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tillyfromparadise · 12 June 2019, 08:02 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Hi Cade,
"Orange Juice" is a typical look for water washed biodiesel.
My experience is that, depending on the temperature and the radio station you are listening to, it will take a day or ten for most of the water to settle.

What I would do in your situation is put a small sample of the biodiesel into a metal pan and heat it on the stove.
I always use a thermometer to stir it just to make sure there were no water explosions and as a bonus you know what the temperature of the biodiesel is.
Before the temperature hits 100C the biodiesel will clear and water will settle to the bottom.
Turn off the heat.
As the biodiesel cools it usually goes cloudy again.
Decant the cloudy biodiesel into another pan leaving the water on the bottom behind and heat again.
The biodiesel will once again clear and this time it usually remains clear when it cools.

Captaincademan · 13 June 2019, 07:49 AM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Hi Tilly,

Thanks for the confidence that I didnt stuff it. ok so that means I need to look at the thermostat on the brewer and possibly pull it off and replace with a better thermostatic control unit, as i think domestic hot water thermostats stop at 75 degrees. I will see what jaycar offer. I will try to get something that is controlled with an arduino board so I can fiddle with it. I have an abundance of solar power so I am not fussed how much juice I use heating it.

I will try the pan thing this weekend.

On that basis Tilly, do you think it would be possible to make a brew, wash and start drying it in 2 days?

- morning 1 - make the brew.
- afternoon 1 - tap off glycerine, add water.
- morning 2 - heat brew up. tap off water.
- afternoon 2 - heat brew up again, let it settle for the week.

following weekend, tap off water and send it to the storage tank.

I am going to use the shell aircraft fuel water test pills to check for water content on the finished product. I might be terribly dissapointed with the residual water, but its better than sticking your head in the sand.

tillyfromparadise · 13 June 2019, 11:28 AM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Hi cade,

Originally posted by Captaincademan View Post

Hi Tilly,
Thanks for the confidence that I didnt stuff it. ok so that means I need to look at the thermostat on the brewer and possibly pull it off and replace with a better thermostatic control unit, as i think domestic hot water thermostats stop at 75 degrees.

If you want to heat your biodiesel to "force" dry it, anything up to 100C should be fine.

On that basis Tilly, do you think it would be possible to make a brew, wash and start drying it in 2 days?

You could make, settle, wash and dry in 24 hours if you wanted to. The biggest slow down would be the drying.
Hours 1-3 Make biodiesel
Hours 4-5 settle out the largest share of glycerine
hour 6 start washing followed by immediately drying
You should be able to have usable biodiesel within 24 hours if you wanted to
This would take a bit of extra energy to force the drying stage.

Captaincademan · 13 June 2019, 12:23 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

so how fast does the water drop out when heating? does it need to cool before it drops out?

a 200 litre batch in an insulated hot water tank will take some many hours to cool down. possibly more than a day? that was why I was asssuming it would take a couple of days, but if the drop out is rather quick that's awesome.

I think the element is 4800 watts so its going to need some pretty darn good relays to switch that. I need to do a little more research on thermos and switch gear!

WesleyB · 13 June 2019, 03:23 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

With my purified biodiesel distilled water poured right through it to form two layers (phases) quickly. So there maybe another issue. If soap content is an issue sodium chloride, table salt, might force a quicker seperation as if it was an emulsion. But subsequently all the table salt would need to be washed out. And if soap is an issue washing with hard water may form some calcium soap which is difficult to remove from biodiesel. I would put a 1/2 teaspoon of table salt without iodine in it into about 200 milliliters of your orange juice in a beaker with warmth stirring a bit and see if your separation occurs.

tillyfromparadise · 13 June 2019, 05:19 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

That is strange, I replied a couple hours ago and it disappeared.
Second attempt.

A lot of water will have fallen out by the time the biodiesel has cleared during the initial heating..
At this point you can decant the biodiesel off the settled water and continue heating until the biodiesel is dried.

Captaincademan · 13 June 2019, 09:13 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Very impressed. Thank you Tilly. Quite surprised at how temperature sensitive that little reaction is. Worked an absolute treat.

I will now order a 30 amp relay and an electronic temperature controller to manage the temperature. Can’t wait to do this regularly!

Captaincademan · 13 June 2019, 09:23 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Thanks for the comment Wesley, I didn’t try the salt as it then required to be removed as you said. It took me years to get my head around committing the sin of putting water in my fuel, let alone salt!

Johnnojack · 13 June 2019, 10:30 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Cade when putting in the water do it gently, a slow running hose, moving it over the surface? If you think you need to run the mixer try a max of 2 seconds rather than 2 minutes. You may have emulsified some of your bio.
With your method listed above on morning 2 before heating drain off any settled water first thing, most of it should be already sitting on the bottom. By heating it some water will remix by convection. After draining the free water heat and leave it. It should clear in 6 or 12 hours if kept at above 40 deg or so. Drain water again or and decant off the top into another vessel and then bubble dry.

