Hey guys, I'm a university student interested in running my car off biodiesel. Because I'm a uni student, I really can't afford to stuff my car up so my biodiesel must be top quality before testing it out. Over the past few months, I've made dozens of 1-litre test batches of biodiesel, which seems to be very high quality:
Ok so all of this means that it should be good to use, but when I shake the bio up with water, it forms a very soapy looking layer between the water and biodiesel. This layer goes away pretty quickly, but just the sight of it makes me think there's still soap in it. But then my tests are indicating that the soap levels are quite low.
What do you guys think? Am I over-reacting, and is it normal for the biodiesel to look very soapy even when the soap levels are low?
- No fallout at all in the 3/27 test
- Biodiesel and water separate in under 10 minutes after my first wash.
- Very clear water after the second or third wash - indicating very low amount of soap.
- The soap titration doesn't even register any soap in the biodiesel! I mix 10g of biodiesel into approximately 100mL of isopropyl alcohol and add the bromophenol blue. The solution stays yellow before adding a single drop of my HCl solution. At first I thought my indicator might be stuffed, so I tested an unwashed sample of bio and got approximately 2,000 ppm, and that sounds about right for unwashed biodiesel.
Ok so all of this means that it should be good to use, but when I shake the bio up with water, it forms a very soapy looking layer between the water and biodiesel. This layer goes away pretty quickly, but just the sight of it makes me think there's still soap in it. But then my tests are indicating that the soap levels are quite low.
What do you guys think? Am I over-reacting, and is it normal for the biodiesel to look very soapy even when the soap levels are low?
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