Make Your Own Biodiesel

Make your own biodiesel
Spanish version -- Versin en espaol
Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen -- and it's
BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell you. Your diesel
motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much
cleaner -- better for the environment and better for health. If you make it from
used cooking oil it's not only cheap but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste
product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and
empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it -- everything you need to know.
Three choices
1. Mixing it
2. Straight vegetable oil
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel
Where do I start?
What's next?
The process
Make your first test batch
Our first biodiesel
Biodiesel from new oil
Biodiesel from waste oil
Moving on to bigger things
Scaling up
Removing the water
Washing
Using biodiesel
Safety
More about methanol
How much methanol?
Ethyl esters -- making ethanol biodiesel
Reclaiming excess methanol
More about lye
Using KOH
How much lye to use?
Basic titration
Better titration
Accurate measurements
Joe Street's titrator
pH meters
Phenolphthalein
pH meters vs phenolphthalein
High FFA levels
Deacidifying WVO
No titration?
The basic lye quantity -- 3.5 grams?
Mixing the methoxide
Stock methoxide solution
Poor man's titration
How much glycerine? Why isn't it solid?
PET bottle mixers
Viscosity testing
How the process works
Animal fats, tallow and lard
What are Free Fatty Acids?
Iodine Values
-- High Iodine Values
-- Talking about the weather
-- Summary
Hydrogenated oil, shortening, margarine
Oxidation and polymerisation
Which method to use?
Why can't I start with the Foolproof method?
Quality
Quality testing
Cetane Numbers
National standards for biodiesel
-- standards and the homebrewer
-- standard testing
Biodiesel in gasoline engines
Storing biodiesel
Home heating
Lamps and stoves
Other uses
Fats and oils -- resources
Diesel information
Identifying plastics
Three choices
There are at least three ways to run a diesel engine on biofuel using vegetable oils, animal fats or both.
All three are used with both fresh and used oils.
Use the oil just as it is -- usually called SVO fuel (straight vegetable oil) or PPO fuel (pure
plant oil);
Mix it with kerosene (paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or blend it with a
solvent, or with gasoline;
Convert it to biodiesel.
The first two methods sound easiest, but, as so often in life, it's not quite that simple.
1. Mixing it
Vegetable oil is much more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of
mixing it or blending it with other fuels is to lower the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more
freely through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.
If you're mixing veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene you're still using fossil-fuel -- cleaner than
most, but still not clean enough, many would say. Still, for every gallon of vegetable oil you use, that's
one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.
People use various mixes, ranging from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil
and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just use it that way, start up and go, without pre-heating it (which
makes veg-oil much thinner), or even use pure vegetable oil without pre-heating it.
You might get away with it with an older '80s Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is a very tough
and tolerant motor -- it won't like it but you probably won't kill it. Otherwise, it's not wise.
To do it properly you'll need what amounts to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyway, preferably
using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there's no need for
the mixes.
Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are "experimental at best", little or nothing
is known about their effects on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-term effects on
the engine.
Higher viscosity is not the only problem with using vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical
properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and
their fuel systems are designed. Diesel engines are high-tech machines with very precise fuel
requirements, especially the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).
They're tough but they'll only take so much abuse.
There's no guarantee of it, but using a blend of up to 20% veg-oil of good quality with 80% petro-
diesel is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer. Otherwise using veg-oil fuel
needs either a professional SVO solution or biodiesel.
Mixes and blends are generally a poor compromise. But mixes do have an advantage in cold weather.
As with biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel mixed with straight vegetable oil
lowers the temperature at which it starts to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter)
More about fuel mixing and blends.
2. Straight vegetable oil
Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and economical option.
Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The best way is to fit a professional single-
tank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, as well as fuel
heating. With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for instance you can use petro-diesel,
biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and switch off, like any other car.
Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van has an Elsbett single-tank SVO system. More
There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to start the
engine on ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then switch to SVO in the other tank
when the veg-oil is hot enough, and switch back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or
you'll coke up the injectors.
More information on straight vegetable oil systems here.
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or
modifications to the engine or the fuel system -- just put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather
properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel -- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,
it's backed by many long-term tests in many countries, including millions of miles on the road.
Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that many SVO systems
are still experimental and need further development.
On the other hand, biodiesel can be more expensive, depending how much you make, what you make it
from and whether you're comparing it with new oil or used oil (and depending on where you live). And
unlike SVO, it has to be processed first.
But the large and rapidly growing worldwide band of biodiesel homebrewers don't mind that -- they
make a supply every week or once a month and soon get used to it. Many have been doing it for years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, cooked oil, also
called UCO, used cooking oil), which many people with SVO systems use because it's cheap or free
for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be removed, and it probably
should be deacidified too.
Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might as well make biodiesel instead." But SVO
types scoff at that -- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say.
To each his own.
Needs Guaranteed Engine

