emulsion and washing and heating

[joe Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close joe]

Hi all.

I finally have a pump, heater and bubbler. Yaaay.

I made a 20 ltr batch of bio. All went well.

I added about 4 litres of water then promptly made 24 litres of emulsion. Bugger. Mucked around trying to fix it. Tok a small 1 litre batch from it and tried some suggestions. Like readding glycerine. Added about 150mls in all after three stages. No difference. Added some vinegar (an acid) which seemed to make a difference but what I noticed really helped was the heat from the microwave.

So just this night I have reheated the whole 24 litres with the heater. Its was amazing. Within a 30 minutes I had about 20 litres of orange juice coloured BD on top and a very milky thick water layer on the bottom. So I'm gonna allow it to settle then give it a few more bubble washes.

This follows the theory that some swear by of heating the water for washing. I might try adding the water and just boiling it like I did for this batch. I have now attached the little throttle that came with the air pump so I can control the bubble a little better. ALso the blue stone has already started disintigrating. Its probably had 24 hours in the bio. Man thats nasty to eat it already. Lucky I bought two more. I might try the "bolt in the enf and put pin holes in the tube" method.

I'm pretty confident that heating any emulsion will allow will crack it.

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

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Hello Joe

Lots of people have emulsion problems with bubble washing.
This would be more a problem with Brisso's moderatly soft water (100 mg/litre calcium carbonate)
I personally recommend mist washing, a good Aussie invention!

Tilly

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

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Joe, Did you do a pre-wash?

[joe Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close joe]

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

HI tilly,
How about bore water from the sunshine coast hinterland. And yes I felty ai was being a bit dubious with the first wash.

gwalker,

yes I did a prewash. Added about 1 litre to a 20 liter batch. My first ever incidently. A lot of firsts for this batch. My first emulsion too I might add. But I'm quite confident that if I where to have another it would be fixeable. Thank god for infopop. Any onew notice that they cant access it some nights? or is it just me.

I am planning another bigger batch this weekend and I'l do another heated wash and post the results.

Joe

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

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Hello Joe

I do not know what the water hardness is like from a bore on the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Tilly

[kamel Member Find all posts View Profile Close kamel]

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

I found that after prewashing, I could clean the whole batch in one go by adding 10 - 20% by volume water. Then bringing it to the boil for five minutes.

No emulsion [too hot].

Done it twice now.

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

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Kamel, are you saying that if you boil the biodiesel with 10% water for 5 minutes that all the water drops out when it cools?

What about putting a sample in the refrigerator, does the clear biodiesel cloud up, or does it remain clear.

I have never tried this method of 'drying' biodiesel, so please clue me in.

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

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

I found that after prewashing, I could clean the whole batch in one go by adding 10 - 20% by volume water. Then bringing it to the boil for five minutes.

No emulsion [too hot].

Done it twice now.

Could it be that, after a hot prewash and drain, adding 10%-20% more water and boiling the BD with water for 5 minutes, gets rid of any residual meth in the BD or water, rendering the water unable to carry the BD and 'repelling it' to the top?
G

[kamel Member Find all posts View Profile Close kamel]

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Kamel, are you saying that if you boil the biodiesel with 10% water for 5 minutes that all the water drops out when it cools?

What about putting a sample in the refrigerator, does the clear biodiesel cloud up, or does it remain clear.

I have never tried this method of 'drying' biodiesel, so please clue me in.

No, it's not so much all the water drops out. No more so than if you heat washed biodiesel later on [to try to dry it]. Thius is not a drying process. It is a washing process.

What happens is that the water boils up through the BD... agitating it strongly. But emulsions can't form due to the heat.

After 5 minutes or of boiling, you let it sit for a while. Seperate them.


You should find 90% of the soap and crap in the water.

Then dry as normal.


See my posts here for the original accident. And here. For my further tests.

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

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Struth that sounds interesting add water and boil.
Sounds good.

[kamel Member Find all posts View Profile Close kamel]

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Could it be that, after a hot prewash and drain, adding 10%-20% more water and boiling the BD with water for 5 minutes, gets rid of any residual meth in the BD or water, rendering the water unable to carry the BD and 'repelling it' to the top?
G

I seriously doubt there's any Meth left in the BD after five minutes at 100 deg C.

The heating of the BD makes it incapable of 'supporting' water bubbles... or soap bubbles.

I noticed that while heating you get some soapy stuff floating for a bit... but then as the oil absorbs the heat and thins out. The soapy stuff all sinks back down to the water.

[joe Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close joe]

Re: emulsion and washing and heating

Hi all,

well after a week and many firsts, water pump, air pump, 2500w submersible heater, prewash and wash, emulsion, breaking an emulsion and then two more washes ( I kid you not this is the first for all of these things ) I now have about 15 litres left of my 20 Litres. Ok stop laughing now. I guess I lost a bit through transferring from tank to tank and what not. I'll have that sortedwhen my cone bottomed reactor and wash tank is completed.

Incidently for washing do people use a cone bottom. If not how do you remove the water from under the bio or the bio from on top of the water with out wastage?

ALso I'm noticing after the wash the biodiesel smells more like BD made from clean oil. I'm used to settling and the finished product always smelled like burnt oil. May the washing removes what ever the smellis?

So I'm down to my drying (another first) The bio already looks quite clear. I've put a bolt into the end of the plastic hose and have put about 20 pinprick holes into the plastic. I'l dry for 24 hours. Is that enough?

So what tests are left,

• the cooling test (does is cloud)
• the taste test (Is it 10 times less toxic than salt)
• the running test (does it stuff my car.

Suggestions?

Cheers