Are you sure about this?? or am i confused

__________________
Cheers
Nick.

Roidio 2001 Holden Rodeo 4x4 2.8L TD. 2.5" Straight through exhaust sytem, heat exchanger shower system. 2" Body Lift,
And lots of fruit, B100 for 25,000 no problems.

Elsa 1983 Mercedes-Benz W123 300D. The Fastest Merc in Oz, Loving B100 Burgers

I have read, somewhere in the long distant past, that you should be able to get an amount of biodiesel from the reaction, up to the amount of oil used in the reaction.
This may not be high conversion biodiesel but it is more likely that yield will be in the order of 90-95% of the amount of oil used in the reaction, if high conversion biodiesel is made.

Would any regular biodiesel producing members care to elaborate on their yield as a % of the oil input to the reaction?

Regards,
Tony

I would also like to add to Darren's post that there's the tricky problem of waste water and glycerine disposal too.

Tony, as I recall there was a thread a few months ago about titration versus yield. But in my experience for low titrating oils (1-4ml) with optimal amounts of methanol and caustic, the yield should be up around 90-95%. When the titration gets in the 5-10ml range the yield will fall significantly and it may be as low as 80%. It's at that the point the acid/base method becomes viable.
From memory, I think Tilley used to quote a 3% drop in yield for every titration point, is that correct Tilley?

I'm going to start looking for Troopy's biomaker that's prepared to give me his/her labour for an exchange ratio of 2.5:1.

To clarify:
If a bio maker is paying 20c/litre for WVO and then spending 50c/litre to convert it to bio then the bio is costing him 70c/litre (+ time and effort).
If he is prepared to sell his bio to a friend for cost he will sell it for 70c/litre. If the other person normally sells WVO to the bio maker for 20c/litre then he could instead give the WVO to the bio maker and pay only 50c/litre for the bio.
If he gives the bio maker 100 litres of WVO which would normally cost $20 how much bio should he receive in return?

As I said if the WVO is free then there is no exchange rate.

Now what about the labour exchange rate.

I'll ask again to those who collect and make bio:
How much time do you spend collecting (hours/litre) and how much time do you spend making bio (hours/litre)?

I have offered to buy the methanol but my generous friend won't take any money.

I use bio as my start-up fuel for several reasons, last of all for the cost. I would happily pay the going rate for petrodiesel to get quality bio because I believe it is a higher quality fuel than anything I can buy from a servo.
Also I believe it is more environmentally responsible than using petrodiesel.
Finally it is cheap/free due to the generosity of my friend.
Since he won't take money I will help out any way I can. I would give more WVO but 140 litres is all he can handle.
I have another generous friend who I gave 200 litres and he gave me 20 litres of Bio as that was all he had in stock. 10:1 ratio? He won't take money either. So we are getting nowhere on the purely labour exchange rate so my question remains:
"to those who collect and make bio:
How much time do you spend collecting (hours/litre) and how much time do you spend making bio (hours/litre)?"
And I add, to those who make bio:
What is your consumables cost/litre of Bio made (excluding capital cost for initial setup and excluding your time and effort)?

I have never made biodiesel so i cant help sorry.

__________________
Cheers
Nick.

Roidio 2001 Holden Rodeo 4x4 2.8L TD. 2.5" Straight through exhaust sytem, heat exchanger shower system. 2" Body Lift,
And lots of fruit, B100 for 25,000 no problems.

Elsa 1983 Mercedes-Benz W123 300D. The Fastest Merc in Oz, Loving B100 Burgers

I can help on the oil collection side.
My oil costs me $0.10 per litre. I travel 40 km each way to collect around 240 litres.

The exercise takes me around 2 hours in total, including some relationship support with my supplier. In this case, my oil costs me 30 seconds per litre, before filtering (not required for Biodiesel production).

I hope these figures help.

Regards,
Tony

thanks all

I Should have written this earlier in this thread but had forgotten.
The early (2004) MBDC business plan.
1. All members must contribute some sort of labour, and collection of WVO is considered such.
2. WVO brought to the club reactor is valued at 20c per litre in credit.
3. The consumables were costed with a positive return at 50c per litre. (Positive return = budget surplus)
4. Members could take away Biodiesel for a 70c debit to their credit account and no more than the value of their credit balance.
5. All members had to take away with them some , any amount, Glycerine and dispose of it an environmentally concerned fashion, I.e sweetening their home compost or garden mulch, making soap or degreaser, etc etc.
6. Members who contributed in labour working on the plant but brought no WVO could create a credit balance with cash to buy consumables, (meth, KoH etc) or reciepts from plant machinery parts (pipes, taps, plumbing, motors, pumps etc)
This business plan worked fantastic for about a year untill the mathematics caught up with us and we had a deficit that equated to bad yields. We then decided to change the plan according to a general yield rate of 80 % of the oil WVO. Net not gross batch volumes (another surplus mechanism).
All this was documented in a simple old fashioned columns book from the Stationery shop.This worked perfectly. So perfectly that the books (after another 9 months) showed we had a thief in the ranks. This brought about the closure of that particular plant, and alot of disillusion within what had been a beautiful thing.

TIP Anyone wishing to emulate this business plan just be aware that the "Book" should be stashed in a place where it wont be found by a surprise visit by the ATO. Not that I think the ATO has such an inspector, but Tax/excise paranoia is a real thing that we encountered.
My previous thread yield quotes were of gross volume of batch reaction volume. i.e oil + meth.