X Cost
processing trouble-free conversion
Smaller
Biodiesel Yes Yes* No
outlay
Cheaper
SVO/WVO Less No Yes in the
long-run
* Fuel filters might need changing in the first couple of
weeks; fuel hoses or seals on some older diesels might
need changing. See Biodiesel and your vehicle
Costs and prices: Biodieselers using waste oil feedstock make biodiesel for 50 cents to US$1 per
US gallon.
Most people in the US use about 600 gallons of fuel a year (about 10 gallons a week), costing about
US$1,800 a year (mid-'07). Petro-diesel costs about three times more in the other industrialised
countries (in the UK in mid-'07 it cost the equivalent of US$7.37 for a US gallon of petro-diesel) but
those countries generally use less fuel than the US.
Biodieselers will be paying $300-360 for their fuel, while a good processor can be set up for around
$100 up. An SVO system costs from about $500 to $1,200 or more. So with an SVO system you'll be
ahead of fossil-fuel prices within a year, not a long time in the life of a diesel motor, but you're
probably still behind the biodieselers.
Will the engine last as long with SVO? Yes, if you use a good system. Recommendations, and much
more, here.
(Note: Small quantities of methanol can cost the equivalent of US$8 to $10 per US gallon, but
experienced biodieselers invariably buy it in bulk for about $2-3 per gallon.)
Biodiesel
Converting the oil to biodiesel is probably the best all-round solution of the three options (or we think
so anyway).
You could simply buy your biodiesel. Most major European vehicle manufacturers now provide
vehicle warranties covering the use of pure biodiesel -- though that might not be just any biodiesel.
Some insist on "RME", rapeseed methyl esters, and won't cover use of soy biodiesel (which isn't
covered by the Euro biodiesel standard). Germany has thousands of filling stations supplying biodiesel,
and it's cheaper there than ordinary diesel fuel. All fossil diesel fuel sold in France contains between
2% and 5% biodiesel. New EU laws will soon require this Europe-wide. Some states in the US are
legislating similar requirements. There's a growing number of US suppliers and sales are rising fast,
though biodiesel is more expensive than ordinary diesel in the US. In the UK biodiesel is taxed less
than petrodiesel and it's available commercially.
But there's a lot to be said for the GREAT feeling of independence you'll get from making your own
fuel!
If you want to make it yourself, there are several good recipes available for making high-quality
biodiesel, and they say what we also say: some of these chemicals are dangerous, take full safety
precautions, and if you burn/maim/blind/kill yourself or anyone else, that will make us very sad, but
not liable -- we don't recommend anything, it's nobody's responsibility but your own.
On the other hand, nobody has yet burned/maimed/blinded/killed themselves or anyone else making
homebrewed biodiesel. Large numbers of ordinary people all over the world are making their own
biodiesel, it's been going on for years, and so far there have been NO serious accidents. It's safe if
you're careful and sensible.
"Sensible" also means not over-reacting, as some people do: "I'd like to make biodiesel but I'm
frightened of all those terrible poisons." In fact they're common enough household chemicals. Lye is
sold in supermarkets and hardware stores as a drain-cleaner, there's probably a can of it under the sink
in most households. Methanol is the main or only ingredient in barbecue fuel or fondue fuel, often sold
in supermarkets and chain stores as "stove fuel" and used at the dinner table; it's also the main
ingredient in the fuel kids use in their model aero engines. So get it in perspective, there's no need to be
frightened. See Safety and More about methanol for further information.
Learn as much as you can first -- lots of information is available. Make small test batches before you
try large batches (see also Test-batch mini-processor). Make it with fresh oil before you try waste oil
-- see next.
Where do I start?
Start with the process, NOT with the processor. The processor comes later.
Start with fresh unused oil, NOT with waste vegetable oil (WVO), that also comes later.
Start by making a small, 1-litre test batch of biodiesel using fresh new oil. You can use a spare blender,
or, better, make a simple Test-batch mini-processor.
Keep going, step by step. Study everything on this page and the next page and at the links in the text.
There are checks and tests along the way so you won't go wrong.
Go on, do it! Thousands and thousands of others have done it, so can you. Get some methanol, some
lye and some new oil at the supermarket and go ahead -- it's a real thrill!
Here's the recipe. Or just keep reading, you'll get to the recipe in a minute anyway.
What's next?
Learn, one step at a time. It's all quite simple really, very few biodiesel homebrewers are chemists or
technicians, there's nothing a layman can't understand, and do, and do it well. But there is a lot to learn.
You'll find everything you need to know right here. We've tried to make it easy for you. You start off
with the simplest process that has the best chance of success and move on step by step in a logical
progression, adding more advanced features as you go.
"I am a pipe welder who knew nothing about chemistry but I have learned a lot from this
website. It's set up for someone who has never had a chemistry class (me). If I can understand
this anyone can." -- Marty, Biofuel mailing list, 23 Oct 2005
"For anyone starting out or still in the R&D phase of scaling up and tweaking the process to
improve quality, disregard anything other than the tried and tested directions at JtF. Print them
out. Read them and then re-read them. Follow the instructions, don't add or subtract anything
and you will be making quality biodiesel." -- Tom, Biofuel mailing list, 5 Nov 2005
"My best advice is to follow explicitly the instructions on the J2F website starting from the
begining and you will do just fine. In my own journey of discovery I learned this. You cannot
afford to cut corners. Don't be tempted to use less than accurate measures and think that it will
be alright. There is no cheating." -- Joe, Biofuel mailing list, 4 Jan 2006
This is how it works -- comment from a Biofuel list member:
"Your website is very well done. I appreciate the layers of technical complexity. You have
progressively more technical information layered in an escalating and logical fashion. I like the
links as each new item is introduced, the user can click for more specific information on a topic
and it opens in a new window. This eliminates the tediousness of having to constantly
backtrack to where the new concept was introduced."
The process
Vegetable and animal fats and oils are triglycerides, containing glycerine. The biodiesel process turns
the oils and fats into esters, separating out the glycerine. The glycerine sinks to the bottom and the
biodiesel floats on top and can be syphoned off.
The process is called transesterification, which substitutes alcohol for the glycerine in a chemical
reaction, using lye as a catalyst. See How the process works
Chemicals needed
The alcohol used can be either methanol, which makes methyl esters, or ethanol (ethyl esters). Most
methanol comes from fossil fuels (though it can also be made from biomass, such as wood), while
most ethanol is plant-based (though it is also made from petroleum) and you can distill it yourself.
There is as yet no "backyard" method of producing methanol. But the biodiesel process using ethanol
is more difficult than with methanol, it's not for beginners. (See Ethyl esters.)
Ethanol (or ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol -- EtOH, C2H5OH) also goes by various other well-known
names, such as whisky, vodka, gin, and so on, but methanol is a poison. Actually they're both poisons,
it's just a matter of degree, methanol is more poisonous. But don't be put off -- methanol is not
dangerous if you're careful, it's easy to do this safely. Safety is built-in to everything you'll read here.
See Safety. See More about methanol.
Methanol is also called methyl alcohol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha, wood spirits, methyl hydrate (or
"stove fuel"), carbinol, colonial spirits, Columbian spirits, Manhattan spirits, methylol, methyl
hydroxide, hydroxymethane, monohydroxymethane, pyroxylic spirit, or MeOH (CH3OH or CH4O) --
all the same thing. (But, confusingly, "methylcarbinol" or "methyl carbinol" is used for both methanol
and ethanol.)
You can usually get methanol from bulk liquid fuels distributors; in the US try getting it at race
tracks. With a bit of patience, most people in most countries manage to track down a source of
methanol for about US$2-3 per US gallon.
For small amounts, you can use "DriGas" fuel antifreeze, one type is methanol (eg "HEET" in the
yellow container), another is isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol, rubbing alcohol), make sure to get the
methanol one.
Methanol is also sold in supermarkets and chain stores as "stove fuel" for barbecues and fondues, but
check the contents -- not all "stove fuel" is methanol, it could also be "white gas", basically gasoline. It
must be pure methanol or it won't work for making biodiesel. See Methanol suppliers
Methylated spirits (denatured ethanol) doesn't work; isopropanol also doesn't work.
The lye catalyst can be either potassium hydroxide (KOH) or sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, NaOH).
NaOH is often easier to get and it's cheaper to use.
KOH is easier to use, and it does a better job. Experienced biodieselers making top-quality fuel usually
use KOH, and so do the commercial producers. (KOH can also provide potash fertiliser as a by-
product of the biodiesel process.)
With KOH, the process is the same, but you need to use 1.4 times as much (1.4025). (See More about
lye.)
You can get both KOH and NaOH from soapmakers' suppliers and from chemicals suppliers.
NaOH is used as drain-cleaner and you can get it from hardware stores. It has to be pure NaOH. Shake
the container to check it hasn't absorbed moisture and coagulated into a useless mass, and make sure to
keep it airtight.
The Red Devil-brand NaOH lye drain-cleaner previously sold in the US is no longer made. Don't use
Drano or ZEP drain-cleaners or equivalents with blue or purple granules or any-coloured granules, it's
only about half NaOH and it contains aluminium -- it won't work for biodiesel.
CAUTION:
Lye (both NaOH and KOH) is dangerous -- don't get it on your skin or in your eyes, don't breathe any
fumes, keep the whole process away from food, and right away from children. Lye reacts with
aluminium, tin and zinc. Use HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene), glass, enamel or stainless steel
containers for methoxide. (See Identifying plastics.) See Safety
See also Making lye from wood ash.
Chemicals for WVO
Isopropanol for titration is available from chemicals suppliers. Some people have used the other kind
of Dri-Gas, which is isopropanol, but they found that it's unreliable. Best get 99% pure isopropanol
from a chemicals supplier. 70% pure isopropanol is also said to work, but we found it didn't give
satisfactory results.
Contrary to rumour, "phenol red", sold by pool supply stores and used for checking water, won't work
for titrating WVO, its pH range isn't broad enough. Use phenolphthalein indicator, specifically 1%
phenolphthalein solution (1.0w/v%) with 95% ethanol. Phenolphthalein lasts about a year. It's sensitive
to light, store it in a cool, dark place. You can get it from chemicals suppliers. See: Phenolphthalein
Make your first test batch
Here's what you need:
1 litre of new vegetable oil, whatever the supermarket sells as cooking oil
200 ml of methanol, 99+% pure
lye catalyst -- either potassium hydroxide (KOH) or sodium hydroxide (NaOH)
blender or mini-processor
scales accurate to 0.1 grams, preferably less -- 0.01 grams is best
measuring beakers for methanol and oil
half-litre translucent white HDPE (#2 plastic) container with bung and screw-on cap
2 funnels to fit the HDPE container
2-litre PET bottle (water or soft-drinks bottle) for settling
two 2-litre PET bottles for washing
duct tape
thermometer
See Accurate measurements
All equipment should be clean and dry.
For methanol, you can use "DriGas" fuel antifreeze from an automotive store. One type of DriGas is
methanol, another is isopropanol, make sure to get the methanol one. Also try "stove fuel" from
hardware stores or home centres (but check the contents to make sure it's pure methanol, it could also
be "white gas", which is gasoline and doesn't work), or try a chemicals supply company. See Methanol
suppliers
You can get lye at hardware stores, or from soapmakers' suppliers (try online). KOH lye (potassium
hydroxide) works better than NaOH (sodium hydroxide). "Red Devil" NaOH lye drain-cleaner is no
longer made. Don't use Drano or ZEP drain-cleaners or equivalents with blue or purple granules or
any-coloured granules, it's only about half NaOH and it contains aluminium, it won't work for
biodiesel. Shake the container to check it hasn't absorbed moisture and coagulated into a useless mass,
and make sure to keep it airtight.
1. Safety
Read and observe the Safety instructions below.
2. Lye
You need to be quick when measuring out the lye because it very rapidly absorbs water from the
atmosphere and water interferes with the biodiesel reaction.
Measure the lye out into a handy-sized lightweight plastic bag on the scales (or even do the whole
thing entirely inside a big clear plastic bag), then close the lid of the container firmly and close the
plastic bag, winding it up so there's not much air in it with the lye and no more air can get in. Have
exactly the same kind of bag on the other side of the scale to balance the weight, or adjust the scale for
the weight of the bag.
How much to use. NaOH must be at least 97% pure, use exactly 3.5 grams. If you're using KOH it
depends on the strength. If it's 99% pure (rare) use exactly 4.9 grams (4.90875). If it's 92% pure (more
common) use 5.3 grams (5.33), with 90% pure use 5.5 grams (5.454), with 85% pure use 5.8 grams
(5.775). Any strength of KOH from 85% or stronger will work.
3. Mixing the methoxide
Use the "Methoxide the easy way" method -- it's also the safe way. Here's how
to do it.
Measure out 200 ml of methanol and pour it into the half-litre HDPE container
via the funnel. Methanol also absorbs water from the atmosphere so do it
quickly and replace the lid of the methanol container tightly. Don't be too
frightened of methanol, if you're working at ordinary room temperature and you
keep it at arm's length you won't be exposed to dangerous fumes. See More
about methanol.
Carefully add the lye to the HDPE container via the second funnel. Replace the
bung and the screw on the cap tightly.
Shake the container a few times -- swirl it round rather than shaking it up and
down. The mixture gets hot from the reaction. If you swirl it thoroughly for a minute or so five or six
times over a period of time the lye will completely dissolve in the methanol, forming sodium
methoxide or potassium methoxide. As soon as the liquid is clear with no undissolved particles you can
begin the process.
The more you swirl the container the faster the lye will dissolve. With NaOH it can take from
overnight to a few hours to as little as half-an-hour with lots of swirling (but don't be impatient, wait
for ALL the lye to dissolve). Mixing KOH is much faster, it dissolves in the methanol more easily than
NaOH and can be ready for use in 10 minutes.
4. The process
Using a blender. Use a spare blender you don't need or get a cheap second-hand one -- cheap
because it might not last very long, but it will get you going until you build something better.
Check that the blender seals are in good order. Make sure all parts of the blender are clean and dry and
that the blender components are tightly fitted.
Pre-heat the oil to 55 deg C (130 deg F) and pour it into the blender.
With the blender still switched off, carefully pour the prepared methoxide from the HDPE container
into the oil.
Secure the blender lid tightly and switch on. Lower speeds should be enough. Mix for 20-30 minutes.
Using a mini-processor. Follow the instructions here and improvise where necessary -- there are
many ways of building a processor like this.
Proceed with processing as above, maintain temperature at 55 deg C (130 deg F), process for one hour.
4. Transfer
As soon as the process is completed, pour the mixture from the blender or the mini-processor into the
2-litre PET bottle for settling and screw on the lid tightly. (As the mixture cools it will contract and you
might have to let some more air into the bottle later.)
5. Settling
Allow to settle for 12-24 hours.
Darker-coloured glycerine by-product will collect in a distinct layer at the bottom of the bottle, with a
clear line of separation from the pale liquid above, which is the biodiesel. The biodiesel varies
somewhat in colour according to the oil used (and so does the by-product layer at the bottom) but
usually it's pale and yellowish (used-oil biodiesel can be darker and more amber). The biodiesel might
be clear or it might still be cloudy, which is not a problem. It will clear eventually but there's no need
to wait.
Carefully decant the top layer of biodiesel into a clean jar or PET bottle, taking
care not to get any of the glycerine layer mixed up with the biodiesel. If you do, re-
settle and try again.
6. Quality
Proceed to the wash-test to check the quality. If your biodiesel doesn't pass the test,
here's what to do next.
7. Washing
If it passes the wash-test then wash the rest of the biodiesel. See Washing. For
washing use the two 2-litre PET bottles in succession, with half a litre of tap water
added for each of the three or four washes required. Pierce a small 2mm hole in the
Freshly made
bottom corner of each of the two bottles and cover the hole securely with duct tape. biodiesel, 20
minutes after
Pour the biodiesel into one of the wash bottles. Add the half-litre of fresh water. processing
a. Bubble-washing. See instructions here. Use a small aquarium air-pump and an air-bubbler stone
-- cut the threaded lid off the wash bottles if necessary to get the stone in. After washing and settling,
drain off the water from the bottom of the bottle by removing the duct tape from the hole. Block it
again with your finger when it reaches the biodiesel. Transfer the biodiesel to the second wash bottle,
add fresh water and wash again. Clean the first bottle and replace the duct tape. Repeat until finished.
b. Stirring. See instructions here. If you have a small enough paint stirrer and a variable-speed drill,
cut the lids off the bottles as above to accommodate the stirrer. Stir until oil and water are well mixed
and appear homogenous. Settle for two hours or more, drain as above for bubble-washing, repeat until
finished.
If you don't have a stirrer, don't cut the lids off the wash bottles. Add the biodiesel and the water as
above. Screw the cap on tightly. Turn the bottle on its side and roll it about with your hands until oil
and water are well mixed and homogenous. Settle, drain as above for bubble-washing, repeat until
finished.
8. Drying
When it's clear (not colourless but translucent) it's dry and ready to use. It might
clear quickly, or it might take a few days or up to a week. If you're in a hurry,
heat it gently to 48 deg C (120 deg F) and allow to cool.
9. Congratulations! You have just made high-quality diesel fuel. Say goodbye
to ExxonMobil & Co., you don't need them anymore.
10. Read on!

