than vegetable biodiesel.

Now the bad part. Tallow biodiesel will gel (go solid) at about 17C. When it gells it looks like white plastic. You can get around this problem with blending of other vegetable biodiesel. I was blending tallow biodiesel with coconut biodiesel (-9C) and the improvement in gel point was well worth it.

You can also blend with petrol diesel (#1, ie:kerosine). The Irish did some research back in the 90's on blending with petrol diesel and found for their environment that a 50% blend of animal fat biodiesel with 50% petrol diesel worked for their environment during the winter. You may find the same situation in Vermont.

Since you have access to all that tallow, you would be a fool not to take advantage of it. Just do it!

[Guest Close David]

Re: experience with animal fat?

What a timely Post!
I have just secured a couple of sources of what seems to be good used tallow and was wondering about it's value as Bio feedstock.

The Bio going solid at 17oC seems like bit of a worry. Instead of blending with veg oil bio, would I achieve the same effect by blending veg oil and the animal fat BEFORE processing it into bio?

I am getting some veg oil but it's supply is much more limited than the fat and it would be good to be able to blend the 2 so as to make up a batch volume for processing. The oil I get, whatever it may be. is always very liquid so hopefully this may bring down the gel point of the finished product somewhat.

Would mixing the oil and tallow work OK?

[fantom Member Find all posts View Profile Close fantom]

Re: experience with animal fat?

Hi David,
You ask if blending wvo and animal fat b4 reacting would work. Well yes it does work, I have been doing this for a while now and it works just fine. the only drawback is that you have to heat the fat to get it liquid then add it to the reactor. ya just have to watch that the fat does not solidify in the pipes. so best of luck and happy reacting.
cheers Fantom

[Guest Close David]

Re: experience with animal fat?

I hadn't thought of anything solidifying in the reactor pipes and was kind of hoping that by blending the oil and the fat before adding it to the reactor the oil may keep the fat more liquid. I can see if the mix hit cold pipes the fat may stick to the pipes but hopefully a bit of circulation at reaction temp will get it flowing again.

I'm still getting the bits and pieces for my reactor but the potential for fat to block the pipes may well be a design consideration to keep in mind!

Thanks for the info.

[mallcruiser Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mallcruiser]

Re: experience with animal fat?

Hi Guys - as stated above the tallow makes great BD and washes really well too. - Just be aware that you may need to increase the proportion of Methanol to get a good fast & complete reaction.

For vegie oils I usually run 18-20% but for tallow you may need to up in the 22-25%.

Experiment with some mini batches to see how the reaction goes based on the oils & fats you have and the proportions of each.

It is a great fuel for summer!

Cheers,

[jmf Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close jmf]

Re: experience with animal fat?

hey thanks for all the great feedback. does the fuel change once it is a solid...meaning, can i store the fuel in solid blocks, then melt them down before running them in my engine? also, would this stuff work in an oil furnace for home heating? so its great summer fuel, but we are really hoping to run the slaughter house's heating on the stuff....an unrealated side note...anyone know about burning bones in a woodstove heater?

[koddok Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close koddok]

Re: experience with animal fat?

I've come across a large supply of animal fat, one that's yellow and solidifies at room temperature, and another that's brown that's stays liquid. And i've been wondering about turning them into BD. i already know the VO ant the WVO recepie, and i would like to experiment this new way.

I already know that a pre-treatment has to be done to reduce the %FFA present in the FAT, but i'm interested in the full recepie.

can anyone help me out? just by telling me where to go to find some proved and working procedure it would be helpfull.

Thanks and stay COOL.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: experience with animal fat?

Hello koddok

What type of animal did the fat come from that is brown and liquid at room temp?
How hot are your rooms?

Contrary to popular mis-belief, the FFA content of tallow is no higher that veggie oil and a pre treatment is not required any more than for Veggie oil.

5g NaOH+ titration mixed into 200ml methanol per litre oil reacted should work fine as a starting point

Tilly

[koddok Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close koddok]

Re: experience with animal fat?

thanks again for the help