Hi,

Doesn't seem to be much activity in this section so my post may go un-noticed. However.....

I have decided to get rid of my dual fuel v8i Discovery 1993, auto and get myself a 300tdi auto.

I'm doing this because now that lpg is also going up in price $0.76 at the moment, I think, no I KNOW, that I now want to run on Biodiesel and make it myself.

I have been reading up on the various processes and have recently completed some successful batches initially using the "Dr pepper" technique.

But I have decided to move forward with making it with ethanol and KOH rather than methanol and NaOH.

I have found a great method for doing this and will be trying it over the next few days and posting my results. Hopefully this will be of interest to move than just me.

The recipe I have means that apart from filtering the oil at the very start, there is no further need to filter the oil since with ethanol there is no separation within the waste oil. The ethanol both keeps everything in suspension as well as creating a viscosity that is still burnable and this formula is one that will also keep the glycerine in liquid form and not gel.

As I said I will do some test batches with this formula first and even if successful I would still want to put an additional filter between the tank and the engine just in case.

On a side note (but important one), if anyone knows of a good secondhand 300tdi <pre 2000 I guess>, please let me know.

Cheers, Pete'

Remember too, that council etc need to be aware of your 'lab'

You don't want your neighbours reporting 'funny smells' from the shed either, a raid can really spoil your day!!!

And your home insurance needs to be notified or you'll be null and void should something go wrong!

Hi Tombraider,

I'm gunna use my "rural estate", so with my nearest neighbour being 12k's away I doubt "funny smells" will be a problem.

I'm in the food, catering and soap making business so having methylated spirits and potash (potassium hydroxide) is neither illegal nor is it necessary to tell the council about it.(nor is mixing the two by the way).

While I'm not 100% on the next point, this is not a "commercial" enterprise so making a few liters of fuel for my car should not attract the govt. in regard to excise (but I'm not sure) and in regards to insurance, well if my old shed were to go up (very unlikely since these product are much less volatile than methanol and Caustic Soda), insurance wouldn't cover it anyway.

But I appreciate where you are coming from if this was a built-up residential area.

Cheers,
Pete'

Im very interested, am awaiting the updated results.

im interested as well. Ive run a rover on the really primative version of bio being simple filtered and heat dewatered WVO.

__________________
Dave

"In a Landrover the other vehicle is your crumple zone."

Big Red '03 D110 Extreme (TD5manual chipped)
Fozzy, 2.25D SIII Ex Telecom Highside Ute (bye Kermit)
T4 Diagnostics (sorta)

For spelling call Rogets, for mechanicing call me.

I will be very interested in the results.

I'm interested. I'm thinking & doing the exact same thing as you ATM, looking for a pristine 300 and doing all the homework I can. I've been surprised there hasn't been more interest generated in this Bio forum.

__________________
Dan

'96 Stinky rattly gutless frugal little oiler getting some bits.

He gets lost in thought because it's unfamiliar territory.- George Jessel

Hi All,

I thought while I finish getting my reactor together and other parts, ingredients, etc., I might provide some more background on how I am hoping the "MF" as it is also known, works.

Sorry for the length of this but I hope some of this post will be useful knowledge. Thanks to to the various sources where I scavenged this information...

This formula just needs to be multiplied with however many liters of WVO ( Waste Vegetable Oil), you have.

1 liter of oil (WVO not new oil)
250 ml of Ethanol
4 grams of KoH (Potassium Hydroxide)

200 proof denatured Ethanol, (see note on this further down),as anything less will possibly have water, and that will effect your mixture and reaction, otherwise just heat to 55C, agitate well and thats it, you are finished, filter again and pour it into your tank and off you go...

Very important** You must filter your oil before you start the process to get rid of chunks of food, breadcrumbs, bugs, etc. Also you must heat it to 65 celcius make sure that it is not carrying any extra water.

This sounds too simple I hear you say. One of the things that happens when you use methanol to make BD is that it makes the FFA's, etc., "drop" down in the reactor to the bottom where you can then drain off this dark mix that contains the FFA's, methanol, glycerine, etc.

"Gelling" (where the BD hardens in cold temps), will not happen with the eth' & KOH formula or I should say it will go much lower before gelling because it has more alcohol than the standard mix with methanol.....In regards to the excess ethanol, this formula gives about 9% excess ethanol in the fuel to suspend the glycerine. This fits in well with some governments mandating 10% ethanol in the petrol and diesel. In fact, 10% was what was used in Diesohol.

However, that does not mean that the Ethanol mixture is not thicker (lower viscosity) as it is.......
What we have is not a complete reaction but a partial reaction where all ingredients ( KOH, oil, and Ethanol) are in equalibrium, and therefore can be burned in most diesel engines, without any problems...

What is also happening is that a substantial amount of the oil gets converted into esters, good fuel, liberating a substantial amount of glycerine. The ester fuel is a better solvent for ethanol than is the original oil so the excess ethanol goes into solution. The good solvent properties of ethanol keep the glycerine, soap and glycerides all in solution.