Next step
Our first biodiesel

This was just an investigative project for us when we made our first biodiesel more than seven years
ago in Hong Kong. Most of the equipment was rough and improvised. Apart from chemicals and some
beakers, syringes and so on, the only thing we bought was a set of scales.
We got some sodium lye draincleaner from a hardware store and about 60 litres of used cooking oil
from Lantau Island's local McDonald's. There were four 16-litre cans of it, a mix of used cooking oil
and residual beef and chicken fats. Two of the tins were solidified, the other two held a gloppy semi-
liquid. We warmed it up a bit on the stove (to about 50 deg C, 122 deg F) and filtered it through a fine
mesh filter, and then again through coffee filter papers, but it was fairly clean -- very little food residue
was left in the filters.
We'd also bought 10 litres of the cheapest new cooking oil we could
find -- we don't know what kind of oil it was, the tins only said
"Cooking Oil" -- and we used this for our first
experiment.
It worked, though two of our first six batches

failed. We've learnt a lot since then. Now it's Used cooking oil from
easy to make high-quality biodiesel every McDonald's.
time without fail. And we don't use open
containers for processing now, and neither should you (see Safety, see
Processors) -- and mix the methanol in closed containers too.
Practices, knowledge, technology, equipment and safety measures have all

improved tremendously in the years since we brewed our first batch, thanks
mainly to the collaborative work of thousands of biofuellers worldwide at the
Simple, safe, efficient

biodiesel processors you
can build cheaply and
easily
Biofuel mailing list and other Internet forums, using the growing body of information at our website
and others.
As a Biofuel list member said in 2002: "I just want to say how important what you all are doing here is.
Closed-system fuel production, on a local or small regional scale, tied to local resources, using
accessible technologies, and dependent on entrepreneurial innovation combined with open-source
information exchange -- it's AWESOME. Keep up the good work everyone, before the planet fries."
Biodiesel from new oil
Make your first test-batch using one litre of new oil (fresh, uncooked). Follow the instructions above.
Check the quality of your biodiesel with this basic quality test.
We had difficulty finding pure methanol in Hong Kong, and eventually paid the very high price of
US$10 per litre for 5 litres from a wholesale chemical supply company. It has to be 99% pure or better.
(See Methanol suppliers)
We used sodium lye drain-cleaner (NaOH, sodium hydroxide) bought in small plastic containers at a
local hardware store, not always very fresh. (We recommend using potassium hydroxide, KOH, instead
of NaOH. See More about lye.)
We used 2 litres of methanol to 10 litres of vegetable oil, and 3.5 grams of NaOH per litre of oil -- 35
grams for 10 litres. (It's better to start with smaller one-litre test batches.)
We had to be quick measuring out the 35 grams of lye required. Lye is very hygroscopic, it absorbs
moisture from the air; summer humidity in Hong Kong is usually about 80% at 30 deg C or more, and
the lye rapidly got wet, making it less effective. (See More about lye.)
We mixed the lye with the 2 litres of methanol in a strong, heatproof glass bottle with a narrow neck to
prevent splashing. It fumed and got hot, and took about 15 minutes to mix. (Use closed containers
for mixing methoxide! See above, Mixing the methoxide.)
This mixture is sodium methoxide, a powerful corrosive base -- take full safety precautions when
working with sodium methoxide, have a source of running water handy.
Meanwhile we'd warmed the 10 litres of new oil in a 20-litre steel oil
drum to about 40 deg C (104 deg F) to thin it so it mixed better (55
deg C, 131 deg F, is a better processing temperature). Don't let it get
too hot or the methanol will evaporate. (Methanol boils at 64.7 deg C,
148.5 deg F.)
We'd made a wooden jig with a portable vice clamped to it holding a

power drill fitted with a paint mixer to stir the contents of the oil drum. Midori checks the temperature of
This did a good job without splashing. (Not advised, it's dangerous to the oil.
use sparking electric motors such as those in drills for processing with open containers. See "Simple 5-
gallon processor" for a much better way.)
Stirring well, we carefully added the sodium methoxide to the oil. The reaction started immediately,
the mixture rapidly transforming into a clear, golden liquid. We kept stirring for an hour, keeping the
temperature constant. Then we let it settle overnight.
The next day we syphoned off 10 litres of biodiesel, leaving two litres of glycerine by-product in the
bottom of the drum.
Biodiesel from waste oil

This is more appealing than using new oil, but it's also more complicated.
First, check for water content. Used oil often has some water in it, and it has to be removed before
processing. See Removing the water, below.
Refined fats and oils have a Free Fatty Acid (FFA) content of less than 0.1%. FFAs are formed in
cooking the oil, the longer and hotter the oil has been cooked the more FFAs it will contain. FFAs
interfere with the transesterification process for making biodiesel. With waste oil you have to use more
lye catalyst to neutralise the FFAs. The extra lye turns the FFAs into soap which drops out of the
reaction along with the glycerine by-product.
It's essential to titrate the oil to find out how much FFA it contains so you can calculate exactly how
much extra lye will be required to neutralise it. This means determining the pH -- the acid-alkaline
level (pH7 is neutral, lower values are increasingly acidic, higher than 7 is alkaline). An electronic pH
meter is best, but you can also use pH test strips (or litmus paper), or, better than test strips,
phenolphthalein solution (from a chemicals supplier).
You can also use red cabbage juice, which changes from red in a strong acid, to pink, purple, blue, and
finally green in a strong alkali, or one of the other plant-based pH indicators. See Natural test papers
-- Cabbage, Brazil, Dahlia, Elderberry, Indigo, Litmus, Rose, Rhubarb, Turmeric.
We didn't have a pH meter when we started making biodiesel in 1999 so we used phenolphthalein
solution. Phenolphthalein is colourless up to pH 8.3, then it turns pink (or rather magenta), and red at
pH 10.4. When it just starts to turn pink and stays that way for 15 seconds it's reading pH 8.5, which is
the measure you want.
Phenolphthalein lasts about a year. It's sensitive to light, store it in a cool, dark place.
Don't be put off or frightened away by titration. It's not difficult, thousands of non-chemist
biodiesel makers have learnt how to do it without difficulty and use it every time they make biodiesel.
Just follow the directions, step by step. See also More about lye, Better titration, Joe Street's
titrator, Accurate measurements.
Titration
Dissolve 1 gm of lye (KOH or NaOH) in 1 litre of distilled water to make 0.1% w/v lye solution
(weight-to-volume).
In a smaller beaker, dissolve 1 ml of the oil in 10 ml of pure isopropyl alcohol. Warm the beaker gently
by standing it in some hot water, stir until all the oil dissolves in the alcohol and turns clear.
(Chopsticks make good stirrers for titration.)
Add 2 drops of phenolphthalein solution.
Using a graduated syringe or a pipette, add 0.1% lye solution drop by

drop to the oil-alcohol-phenolphthalein mixture, stirring all the time. It
might turn a bit cloudy, keep stirring. Keep on carefully adding the lye
solution until the mixture just starts to turn pink (magenta) and stays
that way for 15 seconds. Keith checks the pH of the waste
oil.
Take the number of millilitres of 0.1% lye solution you used and add
the basic amount of lye needed to process fresh oil -- 3.5 grams for NaOH or 4.9 grams for (pure)
KOH. This is the number of grams of lye you'll need per litre of the oil you titrated. (Don't worry that
you seem to be adding millilitres to grams, that's the way it works.)
Our first titration took 6 ml of 0.1% NaOH solution (not very good oil), so we used 6 + 3.5 = 9.5
grams of NaOH per litre of oil: 95 grams for 10 litres.
NOTE: Novices should avoid poor-quality oil like this for their first test-batches with used oil. Find a
source of oil that titrates at 2 to 2.5 ml of 0.1% NaOH solution, not more than 3 ml. Leave overcooked
oils with high titration levels for later when you have more experience. Again, make small one-litre test
batches before processing larger batches of WVO.
Proceed as with new oil, see above: measure out the lye and mix it with the methanol to make sodium
methoxide or potassium hydroxide -- it will get slightly hotter and take a little longer to mix as there's
more NaOH this time. Make sure the NaOH is completely dissolved in the methanol.
Carefully add the methoxide to the warmed oil while stirring, and mix for an hour. Settle overnight,
then syphon or decant off the biodiesel.
Check the quality of your biodiesel with this basic quality test.
The first five times we did this, using 10 litres of waste oil each time, we got biodiesel (a bit darker
than the new oil product) and glycerine three times, and twice we got jelly. The answer is to be more
careful with the titration: do it two or three times, just to be sure. With poor-quality oils that have high
titration levels do bracket tests as well. Do everything you can to improve the accuracy of your
measurements so you get consistent results. Read on, and you'll learn how to make high-quality
biodiesel every time, without fail. (It's a LONG time since we made jelly!)
The production rate was less than with new oil, ending with 8-9 litres of biodiesel instead of 10. With
care and experience the production rate improves.
Moving on to bigger things

When you're confident that you can get good results every time, even using oil from different sources,
then it's time to scale up the process to provide your fuel needs. Now that you have a feel for the
process and know what to expect, you'll have a much better idea of what sort of processor you want
than if you'd started off building the processor (as many do) rather than learning the process first.
"Understanding of the process is vital to operate the plant." -- Prof. P.V. Pannir Selvam,
Technology Center, Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande
do Norte (UFRN), Brazil, Biofuel mailing list, 15 Apr 2007
See Biodiesel processors.
However, one-litre test batches are not just something for beginners. It's a basic technique you'll always
use. Many experienced biodiesel makers do test batches with each batch of oil. Many not only titrate
the oil every time to calculate the right amount of lye to use, they also do "bracket" tests in sequence,
followed by wash tests. You learn a lot that way, your fuel gets better, life gets easier.
In fact life is already easier -- people who start off making 40-gallon batches often never learn the
accuracy and discipline that comes from making one-litre test batches first. Their fuel quality suffers
for it, and when they encounter that inevitable "problem batch", they suffer for it too.
But if you've followed the instructions here carefully, you'll be familiar with all the variables, you'll
have good methodology, and you'll be in a much better position to trouble-shoot a problem batch
successfully.
Keep a Biodiesel Journal -- make notes, keep records. Get some small glass jars and keep samples of
all your batches, clearly labelled and cross-referenced to the notes in your journal. You won't regret it.
When scaling up from small test-batches to a full-sized processor, be aware that the process will
probably need some adjusting. All the various processing methods use averages and approximations
because processors vary so widely. Blenders especially agitate much faster than any full-scale
processor, a real processor will probably take longer to achieve the same result. Use the fuel quality
tests to fine-tune it to your particular processor. See Scaling up.
Removing the water

Water in the oil will interfere with the lye, especially if you use too much lye, and you'll end up with
jelly. Test first for water content -- heat half a litre or so of the oil in a saucepan on the stove and
monitor the temperature with a thermometer. If there's water in it it will start to "snap, crackle and pop"
by 50 deg C (120 deg F) or so. If it's still not crackling by 60 deg C (140 deg F) there's no need to
dewater it.
See Mike Pelly's recommendations: Removing the water.

