My Ambient/ Room temperature Biodiesel Production
Lately there has been a bit of discussion about making biodiesel at room temperature- without heating.
To my great amazement, there are one or two people on this forum who did not know, and still apparently refuse to accept that you can make biodiesel at room temperature if you wish to.
In the early days of biodiesel production, there were several “commercial” producers who routinely made their commercial biodiesel at room temperature.
I have always heated in the past, originally using solar heating and for the last few years I have used an immersion heating element scavenged from an electric stove- but it is certainly not required.
I started this years biodiesel production this week and have decided to forego heating and do all the reactions at ambient temperature.
I have 2- 150 litre total capacity reactors that are mixed with a drill and paint mixer through the top cover as well as a ½ hp “Orange" Regenerative Turbine Pump recirculating from bottom to top.
I do not routinely titrate, the oil is always around 1KOH titration.
My car does not require high conversion biodiesel so I make no attempt to pass the Warnqvist test.
My formula is 130 litres WVO, 14% methanol (18 litres), 9.2g KOH per litre of WVO (1.2kg).
I have made two batches so far.
My reactors sit outside in the sun and I run the reaction in the middle of the day when things have warmed up and I have returned home.
Both reactions have performed flawlessly- I mixed for two hours in both instances and I had clear separation of the byproduct and biodiesel.
I checked the temperature of the mixture in the processor a few minutes after beginning mixing after it has stabilized.
On the first day the temperature in the reactor stabilized at 47C- On the second day the temperature stabilized at 45C. That is very close to what I would usually heat to anyway.
I have another batch ready to go this afternoon when I get home.
At present the temperature of the WVO in the reactor is 23C
I will update this afternoon
Lately there has been a bit of discussion about making biodiesel at room temperature- without heating.
To my great amazement, there are one or two people on this forum who did not know, and still apparently refuse to accept that you can make biodiesel at room temperature if you wish to.
In the early days of biodiesel production, there were several “commercial” producers who routinely made their commercial biodiesel at room temperature.
I have always heated in the past, originally using solar heating and for the last few years I have used an immersion heating element scavenged from an electric stove- but it is certainly not required.
I started this years biodiesel production this week and have decided to forego heating and do all the reactions at ambient temperature.
I have 2- 150 litre total capacity reactors that are mixed with a drill and paint mixer through the top cover as well as a ½ hp “Orange" Regenerative Turbine Pump recirculating from bottom to top.
I do not routinely titrate, the oil is always around 1KOH titration.
My car does not require high conversion biodiesel so I make no attempt to pass the Warnqvist test.
My formula is 130 litres WVO, 14% methanol (18 litres), 9.2g KOH per litre of WVO (1.2kg).
I have made two batches so far.
My reactors sit outside in the sun and I run the reaction in the middle of the day when things have warmed up and I have returned home.
Both reactions have performed flawlessly- I mixed for two hours in both instances and I had clear separation of the byproduct and biodiesel.
I checked the temperature of the mixture in the processor a few minutes after beginning mixing after it has stabilized.
On the first day the temperature in the reactor stabilized at 47C- On the second day the temperature stabilized at 45C. That is very close to what I would usually heat to anyway.
I have another batch ready to go this afternoon when I get home.
At present the temperature of the WVO in the reactor is 23C
I will update this afternoon
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