Note on Ethanol*

You can buy 100% ethanol but you can make it in others ways.

The first and by far the cheapest way is to make your own Valve reflux still which will get you to 95% proof. To get the last 4% or so, take the 95% and put it through a filter. You could use dehydration with lime but I was thinking that in order to get the eth' up to "almost" pure, you could make a simple rock salt filter as the ethanol will pass through but the salt will "grab" the water, leaving you with 98/99%+ eth'.

Or you could use Zeolite, as a molecular sieve which is naturally negatively charged and therefor will grab the positively charged water molecule on the way through. It is available both as a man-made and natural mineral.

The best with both the salt and the Zeolite is that when they are "full" of water you simply have to put them out in the sun to dry and then you can reuse it again!

For those that might want to know what the analysis of the natural Zeolite is, here you go:
Particle Specific Gravity (whole rock) ~2.3T/m3
Ambient Moisture Nominal < 5%
Hardness (MHO’S SCALE) ~5.0
Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) meq/100g ANZ38 powder 147 average

Minerals Present
Major Clinoplilolite (w% of the total Zeolite content) 85 %
Other Mordenite (w% of the total Zeolite content) 15%
Minor Quartz, Felspar, Montmorillonite
Mineral Content %
Si O2 (Silicon Dioxide) 71.81
Al2O3 (Aluminium Oxide) 12.10
Fe2O3 (Iron Oxide) 1.14
Na2O (Sodium Oxide) 2.33
K2O (Potassium Oxide) 0.90

Selected trace elements occur in minor quantities expressed as ppm.
CaO (Calcium Oxide) 2.60 Ba (Barium) 10
MgO (Magnesium Oxide) 0.65 Co (Cobalt) 1.2
TiO2 (Titanium Dioxide) 0.22 Cr (Chromium) 35
MnO (Manganese Oxide) 0.03 (Selenium) <1
P2O5 (Phosphorus Pentoxide) < .01 Cu (Copper) 19
SrO (Strontium Oxide) 0.22 Zn (Zinc) 33
Loss on Ignition 7.77 P (Phosphorus) 187


OK. Umm, what else... The still that I am making produces about 10-20ltr of 95% eth' in about 6 hours and at the rate specified will allow you to react about 80 liters of finished fuel at a time if you are in a rush. Or you can store a few batches for making 200-300 ltrs at a go.

Remember too that with the methanol method you are normally discarding about 20% of your mixture at the end but with the ethanol blend there is no discarding of anything and it therefor gives you an extra 20-25% usable fuel.

As noted in my previous posting, I would still want an additional filter in between the tank and the engine.

There is still some testing to be done:

1 How much salt/zeolite is required to filter a batch of 95% eth'?
2 Once saturated, how long will the filter take to dry before reuse?
3 If you don't want to make a still, will the filter work on say methylated spirits which is already 95% ethanol?

There is a bunch of other things I'm sure that I need to address but I just wanted to let you know where I am at.

I have a couple of test pics too that show the methanol method (just as a reference), I have done in bottles and will post these once I work out how to get them from my damn phone to the pc!

Cheers, Pete'

Pete,

the way your original note reads.. you give the impression that the Ethanol will keep the glycerine by-product liquid.. I think you'll find that its the KOH that does this.. 65C is the boiling point of Methanol, and don't heat oil greater than this temp. I have done so accidentally.. it wastes the Methanol, as you see it bubble off.... btw 78C for Ethanol (its boiling point).. so you should be bale to heat up to that.. 78C would also detach the water from the oil...

good luck with your trail batches.. am interested to hear how you are going..

regards,
Paul.

Hi Paul,

You raise an interesting point, however if this was true then would not those that use KOH and methanol Instead of NaOH and methanol end up with batches where the glycerine does not 'drop' to the bottom of the tank?

The glycerine only seems to stay in suspension with ethanol, UNLESS... the ethanol combined with the KOH does what you say it does. Again though that would lead to the ethanol being the player that keeps everything in suspension.

It might be worthwhile making a trial batch <1 or 2ltrs>, with ethanol and NaOH and see what transpires?



I have also noted that our Australian versions of methalated spirits <MS>, is quite different to the US versions since ours are 95 ethanol and the other 5 is a mixture of Methyl isobutyl ketone, fluorescein, methyl alcohol or denatonium and where only a small percent of this will be water. Since the water content is much lower than in the states versions, my tests indicate 'SO FAR', that one can successfully use our standard Metho'.

The cost however is $1.88 per ltr MS compared to $1.23 for methanol. But the upside is that with ethanol <250ml per ltr waste oil>, you don't have any waste that needs to be discarded whereas with methanol you are discarding the 250ml of methanol <that you add to every ltr of waste oil>, and the glycerine, etc that 'drop' to the bottom of the tank. Calculations aren't precise but in effect you are ending up with 25% more burnable fuel at the end of the day.

Oh, the other upside is of'coarse that you don't need special storage facilities for MS but you do for methanol AND you can't buy methanol at your local hardware store

Anyway, thanks for the interest Paul, I should have some more test notes up soon.


Cheers, Pete'