Here's another way, from Aleks Kac -- it uses less energy and doesn't risk forming more Free Fatty
Acids (see below) by overheating. Heat the oil to 60 deg C (140 deg F), maintain the temperature for
15 minutes and then pour the oil into a settling tank. Let it settle for at least 24 hours. Make sure you
never empty the settling vessel more than 90%.
Here's what Biofuel mailing list member Dale Scroggins says about water removal:
Water in vegetable oil can exist as free water, which will eventually settle to the bottom of a
vessel; as suspended droplets, which may settle if the oil is heated, or the droplets are
coalesced; and as water in solution with other impurities in the oil. Free water is the easiest to
remove. The droplets are removed most efficiently by coalescing and draining. Suspended
droplets that cannot be coalesced and water in solution are more problematic.
Boiling off the water is more difficult than it appears on the surface. Colligative properties of
solutions (and some mixtures) can make removal of the last traces of water almost impossible.
Water mixed with oil will not boil at the same temperature and pressure as pure water. As water
is removed, more heat or lower pressure will be required to remove more water. If the oil
contains salts or semi-soluble fatty acids, distillation is even more difficult.
As the percentage of water in the solution decreases (its molar fraction) its vapor pressure will
continue to drop. Lowering pressure in the system alone may be insufficient to sustain
vaporization when the solution becomes concentrated (the molar fraction of the solute greatly
exceeds that of the solvent). Results will vary depending upon the nature of the water-soluble
impurities in the oil. Few solutions are ideal, in terms of Raoult's law, and in used vegetable oil,
there is no way to know what solutes are in the oil.
The important thing is how well-used, or overused, the oil is. Titration will tell you that. The higher the
titration result, the more water it's likely to contain, and the more difficult it will probably be to remove
the water.
Start with heating to 60 deg C and settling, as Aleks Kac recommends, and if that doesn't give
satisfactory results, try boiling it off, as Mike Pelly recommends. Then try processing small test
batches of a litre or less first. If you still have difficulties, try to find better-quality oil.
Washing
Biodiesel must be washed before use to remove soaps, excess methanol, residual lye, free glycerine
and other contaminants. Some people (fewer and fewer of them) say washing isn't necessary, arguing
that the small amounts of contaminants cause no engine damage.
Read what the Fuel Injection Equipment (FIE) Manufacturers (Delphi, Stanadyne, Denso,
Bosch) have to say about these contaminants:
Summary -- html
Full document -- Acrobat file, 104kb
See also: Determining the Influence of Contaminants on Biodiesel Properties, Jon H. Van
Gerpen et al., Iowa State University, July 31, 1996 -- 12,000-word report on contaminants and their
effects. Acrobat file, 2.1Mb:
http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/reportsdatabase/reports/gen/gen014.pdf
Myth:
> I did notice that a lot of the chemistry in the book was wrong.
> His main argument seemed to be against losing the energy in
> the methanol that was washed out.
The "energy" does you no good if your particular thermodynamic cycle can't take advantage of
it. What is the cetane rating of methanol?
-- Ken Provost, Biofuel mailing list, "Re: washing?"
Quite so. The cetane rating of methanol is only 3, very low. Low cetane-number fuel in a diesel causes
ignition delay and makes the engine knock. The high-speed diesel engines in cars and trucks are
designed to use fuels with cetane numbers of about 50. The US biodiesel standard specifies a cetane
number higher than 47, the EU standard specifies higher than 51. The methanol in unwashed biodiesel
doesn't "make a great fuel anyway". It's also very corrosive. The EU biodiesel standard specifies less
than 0.2% methanol content.
Quality biodiesel is well-washed biodiesel. Filtering it is no use, and letting it settle for a few weeks
won't help much either. Anyway washing the fuel is easy.
See Washing
Using biodiesel
You don't have to convert the engine to run it on biodiesel, but you might need to make some
adjustments and you should check a few things.
Petroleum diesel leaves a lot of dirt in the tank and the fuel system. Biodiesel is a good solvent -- it
tends to free the dirt and clean it out. Be sure to check the fuel filters regularly at first. Start off with a
new fuel filter.
If a car has been left standing for a long time with petroleum diesel fuel in the tank the inside of the
tank may have rusted (water content is a common problem with petro-diesel fuel). Biodiesel will free
up the rust, and it could clog the particle filter inside the tank. At worst the car simply stops, starved of
fuel. It's not a very common problem, but it happens. See: Biodiesel and your vehicle --
Compatability: Filters.
A common warning is that biodiesel, especially 100% biodiesel, will rot any natural or butyl rubber
parts in the fuel system, whether fuel lines or injector pump seals, and that they must first be replaced
with resistant parts made of Viton. But rubber parts in diesel engine fuel systems have been rare or
non-existent since the early 1980s -- it seldom happens, and when it does happen it's not catastrophic,
you have plenty of warning and it's easily fixed. See: Biodiesel and your vehicle -- Compatability:
Rubber.
See Biodiesel and your vehicle

Safety
Please read this whole section right to the end.
Wear proper protective gloves, apron, and eye protection and do not inhale any vapours. Methanol can
cause blindness and death, and you don't even have to drink it, it's absorbed through the skin. Sodium
hydroxide can cause severe burns and death. Together these two chemicals form sodium methoxide.
This is an extremely caustic chemical.
These are dangerous chemicals -- treat them as such! Gloves should be chemical-proof with cuffs that
can be pulled up over long sleeves -- no shorts or sandals. Always have running water handy when
working with them. The workspace must be thoroughly ventilated. No children or pets allowed.
Organic vapor cartridge respirators are more or less useless against methanol vapors. Professional
advice is not to use organic vapor cartridges for longer than a few hours maximum, or not to use them
at all. Only a supplied-air system will do (SCBA -- Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus).
The best advice is not to expose yourself to the fumes in the first place. The main danger is when the
methanol is hot -- when it's cold or at "room temperature" it fumes very little if at all and it's easily
avoided, just keep it at arm's length whenever you open the container. Don't use "open" reactors --
biodiesel processors should be closed to the atmosphere, with no fumes escaping. All methanol
containers should be kept tightly closed anyway to prevent water absorption from the air.
We transfer methanol from its container to the methoxide mixing container by pumping it, with no
exposure. This is easily arranged, and an ordinary small aquarium air-pump will do. The methoxide is
mixed like this -- Methoxide the easy way, which also happens to be the safe way. The mixture gets
quite hot at first, but the container is kept closed and no fumes escape. When mixed, the methoxide is
again pumped into the (closed) biodiesel processor with the aquarium air-pump -- there's no exposure
to fumes, and it's added slowly, which is optimal for the process and also for safety. See Adding the
methoxide.
Once again, making biodiesel is safe if you're careful and sensible -- nothing about life is safe if you're
not careful and sensible! "Sensible" also mean not over-reacting, as some people do: "I'd like to make
biodiesel but I'm frightened of all those terrible poisons." In fact they're common enough household
chemicals. Lye is sold in supermarkets and hardware stores as a drain-cleaner, there's probably a can of
it under the sink in most households. Methanol is the main or only ingredient in barbecue fuel or
fondue fuel, sold in supermarkets and chain stores as "stove fuel" and used at the dinner table. It's also
the main ingredient in the fuel kids use in their model aero engines. So get it in perspective: be careful
with these chemicals -- be careful with ALL chemicals -- but there's no need to be frightened of them.
For fire risks, see Hazards
More about methanol

Question: Just how dangerous is methanol?
Fact: Methanol is a poisonous chemical that can blind you or kill you, and as well as drinking it you
can absorb it through the skin and breathe in the fumes.
Question: How much does it take to kill you?
Short answer: Anything from five teaspoons to more than half a pint, but nobody really knows.
Fact: Human susceptibility to the acute effects of methanol intoxication is extremely variable. The
minimum dose of methanol causing permanent visual defects is unknown. The lethal dose of methanol
for humans is not known for certain. The minimum lethal dose of methanol in the absence of medical
treatment is put at between 0.3 and 1 g/kg.
That means it's thought to take at least 20 grams of methanol to kill an average-sized person, or 25 ml,
five teaspoonsful. Or it might need more than three times as much, 66 grams, 17 teaspoonsful, or
maybe more, and even then it'll only kill you if you can't reach a doctor within a day or two, and
maybe it still won't kill you.
But it definitely can kill you. If you drink five teaspoonsful of pure methanol you'll need medical
treatment even if it doesn't kill you. Yet people have survived doses of 10 times as much -- a quarter of
a litre, half a pint -- without any permanent harm. But others haven't survived much lower doses.
Getting rapid medical attention is crucial, though the poisoning effects can be slow to develop.
Authorities advise that swallowing up to 1.3 grams or 1.7 ml of methanol or inhaling methanol vapour
concentrations below 200 ppm should be harmless for most people. No severe effects have been
reported in humans of methanol vapour exposures well above 200 ppm.
Out of 1,601 methanol poisonings reported in the US in 1987 the death rate was 0.375%, or 1 in 267
cases. It might have been only 1 in more than a thousand cases because most cases weren't reported.
Most cases were caused by drinking badly made moonshine, which is a worldwide problem.
Fiction: "Methanol is ... a very active chemical against which the human body has no means of
defence. It is absorbed easily through the skin and there is no means of elimination from the body, so
levels of methanol dissolved in the blood accumulate."
That's from a British website trying to sell Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) solvent additives by
frightening people with the alleged perils of biodiesel. See The SVO vs biodiesel argument
Fact: 30 litres of fruit juice will probably contain up to 20 grams of methanol, near the official
minimum lethal dose. Methanol is in the food we eat, in fresh fruit and vegetables, beer and wine, diet
drinks, artificial sweeteners.
Not only that, methanol occurs naturally in humans. It's a natural component of blood, urine, saliva and
the air you breathe out. It's there anyway even if you've never been exposed to chemical methanol or
its fumes.
Methanol is eliminated from the body as a normal matter of course via the urine and exhaled air and by
metabolism. Getting rid of it takes from a few hours for low doses to a day or two for higher doses.
Some proportion of a dose of methanol just goes straight through, excreted by the lungs and kidneys
unchanged. The normal background-level quantities of methanol in humans are eliminated and
replenished all the time as a matter of course.
Fiction: It's largely biodiesel's methanol content that's being blamed when the same British SVO
website charges that biodiesel is wasteful and environmentally irresponsible.
Fact: Methanol is readily biodegradable in the environment under both aerobic and anaerobic
conditions (with and without oxygen) in a wide variety of conditions.
Generally 80% of methanol in sewage systems is biodegraded within 5 days.
Methanol is a normal growth substrate for many soil microorganisms, which completely degrade
methanol to carbon dioxide and water.
Methanol is of low toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial organisms and it is not bioaccumulated. (It's toxic
mainly to humans and monkeys.)
Environmental effects due to exposure to methanol are unlikely. Unless released in high
concentrations, methanol would not be expected to persist or bioaccumulate in the environment. Low
levels of release would not be expected to result in adverse environmental effects.
Fiction: A European SVO fuel website using similar anti-biodiesel tactics claims: "Biodiesel is a
chemically altered plant oil. However the process to chemically change the structure of Pure Plant Oil
is a very costly operation and requires a lot of energy, as it removes the glycerine substituting it by
methanol as well as adding other chemicals, making the end-product poisonous and equally hazardous
as fossil diesel fuel."
Fact: There is no free methanol in washed biodiesel. All the national standards require washing.
According to US EPA studies methyl esters biodiesel is less toxic than table salt and more
biodegradable than sugar. It has none of the toxic or environmental hazards of fossil diesel fuel.
To put it all in some perspective, methanol is the main or only ingredient in barbecue fuel or fondue
fuel, sold in supermarkets and chain stores as "stove fuel" and used at the dinner table. It's also the
main ingredient in the fuel kids use in their model aero engines.
Yes, methanol is a dangerous chemical, but quite how dangerous it may be is a little hard to say, and it
causes surprisingly little harm. If you're careful and sensible and treat it with caution it won't harm you
either. Many thousands of biodiesel homebrewers worldwide have been using it for years without
serious mishap.
In our view, the difference between methanol and the really dangerous chemicals is that although
methanol is poisonous, it's a natural chemical, you'd find it in the Garden of Eden too. It's not
something nature's simply never heard of before and has no way of handling and neither do you, unlike
too many of the 100,000-odd "new" chemicals now in use which aren't readily biodegradable and do
accumulate, and spread, and keep being implicated in cancer clusters and bizarre sexual distortions of
frogs and so on and on and on.
There are no reports of carcinogenic, genotoxic, reproductive or developmental effects in humans due
to methanol exposure. Its environmental effects if any are minimal and short-lived.
Biodieselers can and do use methanol safely and the biodiesel fuel we make from it is safe and clean.
-- With information from: United Nations Environment Programme / International Labour

Organisation / World Health Organization: International Programme On Chemical
Safety, Environmental Health Criteria 196 - Methanol, from IPCS INCHEM, "Chemical Safety
Information from Intergovernmental Organizations", in cooperation with the Canadian Centre for
Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS)
http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc196.htm
See also:
Safety (MSDS) data for methyl alcohol

http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/ME/methyl_alcohol.html
Methanol MSDS
http://www.bu.edu/es/labsafety/ESMSDSs/MSMethanol.html
Methanol as a plant nutrient
"Methanol is a fixed-carbon nutrient source for plants." -- From "Agriculture and Methanol",
Chapter 7, Methanol Production and Use, ed. Wu-Hsun Cheng and Harold H. Kung, ISBN 0-8247-
9223-8, 1994 (10th printing)
"Methanol treatments of C3 plants [most food crops] have been found to result in growth
improvement... As a plant source of carbon, methanol is a liquid concentrate: 1 cc of methanol
provides the equivalent fixed-carbon substrate of over 2,000,000 cc of ambient air... Methanol
treatments are a means of placing carbon directly into the foliage... The application of 10-100%
methanol to some crops increased photosynthetic productivity... The uptake of methanol by
plants in light leaves no significant residual methanol above baseline as detectable by
chromotography within 15-30 minutes of penetration. Treatment with methanol is therefore an
inexpensive, safe, and effective means of providing plants with a source of fixed carbon and
carbon dioxide... An economical means of inhibition of photorespiration has been sought for
decades, and methanol may well provide the solution... The control of photorespiration across
the food crops of the world could double yields." -- Greg Harbican and Peter G., Biofuel
mailing list, 8 Sep 2004. For discussion see:
http://snipurl.com/j94f
Methanol and Plants
http://snipurl.com/j94e
Use for wash water - methanol
Note however that the authors of Methanol Production and Use caution that the application of
methanol to crops still requires further study before we all "rush out to spray methanol".
Most of the excess methanol used in the biodiesel process ends up in the glycerine by-product layer,
and the rest stays in the biodiesel. If you don't reclaim it for re-use (you should!) the portion that's in
the biodiesel gets washed out when you wash the fuel, mostly with the first wash. The first wash-water
probably won't contain more than 5-6% methanol (as well as some sodium or potassium lye and some
soap). You could try spraying it on half a small patch of weeds and don't spray the other half to see
what happens. Choose a bright sunny day.
Make your own biodiesel (contd.)