Captaincademan · 14 June 2019, 06:49 AM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Thanks Johnno, will do.

Heating the fuel twice did the trick very nicely. I have ordered a temperature controller, relay, heatsink and thermocouple to manage the temperature.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Inkbird-...h0EuAlgnrPZtuQ

I found an excellent resource for heater calculations on the net:

https://www.oemheaters.com/topic/immersion-wattage

Based on this I will be able to get my brew up to temp no problems.

I couldn't believe how cheap electronic components are on ebay now. I understand that can be a trap, but I am willing to give it a go.

After the second heating, the fuel remained clear overnight, I might try a third heat tonight to see if there is an improvement in clarity yet again.

after the wash and dry, is there any particular test I should do to check if my fuel actually is washed? is it just the shake-em-up test and check water colour?

I will know it is dry by use of the fuel tester I am waiting on.

As i mentioned before I am reluctant to keep the power on in my shed for extended periods when I am not present. dead scared of a shed fire. So I would prefer to not bubble dry if I dont have to.

Chev28 · 14 June 2019, 07:28 AM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Forgive my ignorance here but why are you reluctant to bubble dry when you are still talking about leaving power on for the other methods?

You just need gentle air bubbling and a little bit of warmth. Both were done with aquarium equipment.

I water washed then bubble dried my Bio for years and it always turned my orange juice into apple juice after just a day.

Life is simpler now on WVO.

tillyfromparadise · 14 June 2019, 08:11 AM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Hi Cade,

In your situation, instead of heating the biodiesel until it clears and then allowing to cool, just remove the water that settles out when the biodiesel clears and continue heating.
I used to do this when I was doing some of my testing. I would remove the water and continue to heat. As I recall I would push the temperature of the biodiesel up to around 105C- 110C after I had removed the water that settled out and continue to stir until there was no more indication of water being driven off.
The top of the biodiesel was calm with no more bubbling or disturbance in it other than convection currents from the bottom because the biodiesel was being heated at the bottom of the container.
There are several test for water that some people do but I have never done it.
http://www.make-biodiesel.org/Qualit...er-in-wvo.html

I agree with Chevy28 that after you have removed the water that settles to the bottom, bubbling air through the biodiesel while heating would likely be advantageous

Bueff · 14 June 2019, 02:06 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Originally posted by Johnnojack View Post

Cade when putting in the water do it gently, a slow running hose, moving it over the surface? If you think you need to run the mixer try a max of 2 seconds rather than 2 minutes. You may have emulsified some of your bio.
With your method listed above on morning 2 before heating drain off any settled water first thing, most of it should be already sitting on the bottom. By heating it some water will remix by convection. After draining the free water heat and leave it. It should clear in 6 or 12 hours if kept at above 40 deg or so. Drain water again or and decant off the top into another vessel and then bubble dry.

I'm with Johnno, When my batch has been mixing for 2 hours I add 70ltrs of warm water to my 1200ltr bio/methoxide mix. Mixer stays on for a couple of minutes on slower revs an it then settles out with in a day and the fuel is nice and clear. I keep my mix heated around 50 deg for that time. Once the glycerin has been removed I bubble for a day drain the rest of the glycerin and add another 70ltr. That usually gets rid of the rest of stuff.

I have read somewhere that one shouldn't exceed 10% of water when adding to the glycerin/bio mix.

Orange juice is okay, you should be able to just heat it and it should clear up. Michael was pretty good with using vinegar to clear up emulsion

Hope it works out!

tillyfromparadise · 14 June 2019, 04:02 PM

Re: My first wash. AARGGHH

Hi Bueff,

Originally posted by Bueff View Post

I have read somewhere that one shouldn't exceed 10% of water when adding to the glycerin/bio mix.

Adding water to the mix at the end of the reaction before draining the glycerin was first suggested by the people at Idaho university. Their initial recommendation was 15% water which they later changed to 5%. The reason for adding water is that the water released some of the biodiesel bound with the glycerin so you had a larger yield.

The chemist Neutral then performed some testing with the results;
"I tried it over the range 3% to 20% water and found an increase in yield at 5% and no further increase with any more. The increase in yield war about 3% after washing and drying
Myown experiments with a fairly low grade oil of about 5% FFA showedthe following:

Water%, Yield%
__0.0_____84.4
__3.5_____86.5
__5.5_____87.3
__7.5_____87.3
_15.0_____87.0
_20.0_____87.2

where Yield % is the weight of washed and dried fuel relative to the weight of oil used. A standard base-only reaction was done."

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/foru...3918#879103918

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