Back to Page 1
How much methanol?

More about lye
Using KOH
Basic titration
Better titration
pH meters
Phenolphthalein
High FFA levels
Deacidifying WVO
No titration?
Separating glycerine/FFAs
PET bottle mixers
Viscosity testing
Iodine Values
-- High Iodine Values
-- Talking about the weather
-- Summary
Hydrogenated oil, shortening, margarine
Quality
Quality testing
Cetane Numbers
-- standards and the homebrewer
-- standard testing
Storing biodiesel
Home heating
Lamps and stoves
Other uses
Fats and oils -- resources
Diesel information

Making ethyl-esters biodiesel using ethanol is a tricky process, not as simple as making methyl esters
with methanol. It's not for novices -- learn how to make biodiesel with methanol first.
Methods and recipes for ethyl-esters biodiesel are available here, along with a How-To from a master
home-brewer who has been making and using his own ethyl-esters biodiesel for years.
See: Ethanol biodiesel

Depending on the kind of oil you're using, it takes from 110-160 millilitres of methanol per litre of oil
to form the methyl esters molecule. But you also need to use an excess of methanol to push the
conversion process towards completion -- the total used is usually 20% and more of the volume of oil
used, 200 ml per litre or more.
Much of the excess methanol can be recovered after the process for reuse, simply by boiling it off in a
closed container with an outlet leading to a simple condensor.
Methanol boils at 64.7 deg C, 148.5 deg F, though it starts vaporizing well before it reaches boiling
point.
Unlike ethanol, methanol does not form an azeotrope with water and relatively pure methanol can be
recovered -- pure enough to reuse in the next batch.
The methanol can be recovered at the end of the process, or just from the glycerine by-product layer,
since at least 70% of the excess methanol collects in the by-product and it's that much less material to
heat. See Methanol condenser.
Recovering the methanol at the end of the process seems convenient because it's already hot, and you
can get the methanol back from both the fuel and the glycerine by-product at the same time. But it can
push the reaction into reverse, converting the biodiesel back into glycerides. Prof. Michael Allen
says:
Removing methanol from the reactor product is a no-no because it reverses the reaction you
have just carried out. Without the excess methanol, the ester and the glycerol react to provide
an equilibrium mix which is less than desirable. That excess methanol serves a very real
purpose in pushing the equilibrium yield up. But once the glycerol is completely separated, the
reverse reaction cannot take place and we can get back the excess methanol.
Some people do it before separating it anyway (they often use a vacuum). We'd rather not risk ending
up with anything less than good process completion. It's best to recover the methanol separately from
the unwashed biodiesel and the glycerine by-product.
For the by-product, heat to 65-70 deg C (149-158 deg F). As the methanol evaporates, leaving an ever-
lower proportion of methanol in the mixture, the boiling point will increase, so you'll have to keep
raising the temperature to keep the methanol vaporizing. It goes up to 100 deg C (212 deg F) or more,
and then it starts to froth and you have to stop or you'll get frothy brown by-product in your methanol
condensate. But the bulk of the methanol should have been recovered by then.
If you have a market for potassium fertiliser and/or industrial-grade glycerine (about 80-90% pure)
which makes it worth the cost of the phosphoric acid you'll need, it's best to separate the by-product
into its components first. Adding the phosphoric acid separates the soaps (FFAs) from the glycerin and
frees the catalyst, but it won't separate without the methanol. After separation the methanol is left in the
glycerine fraction and can be removed then.
It's probably more efficient to use flash evaporators to recover the methanol from either the biodiesel
or the separated by-product.
More about lye

The catalyst used in transesterification of vegetable or animal fats and oils is lye -- either sodium
hydroxide (NaOH, caustic soda), or potassium hydroxide (KOH). NaOH might be easier to get and
cheaper to use, KOH is easier to use and it mixes with methanol much more easily. KOH does an all-
round better job than NaOH.
Keep it dry
Lye is hygroscopic -- it absorbs water from the atmosphere. So make

sure you get fresh lye, and keep the container tightly sealed.
When weighing it out, don't leave it exposed to the air for any longer
than necessary. In humid weather we weigh it out into plastic bags,
one on either side of the scale to equalise the extra weight of the bag.
As soon as it's weighed out, close the container, close the bag, and add From a faulty batch of lye (rare) --
the semi-translucent half-pearls
the lye to the methanol as quickly as possible. are fresh, but the chalky white
lump on the right is carbonated.
If the weather's really damp, you can do the whole weighing process After only a second or two
entirely inside a big clear plastic bag. If you feel it still might be too exposed to the air the fresh half-
moist even inside the bag, put some lye in an open container inside the pearls are already absorbing a
sheen of moisture.
bag to absorb the moisture first.
We buy 85% KOH in 20 kg lots, 44 lb, and transfer it from it's tough airtight clear plastic bag this way:
Everything goes inside a large clear plastic bag -- the sealed bag of KOH, 10 empty 500 g HDPE
plastic containers with wide mouths, bungs and tight-fitting lids, a little KOH in another 500 g HDPE
container with the lid off to absorb moisture, some tough cord, and a pair of scissors. Then use two
knots of cord to seal the large bag closed.
We cut two holes in the side of the large bag and taped a resistant plastic glove into each of them. With
your hands in the gloves, it's easy to work efficiently and safely transferring the KOH inside the large
bag, with no water present.
When it's done, press all the air out of the KOH bag and tie it closed with two knots of the cord. Make
sure all the filled HDPE containers are properly closed. Take your hands out of the gloves, cut the
knots closing the big bag, take out all the HDPE bottles, the scissors and the remaining cord. Press all
the air out of the big bag, and tie it closed with two knots of cord.
Lye also absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and becomes carbonated if not stored properly.
Carbonated lye is chalky white, fresh lye is almost translucent. You can still use carbonated lye if it's
not too severe, but you'll have to use a bit more. Add about 25%, or better, check it against a titration
with fresh lye.
Where to get it
You can get both NaOH and KOH from soapmakers' suppliers and from chemicals suppliers. NaOH
might be more readily available and cheaper than KOH, but try to find KOH, it's worth the effort.
Lye usually comes in flakes and 5mm pearls or half-pearls, or small pearls (1-2 mm), which with
NaOH are usually 99%+, but might be more expensive. Any of these will do if the purity is about 96%
or better for NaOH. In the US, Red Devil lye is pure NaOH, if you can still get it (it's no longer
manufactured).
Don't use Drano or ZEP drain-cleaners or equivalents with blue or purple granules or any-coloured
granules, it's only about half NaOH and it contains aluminium -- it won't work for biodiesel. It's best to
get your lye from soapmakers or chemicals suppliers. Suppliers for schools might have smaller
quantities.
Using KOH
KOH is not as strong as NaOH -- use 1.4 times as much KOH (actually 1.4025 times).
Titration is basically the same.
You can use either KOH solution or NaOH solution for titration. Unlike NaOH, your KOH probably
won't be pure, but as long as you use the same strength of KOH for both the titration solution and the
reaction it won't make any difference.
Mix the KOH solution the same as for NaOH: add 1 g of KOH to 1 litre of water. Or do it the Better
titration way. For each 1 millilitre of solution used in the titration add 1 g of KOH to the basic
amount.
You can also use the usual 0.1% w/v NaOH solution and convert the end result for KOH, see below.
Instead of the basic 3.5 grams of NaOH per litre of oil, use 3.5 x 1.4 = 4.9 grams of KOH (4.90875).
So, if your titration was 3 ml, use 3 + 4.9 = 7.9 g KOH per litre of oil.
One more complication: KOH is generally not as pure as NaOH. KOH is usually 92%, 90% or 85%
pure -- check the label. We use half-pearls assayed at 85%, with good and reliable results. KOH is
available at 99% strength, but it's hard to find and it's expensive, and anyway 92% or 85% work just
fine.
Adjust the basic lye quantity according to the strength of the KOH: the basic 4.9 grams of KOH at
100% strength would be:
85% KOH -- 5.8 (5.775) grams

90% KOH -- 5.5 (5.454) grams
92% KOH -- 5.3 (5.336) grams
To substitute KOH for the 3.1 grams of NaOH per litre of oil used in the acid-base process:
85% KOH -- 5.1 (5.115) grams

90% KOH -- 4.8 (4.831) grams
92% KOH -- 4.7 (4.726) grams
To convert NaOH quantities for KOH:
For 85% KOH use 165% of the NaOH amount (x 1.65).

For 90% KOH use 155.83% of the NaOH amount (x 1.56).
Example: You're using 85% KOH and the titration needed 3 ml of KOH solution to bring the pH to
8.5.
Number of grams of KOH required for the reaction:
Basic amount: 5.8 g KOH (5.775)

Titration result: 3 ml
Add: 3 g KOH
Total: 8.8 g (8.775) of 85% KOH required per litre of WVO.
Using 0.1% NaOH solution for titration and the same WVO as above: the titration result is lower, it
only needs 1.8 ml to reach pH8.5. (Actually 1.82 ml, according to the calculation.)
Basic amount: 3.5 g NaOH

Titration result: 1.8 ml (1.82)
Add: 1.8 g NaOH (1.82)
Total: 5.3 g NaOH (5.32)
Convert for 85% KOH:
5.3 (5.32) x 1.65 = 8.8 g (8.778) of 85% KOH per litre of WVO.
We usually use NaOH solution for titration and convert the result for our 85% KOH, but in practice
NaOH solution and KOH solution both work equally well.
One reason for preferring NaOH solution is that it's usually the standard used in describing FFA
content of different oils -- 2 ml titration WVO or 5 ml titration WVO invariably refers to ml of 0.1%
NaOH solution, unless otherwise specified. In the example above, the WVO would be described as 1.8
ml titration WVO.
KOH dissolves in methanol much faster and more easily than NaOH does, and doesn't "clump"
together as NaOH can do. When you use KOH the glycerine by-product is liquid and won't solidify.
KOH is easier to use than NaOH. It's more flexible and adaptible and it gives generally better results.
We seldom use NaOH (except for titration).

It requires 3.5 g of NaOH lye or the equivalent of KOH (see above) per litre of oil as catalyst to
transesterify new, unused oil.
This makes standard-quality biodiesel within the usual processing parameters of methanol quantity,
agitation, processing duration and processing temperature.
Fresh cooking oil contains a standardised amount of Free Fatty Acids (FFAs), which can slow or stop
the transesterification process. The lye is alkaline and neutralises the FFA by turning it into soap, which
drops out with the glycerine layer, and with 3.5 grams of NaOH per litre of oil there's enough left over
to catalyse the biodiesel reaction.
Used cooking oil (WVO) needs more NaOH than new oil, not to serve as the catalyst but to neutralise
the extra FFAs formed in cooking the oil. The hotter and longer it's cooked, the more FFA it contains,
and the more lye is needed to neutralise it.
You have to titrate the oil to determine the FFA content and, from that, how much extra lye will be
required. Titration measures the pH of the oil, that is, the acid-alkaline level (pH7 is neutral, lower
values are increasingly acidic, higher than 7 is increasingly alkaline, or "base"). From this you can
calculate how much extra lye will be needed to neutralize the extra FFA.
Too much lye will make extra soap, with very alkaline biodiesel that's difficult to wash, with loss of
production, or it can ruin the reaction when the ratio of soap to biodiesel reaches a point where the
whole batch turns into "glop soap".
Too little lye will mean some of the oil is left unreacted. See below:
Good-quality oil that hasn't been cooked too much or overheated is quite forgiving, but with poor-
quality WVO with a high Free Fatty Acid (FFA) content, accurate titration is more important. The
higher the FFA level, the more sensitive the reaction, the more precise you have to be with titration and
everything else, the more reactive agents you'll need -- and the lower will be the production rate.
Basic titration
For processing used oil, it's essential to titrate the oil to determine the Free Fatty Acid (FFA) content
and calculate how much extra lye will be required to neutralise it.
An electronic pH meter is best, but you can also use phenolphthalein solution (from a chemicals
supplier).
Dissolve 1 gram of pure sodium hydroxide lye (NaOH) in 1 litre of distilled or de-ionized water (0.1%
w/v lye solution) (weight to volume).
In a smaller beaker, dissolve 1 ml of dewatered WVO oil in 10 ml of pure isopropyl alcohol. Warm the
beaker gently by standing it in some hot water, stir until all the oil dissolves in the alcohol and the
mixture turns clear. If you're using phenolphthalein, add 2 drops of phenolphthalein solution.
Using a graduated syringe, add the 0.1% lye solution drop by drop to the oil-alcohol-phenolphthalein
solution, stirring all the time. It might turn a bit cloudy, keep stirring. Keep on carefully adding the lye
solution until the solution stays pink (actually magenta) for 15 seconds.
Take the number of millilitres of 0.1% lye solution you used and add 3.5 (the basic amount of lye
needed for fresh oil). This is the number of grams of lye you'll need per litre of oil.
With a pH meter or test strips, use the same procedure without adding the phenolphthalein. Add the
0.1% lye solution drop by drop as before until the pH reaches 8.5.
Potassium hydroxide (KOH) can also be used for titration, see Using KOH, above.
Better titration
Unless you have a very accurate scale, it's not easy to measure exactly 1 gram of lye. It's much easier
to measure 5 g accurately than 1 g, so mix 5 g of lye with 500 millilitres of distilled or de-ionized
water to make a stock solution.
Before titration measure out 5 ml of the stock solution, add 45 ml of distilled or de-ionized water. This
makes a 0.1% w/v lye solution.
It's also not easy to measure exactly 1 millilitre of oil. Instead of the usual 1 ml of oil and 10 ml of
isopropyl alcohol, mix 4 ml of oil in 40 ml of isopropyl alcohol in a glass beaker.
Warm the mixture gently by standing the beaker in hot water, stir until all the oil disperses and it
becomes a clear mixture.
Then titrate as usual, measuring millilitres of stock solution used. When it reaches pH8.5 count up the
number of millilitres used as usual and divide by 4. This will give a much more precise measurement.
To save on isopropyl alcohol, use 2 ml of oil in 20 ml of isopropyl and divide the results by two -- still
twice as accurate.
When "newbies" have problems making their first test batches and it doesn't pass the quality tests it's
most often because of inaccurate measurements, or they didn't follow the instructions closely enough.
Here's some general advice on being more accurate.
Weights
Truly accurate scales are expensive, unless you can pick up a second-hand set in good condition. Even
then, it pays to check your scales for accuracy.
A good way of doing this is with new coins. Find out from your bank, or the Central Bank, what the
weight is (in grams) of the coins in your country. If you get a full set of new coins you can use them in
combination to check the accuracy of a wide range of weights.
With a balance-type scale (two sides with a fulcrum between them), get two full sets of coins, and
figure out different combinations to put on each side; you should also be able to use this to achieve
smaller gradations than your scale allows: aim to measure a tenth of a gram, 0.1 grams, preferably less
-- 0.01 grams is best.
At 0.1-gram accuracy, with a one-litre test batch, measuring the 3.5 grams of NaOH required might
give you 3.4 grams or 3.6 grams instead, or anything in between the two. With fresh oil this margin of
error or even more won't matter, if you get everything else right you'll have good results.
That margin of error won't matter with test batches of used cooking oil (WVO) either, IF you heed the
advice to avoid oils with titration levels higher than about 3 ml of 0.1% NaOH solution for your first
test batches.
WVO with higher titration levels and higher levels of Free Fatty Acids will not be so forgiving, there's
much less margin for error -- leave them for later when you're more experienced.
Small test-batches of high-FFA oils with titration levels higher than 6 or 7 ml will be easier with scales
accurate to 0.01 grams and might need bracket tests as well, and you'll probably do better with the two-
stage acid-base process, which is also not for novices.
Volumes
If you have a standard millilitre measure that you know is accurate, use it to check all your various
measuring flasks, syringes, pipettes, etc. Otherwise, check them against each other. With syringes or
pipettes, or whatever you use to add the 1 ml of oil and the 0.1% lye solution to the titration mixture,
you should be able to measure 0.1 ml accurately or better.
Smaller syringes are more accurate for titration, 5 ml syringes are a bit big, 2.5 ml will do. We use 1 ml
clear plastic syringes, long and narrow, marked in tenths and tenths-of-tenths of 1 ml -- 0.01 ml. The
measurement scale is 2-1/4" long (5.5 cm) so it's easy to read. They're cheap, you can get them from
hobby shops (you don't need the needles).
Work with good lighting and on a white surface. First draw the syringe plunger back about 1/8" (2
mm) to take in some air. Then insert the end into the oil or NaOH solution and fill the syringe. Hold it
up level with your eye, preferably with a well-lit white wall in the background, keep it vertical, and
carefully empty a few drops, drop by drop, until the bottom of the surface meniscus is level with the 1
ml mark. When emptying the syringe into the titration vessel, don't empty it completely -- the one
millilitre volume ends at the end of the scale, which leaves a little extra in the spout. Empty the syringe
only to the end of the scale, with the bottom of the surface meniscus level with the 0 mark.
Use measuring flasks the same way. When filling them hold them vertical, with a well-lit white wall in
the background, and with the gradation mark for the quantity you want level with your eye. Measure
from the bottom of the surface meniscus.
Always keep your glassware and other measuring equipment meticulously clean. Barely visible smears
of dried caustic residue or other chemicals can upset your results.

Joe Street of Ontario, Canada, made a titrator kit that he says makes the process easy and repeatable
even in the field, by incorporating a small heater and magnetic stirrer in a small portable low-cost unit.
"What I needed was a way of warming the mixture of test oil and
isopropyl alcohol, which is required for an accurate titration, and I
thought it would be nice if agitation was included so that it would not
be necessary to stop and shake or stir the solution with a stick while
simultaneously trying to carefully control the flow of 0.1% caustic
solution used in the titration. A laboratory grade stirring hotplate
would be really nice but I could not justify the cost of $500.00 to
$1000.00. Necessity is the mother of invention..."
Constant heat, constant agitation
of the titration sample (note the
Joe's titrator only cost him a few dollars. "It was quite simple to put test tube at the right end of the
together and was done in less than a day," he says. "Now I have both box)
hands free and can dribble the solution smoothly without interruption
just watching for the indicator to go off. I made my life easier by fixing two of the variables: the heat is
always consistent, and so is the agitation."
Full how-to instructions at Biofuel cooperative, Joe's website:

http://www.nonprofitfuel.ca/Titrator.html
pH meters
It's said you can't reliably use an electronic pH meter for titration, nor to check the pH of biodiesel,
because biodiesel is not an aqueous solution. Not quite true -- biodiesel is hygroscopic and will always
have about 1,200-1,500 ppm water content absorbed from the atmosphere, if from nowhere else. With
titration, you're adding water with the 0.1% NaOH solution. And laboratory-standard titration
equipment uses electronic pH meters.
We have three pH meters, one of them rather expensive, and we did some comparisons, with
phenolphthalein, fresh from a laboratory supplies company in Tokyo, and with various test strips. We
used WVO from several sources, and fresh oil as a check. The results were checked with test batches.
In each case, the three pH meters agreed with each other and produced good test-batch results.
Phenolphthalein results were consistently slightly higher, but the test-batch results were still good. The
test-strips came a poor third -- not as precise as pH meters and phenolphthalein. People do use them
with apparent success, but we don't think test strips are precise enough for titration.
See Technical tips for advice on using and maintaining pH meters.
Phenolphthalein
Phenolphthalein is often confused with "phenol red" (phenolsulphonephthalein), obtained at pool
supply stores and used for checking water. It's not the same thing, and phenol red won't work for
titrating WVO, its pH range isn't broad enough. It ranges from about pH 6.6, at which point it's yellow,
through orange, to a maximum of pH 8.0, red. It's at its most accurate at pH 7.4. For accurate titration
you need to be able to measure pH 8.5.
Phenolphthalein is colourless up to pH 8.3, then it turns pink (magenta), and red at its maximum of pH
10.4. When it just starts turning pink and stays that way for 15 seconds, it's measuring pH 8.5.
With good-quality oil with low FFA levels you might just get away with using phenol red for titration,
but for higher FFA levels it isn't accurate enough. Use phenolphthalein -- specifically, 1%
phenolphthalein solution (1.0w/v%) with 95% ethanol.
Phenolphthalein lasts about a year. It's sensitive to light, store it in a cool, dark place.
Which is better? There's lots of argument about it. Biofuel mailing list member Jim MacArthur (aka
"the skapegoat"), who teaches chemistry at Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, MO,
USA, had this to say about it:
I can shed some light on using pH meters vs. phenolphthalien (PHTH) for titration from a
chemist's perspective.
As acids become weaker, it is important to become more careful in the selection of a chemical
indicator (such as PHTH), as the change in pH is much slower than it is for a strong acid
titration. PHTH is the most commonly used indicator for strong acid titrations because it has
such a clear color change. Fortunately it appears to change color over the same range as the
equivalence point for FFAs (Free Fatty Acids).
The difficulty in either method is knowing what the equivalence point is going to be. This will
vary based on the type of oil and the degree of hydrogenation. I don't suspect it will vary much,
but it will vary. If your goal is a pH of 8 or 9, then using PHTH is going to be as good as a pH
meter. If you have a better idea of what the equivalence point is going to be, then a pH meter
works better.
The point is there are a number of reasons why PHTH may not work as well as a pH meter in
some cases yet works fine in other cases. This is something I think everyone will have to decide
for themselves. -- the skapegoat, Jun 2005
High FFA levels

Most people find their used cooking oil generally gives a titration of 2-3 ml, but some used oils can
have much higher FFA levels than this -- we've seen horrific titration levels of 9.6 ml. "Horrific"
because FFAs are not good for you -- it's a bad idea to eat food from a restaurant that does that to their
cooking oil. Another biodieseler reported restaurant oil with titration levels of 16 ml -- black stuff with
the consistency of sump oil.
We did succeed in making biodiesel with our 9.6 ml oil. It's not easy to process oil like this with the
usual single-stage base process. You're likely to end up with about 50% production half the time, and
maybe not a very good product, and glop the rest of the time. If you're really precise with everything
you can do it -- we managed to get a consistent 75% production with the single-stage base process,
good product, easy wash.
The oil has to be thoroughly dried first -- traces of water make a bigger difference with high FFA
levels, because there's more lye for the water to react with. And the reaction itself releases traces of
water, especially with high levels of lye.
The better answer is to use the Foolproof two-stage acid-base method, which effectively handles high
FFA levels and still produces high production rates with low levels of reactants and easy washing.
You can also deacidify the oil.
Deacidifying WVO
In commercial oil refining this is done with lye (NaOH), which saponifies the Free Fatty Acids,
converting them to soaps which can then be removed, but it usually requires a centrifuge to separate it.
This is an easier way, no need for a centrifuge.
Use the titration amount of NaOH -- eg, 9.6 grams per litre of oil for our high-FFA 9.6 ml WVO (see
above). Mix the NaOH with 40 ml of water per litre of oil. It gets hot. Use a stainless steel container,
mix it outside (by stirring), and take care! This is very corrosive stuff, take full safety precautions, have
running water handy.
When the NaOH is fully dissolved add the solution to the oil (room temperature), stir gently by hand
until thoroughly mixed. Be gentle!
Settle overnight. This leaves soapstock at the bottom. The water stays with the soapstock.
Filter to remove the soapstock -- no need for fine filtering, fine steel mesh will do (like a fine tea
strainer). Again, do it gently.
Now process the filtered WVO as usual for fresh oil -- 3.5 grams NaOH per litre of oil, but use 25%
methanol, process at 55 deg C (130 deg F), with good and prolonged agitation as usual.
In our tests the product was good, the production rate was 80%. With high-FFA oil like this, it's a a
much easier process than the normal single-stage, and it's nice not to have to make such strong
methoxide as a straight single-stage process would require with this oil, 13.1 grams of lye per litre oil,
or more like 13.6 grams (it needs a bit of excess lye).
It's an alternative -- better than straight single-stage base for oil like this, and while it won't get as a
high a production rate as the acid-base method, and it uses more catalyst and gives you more co-
products, it's very quick and simple.
This is also useful if you're making ethyl esters biodiesel, using ethanol rather than methanol: the
ethyl esters process doesn't work well with oils with more than about 2 ml titration.
As always with a new process, try it first with a small sample, say 1 litre of oil. Be gentle when mixing
it -- if you agitate it too much it won't separate easily. If that happens, try heating it, and be more gentle
next time.
You can add the soapstock to the glycerine layer after separation and neutralize as usual to separate
catalyst, glyc and FFAs.
The soapstock can be used for producing soap, or turned into calcium soap, which is something like
Dubbin and has an extremely low water solubility. Useful stuff. "Thus an equimolar amount of calcium
chloride may be directly added to the soapstock and prompt separation of the calcium soap by
precipitation from a relatively pure saline (NaCl) solution will ensue. Calcium soaps are useful
industrial ingredients, for instance as demoulding agents." -- Chemical Reactions of Oil, Fat and Fat
Based Products -- Neutralization (chemical processing)
http://alfa.ist.utl.pt/~fidel/creac/sec34b.html
Mix some calcium chloride in a little water (careful, it gets hot, don't splash) and add it to the
soapstock a little at a time, stirring it in, until it separates.
No titration?
There are three ways of avoiding titration:
1. Use the two-stage base-base method;

2. Use the two-stage acid-base "Foolproof" method;
3. Do a series of test batches using graded quantities of lye and compare the results. Start off with
maybe 6 g of lye per litre (3.5 g for the transesterification and 2.5 g for extra FFAs). If that
works really well, then go ahead. Otherwise try more tests, at 5 g, then at 7 g; if, say, 7 g is
better, try 6.5 g and 7.5 g, and so on until you get satisfactory results.
See also Stock methoxide solution and Poor man's titration, below.
Satisfactory results mean that you get a good, clean "split" (ie separation), that it settles well, leaving a
clear product with not too much soap formation, a good production rate, and, most important, that it
washes easily without frothing.
There are people who claim titration isn't necessary, just use 6 or 6.5 g per litre and you'll be fine. Don't
listen to them! They might have always done it that way and they've driven 20,000 miles already in
their diesel without any problems, but 20,000 miles is nothing in the life of a diesel motor. Oils vary
considerably from place to place -- even the fabled "stable source of supply" can't be all that stable,
unless it's a food processing factory with a standardized operation. If it's the usual restaurant or
canteen, that would mean they cooked exactly the same number of identical meals in exactly the same
way, every day. It just ain't so.
Sometimes the "no titration" folks point to Aleks Kac's two-stage methods, neither of which use
titration, though they're both based on an "average" lye requirement of 6.25 g/litre. But two-stage
processes work in a different way, and this cannot be applied to a single-stage process. In fact even
with two-stage processes we do a titration, just to know what sort of oil we're working with.
They also point to Mike Pelly's statement that he usually needs between 6 and 7 g of lye -- but Mike
also says titration is the "most critical" step in the process: "Make your titration as accurate as
possible." And: "It's a good idea to do this entire process [titration] more than once to ensure that your
number is correct." In fact Mike has a stable source of supply for his WVO, but he checks it regularly
just the same, by titration and/or with test batches.
Titration won't tell you everything about your oil, but it will tell you more than anything else will
(short of Gas Chromatograph analysis), and the more you know about your oil the easier your life will
be. It is a basic technique in making biodiesel, not to be avoided.

This is the amount of lye (NaOH, sodium hydroxide) required as catalyst to transesterify 1 litre of
fresh, uncooked oil. For used oils, titration determines the amount of lye needed to neutralize the Free
Fatty Acid (FFA) content, and this quantity is added to the basic figure of 3.5 grams per litre.
In fact 3.5 grams is an empirical measure -- an average. Different oils have slightly different
requirements, and even the same type of oil varies according to how and where it's grown. Other
estimates are 3.1 g, 3.4 g, and some people have set it as high as 5 g.
Here is what we've found. For most fresh oils and low-FFA used oils (with titration levels less than 2-3
ml), 3.5 grams works just fine. For high-FFA used oils, use more lye -- up to about 4.5 g instead of 3.5
g. Do small test batches to see what works best.
Different oils also require different amounts of methanol -- see How much methanol? For oils and
fats requiring more methanol -- coconut, palm kernel, as well as tallow, lard, butter -- again, use more
lye, up to 4.5 g, even with new oils, and especially when it's used. Once again, do small test batches
first.

See Methoxide the easy way. You can use the easy method with 4-gallon HDPE carboys or similar
containers with screw-on caps (preferably with bungs as well). First the methanol, then add the lye
gradually. Swirl it about from side to side rather than shaking it up and down.
If you shake it a lot, and often, it can be ready a lot sooner than 24 hours -- in just a few hours or even
as little as half an hour, some people say. But DON'T use it until ALL the lye is thoroughly dissolved.
If you use a white translucent HDPE container you can see any undissolved lye at the bottom of the
container.
KOH -- potassium hydroxide -- dissolves in methanol much faster than NaOH, sodium hydroxide. It
can be ready in as little as 10 minutes.
We use HDPE carboys with two screw-on caps and an aquarium air-pump to transfer the mixed
methoxide to the reactor vessel via plastic tubing (the braided translucent type), with no exposure at
all. Clean, safe and simple. See Methoxide transfer. We transfer the methanol from its tank to the
carboys the same way.
For HDPE, see below, Identifying plastics

Stock methoxide solution is very useful for making test batches, with a series of tests made in a
blender using different amounts of lye for each. Rather than measuring tiny amounts of lye for each
half-litre (or whatever) test batch, make a stock solution using one litre of methanol and 50 grams of
lye. Then you can dilute quantities of the stock solution to whatever strength each test batch requires. If
you're making half-litre test batches and using 20% methanol, measure out the methoxide this way:
If titration was, say, 3 ml, you'll need 3 + 3.5 grams of NaOH lye (the basic amount) for the reaction --
that's 6.5 grams per litre of oil. For half a litre of oil, that would be 3.25 grams and 100 ml of methanol
at 20%.
It's easy to calculate that 65 ml of the stock methoxide solution will contain 3.25 grams of lye. So
measure out 65 ml of the stock, and top it up with 35 ml of pure methanol to make 100 ml (20%).
For a test of 6 grams per litre of oil, you'll need 60 ml of the stock, top it up with 40 ml of pure
methanol to make 100 ml. For a 7 grams per litre test, measure out 70 ml of the stock, top up with 30
ml of pure methanol. And so on.
Didn't figure the calculation? For a half-litre test at the rate of 6.5 grams of lye per litre of oil, divide
6.5 by 2 = 3.25 grams. The stock solution is one litre of methanol plus 50 g of lye. To calculate the
amount of stock solution needed, multiply 1000 (1000 ml per litre) by 3.25 divided by 50 = 65 ml. For
20% methanol, 20% of 500 ml (half a litre) = 100 ml. 100 ml minus 65 ml = 35, so add 35 ml of pure
methanol to the 65 ml of stock to make up 100 ml containing 3.25 grams of lye, equivalent to 6.5
grams of lye per litre of oil with 20% methanol.
Once mixed, methoxide won't last forever, but it's good for a few weeks. Don't make large amounts --
one litre is good for a dozen or more tests. If in any doubt, make up a fresh batch. Include what's left of
the old mixture in the methoxide for your next full-sized batch of biodiesel. (With thanks to Todd
Swearingen of Appal Energy.)

Essentially, the "poor man's bracket method" of titration is lining up a half-dozen pint jars of the same
type, placing 200 millilitres of oil in each, adding methoxide of differing concentration to each and
observing the reactions.
The easiest way to alter the concentrations is to prepare a stock solution of methoxide. Mix up a stock
solution of 20 grams of NaOH with 400 ml of methanol. Your oil volume of 200 ml is 1/5th of one
litre, meaning that you should reduce the usual 20% methanol volume proportionately, to 40 ml.
However, it is suggested that you reduce it only to 50 ml to ensure that there is no shortage of alcohol.
For instance, if you want to see what 6.5 grams of NaOH per litre of oil will achieve in the way of a
reaction, you need 1.3 grams of NaOH for a 200 ml test batch (6.5 divided by 5 = 1.3). The stock
solution is 20 grams of NaOH per 400 ml of methanol: it's easy to calculate that 26 mls of stock
methoxide will contain 1.3 grams of NaOH (400 x 1.3 / 20 = 26). Combine 26 mls of the stock
methoxide with 24 mls of pure methanol (= 50). With 1/5-sized samples, that amount is exactly what
you want, the same ratio as 6.5 grams of NaOH to one litre of oil.
Number your six identical test jars from 1 to 6. For this example, they'll contain the equivalent of 5.0
grams, 5.5 grams, 6.0 grams, 6.5 grams, 7.0 grams and 7.5 grams of pure NaOH per litre of oil
processed. You'll have 1/5th of one litre of oil/fat in each jar (200 ml), with 50 ml of methanol,
however, each jar will have a different concentration of lye, ranging from 5.0 grams to 7.5 grams.
Calculate the proportions of stock methoxide solution and pure methanol for each of the samples as in
the paragraph above.
Add the following to each sample:
1) 20 ml stock solution + 30 ml pure methanol (5.0 grams/litre of oil)

When all of the methoxide portions are prepared, add them to their respective jars of oil. Seal all lids
tightly. Vigorously shake the contents of each jar 50 times. Repeat the agitation several times over a
period of 10 minutes.
Let all samples settle. If settling can be conducted in a shallow water bath at 120 deg F (49 deg C) all
the better.
Observe. The reason for using jars of the exact same type is to assist in more accurate visual
comparison and conclusions. If possible transfer the contents of the jars to a 250-500 ml graduated
cylinder for a more precise comparison. The appropriate amount of lye can be reasonably estimated
based upon the volume of glycerin cocktail that settles out in each sample.
To fine-tune it, try one test batch 0.25 g on each side of the batch that had the most
glycerin cocktail. Say that was with the 5.5 gram sample, do three more tests, for
5.25 grams, 5.5 grams and 5.75 grams. (With thanks to Todd Swearingen of Appal
Energy.)

Newcomers to biodiesel making their first batches sometimes think it all went
wrong because the glycerine didn't go solid.
Messages sent to the Biofuel mailing list:
"I did my first test batch of wvo biodiesel over the weekend. Although I
appear to have formed a layer of glycerine on the bottom of the flask, it is Just made 20
not congealed, but is still liquid at room temperature (24 hours later). Did minutes earlier, and
something go wrong?" still settling.
"The glycerin I got from my first batch is thinner than molasses at room temp. Why would it
remain so thin? The information I have found suggests that it should be solid, or close to it, at
room temperature."
Others think it "didn't work" because there wasn't "enough" glycerine:
"I did a first test batch of 3 litres WVO, adding 600ml methanol and got only 350ml of
glycerine. I didn't really know what to expect, but 10% relative to the original stock seemed
kind of low to me."
"I did a blender test batch of biodiesel last night. I titrated to 2ml, so I used 5.5g of lye and
mixed it in with 200ml of methanol. I then heated the oil up (1 litre), and put it in the blender,
and mixed for 15-20 minutes. It quickly began to separate and the biodiesel at the very top inch
of the blender after the first 15 minutes or so was quite clear. I woke up in the morning and
only 125 ml or glycerine settled out. Shouldn't there be at least 200 ml of glycerine settled at
the bottom? There are only two layers, the top, light and slightly cloudy, and the dark glycerine.
Where is the extra 75 ml of glycerine?"
In fact in all four cases the tests worked just fine.
There is no "set" amount of by-product, such as 200ml per litre, and there is no rule that the by-product
must be solid at room temperature.
What's much more important is that in each of the cases above, the test batch produced a good "split" --
the glycerine separated and settled to the bottom, and, if they'd followed the directions carefully, the
rest would have been good biodiesel, needing no more than settling and washing. It "worked", it's just
fine, move on to bigger and better things!
How much glycerine?
"For 'back of the envelope' accuracy, whether fat or oil, to two significant digits one can estimate the
molecular weight of the oil to be about 900 (slightly high) and the density is about 0.9 so the fat/oil
contains about one mole per liter, therefore one mole of glycerin is present. The molecular weight is 94
so you would get about 94 grams of glycerin from a liter of fat/oil. The density is about 1 so you would
get about 94 ml per liter of oil." -- Bob Allen, Biofuel mailing list
But the so-called "glycerine layer" is not just glycerine, it's a variable mixture of glycerine, soaps,
excess methanol, and the catalyst (lye). Better to call it the by-product layer.
The overall amount varies according to the oil used (more soap with heavily-used oil), the process used
(less soap with the acid-base two-stage method), the amount of excess methanol used (most of the
excess methanol ends up in the by-product layer).
Why isn't it solid?
It's mainly the soaps combined with the glycerine that can cause it to solidify. Soaps made from
saturated fats such as stearin are harder than those made from unsaturated fats such as olein, so the type
of oil used makes a difference (see How much methanol? for compositions of different oils).
More important is how much soap there is -- the more soap, the more likely the by-product layer will
solidify, no matter what oil you used.
Other factors:
Excess methanol makes the by-product layer thinner

Too much lye creates excess soap
Using potassium hydroxide (KOH) as the catalyst instead of sodium hydroxide (NaOH)
produces a liquid by-product that won't solidify. (See Using KOH.)
See: Glycerine
PET bottle mixers

Despite claims to the contrary, this is not a good way of making biodiesel. It is useful if you're doing a
demonstration, though it makes it look simpler than it really is.
PET bottles are transparent plastic soft-drinks bottles, generally 1/2 or 1 or 2 litres. "PET" stands for
Polyethylene Terephthalate -- see below, Identifying plastics
Here's how the PET bottle fans do it: warm up the oil (or maybe not), funnel it into the PET bottle, add
the (pre-mixed) sodium methoxide, screw on the cap, shake the bottle up and down 10 times or maybe
40 times, leave it for an hour, and it's done.
Well, maybe. Or maybe not -- it's a good recipe for an incomplete reaction.
For test batches, here's a better way: warm the oil to 55 deg C (131 deg F). Pour it into the PET bottle,
add the methoxide, screw on the cap, shake vigorously up and down 40 times or more. Then stand the
bottle in a bath of hot water to maintain the temperature -- keep the water in the bath at around 55 deg
C. Shake again every 5 minutes, for up to two hours, maintaining the heat all the time. This will have a
much better chance of not leaving unreacted and partly reacted material in the mix. See below: How
the process works.
Better still, make one of these instead: Test-batch mini-processor
Biodieseler Greg Yohn, who developed this technique in the first place, along with Steve Spence and
other seasoned biodieselers who've used it for years, all say it's useful ONLY for demonstration
purposes, and so do we. Use new oil, and best do it in private first so you don't risk making a fool of
yourself. The value of the "method" for demonstrations is that it doesn't matter much if the reaction is
incomplete and leaves unreacted material in the mix, just as long as you get separation and the
glycerine drops out -- you're demonstrating the process, NOT making fuel, and in a transparent PET
bottle you can clearly see it all happening. And it's non-messy.
Viscosity testing
Viscosity levels are a comparative indicator of biodiesel quality. Unfortunately, and despite claims to
the contrary, that's all they are, a comparative indicator: this batch is better than that batch. Even at the
laboratory or industrial level, viscosity testing alone cannot tell you if the process has gone far enough
before reaching equilibrium and that there are not unacceptably high levels of harmful unreacted and
partly reacted materials in your fuel.
Unconverted monoglycerides (MGs) and diglycerides (DGs) are fuel contaminants that can cause
injector coking and engine damage. MGs and DGs are very similar in viscosity to biodiesel and stay in
solution with it after an incomplete reaction, they can't be washed out. The allowed maximums are
low: less than 1% for DGs and less than half that for MGs. Viscosity tests might get you within 5%
accuracy, not nearly close enough for a useful quality check.
The same goes for density -- specific gravity measures (SG). Even both viscosity and density together
can't assure you that the reaction has gone far enough towards completion. About the only sure way to
know that is with a Gas Chromatograph or expensive laboratory tests which few biodieselers can
afford. Short of a GC the best indicator of a completed reaction is the wash -- easy washing and a
crystal-clear product. See Quality tests. See below: How the process works.
Nonetheless, viscosity can be a useful indicator, especially with test batches. You can check viscosity
with a 100 ml pipette and a stopwatch -- time exactly how long it takes 100 ml of your fuel to empty
from the pipette. Or use a viscosity meter. Excess methanol in the fuel will render the results
meaningless, so you must wash the biodiesel first. Measure some petro-diesel for a comparison.
Remember that viscosity is sensitive to temperature -- try it at two or three different temperatures. See
the various quality-specification tables here for some guidance.
Aleks Kac offered this advice to a Biofuel mailing list member struggling to get his home furnace
working with biodiesel:
Kinematic viscosity is measured in "Stokes". You cannot measure it at home without a

viscosimeter. There is a comparative way, though. Take a liquid with a known viscosity value
(petroleum heating oil, look the value up in an engineering manual) and let a known volume
flow through an upside-down plastic water bottle with a drinking straw glued in a hole in the
screw top. Stop the time with a stopwatch. Do the same with your biodiesel (same volume) and
compare the results. Generally a smaller diameter straw will produce more accurate results. If
the time of your sample is 1.5 the time of your control sample (petroleum oil), this means its
viscosity is roughly 1.6-ish that of the control sample. -- Aleks Kac, 6 Nov 2001
You can use two straws, the second one to let air in for a smooth flow of oil -- see how we do it with
small test batches of methoxide: Adding the methoxide
Measure specific gravity (SG) by weighing a specific volume of the fuel. Remember that volume is
also sensitive to temperature. A litre should weigh about 880 g at 15.5 deg C.
See Quality testing

What is meant by "completion" and "equilibrium"?
First, vegetable or animal fats and oils are triglycerides (TGs), composed of three chains of fatty acids
bound by a glycerine molecule (see diagram in next section below).
Triglycerides are esters. Esters are acids, such as fatty acids, combined with an alcohol, and glycerine
(glycerol) is a heavy alcohol.
The transesterification process converts triglyceride esters into alkyl esters (biodiesel) by means of a
catalyst (lye) and an alcohol reagent, usually methanol, which yields methyl esters biodiesel -- the
methanol replaces the glycerine.
In transesterification the triglyceride molecule is broken into three separate methyl ester molecules plus
glycerine as a by-product. The lye catalyst breaks the bond holding the fatty acid chains to the
glycerine, the glycerine falls away, the fatty acid chains then bond with the methanol.
It happens in three stages (this has nothing to do with the single-stage or two-stage processes). First,
one fatty acid chain is broken off the triglyceride molecule and bonds with methanol to form a methyl
ester molecule, leaving a diglyceride molecule (DG) -- two chains of fatty acids bound by glycerine.
Then a fatty acid chain is broken off the diglyceride molecule and bonded with methanol to form
another methyl ester molecule, leaving a monoglyceride molecule (MG). Finally the monoglycerides
are converted to methyl esters -- completion.
The problem is that the process can run out of reagent or catalyst before it gets that far, or agitation,
temperature or processing time may be inadequate.
The result is some unconverted or partly converted material remaining in the biodiesel. Well, so what if
the process isn't completed? SVO (straight vegetable oil) is a good fuel anyway, so what's it matter if
some of it is unreacted? But it's not just unreacted material that's the problem so much as the partly-
reacted stuff. Diglycerides and monoglycerides are bad things to put in your diesel. Diglycerides don't
burn well and lead to coking problems, monoglycerides can lead to corrosion and other problems --
bad fuel.
"The level of glycerol, mono- and diglycerides at levels of 0.1% (a factor of 1/1000 or less of the main
ester components) or lower appears necessary for optimum engine performance." (International
Conference on Standardization and Analysis of Biodiesel, Session 2, "Interaction Between Engine and
Fuel", Vienna, November 6-7, 1995 -- to be published.) -- From "Analytical Methodologies for the
Determination of Biodiesel Ester Purity -- Determination of Total Methyl Esters", NBB Contract
#:520320-l, Richard W. Heiden, Ph.D., R. W. Heiden Associates, February 27, 1996
http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/reportsdatabase/
reports/gen/19960227_gen-221.pdf
So, either don't process it at all and use SVO (which can have its own problems), or process it
PROPERLY.
In fact the process never reaches 100% completion, it always reaches equilibrium first, so there will
always be some unreacted glycerides left. The various national biodiesel standards stipulate just how
much is allowable, and it's not very much: diglycerides range from less than 0.4% to less than 0.1% by
mass, monoglycerides less than 0.8% by mass.
The first part of the process happens rapidly, which is why some people think it only needs a few
shakes and that's it. Not so. If it takes X minutes to convert half the TGs to DGs, it takes almost as
long, another X minutes, to convert half the remaining TGs, then a further X minutes for the remaining
half, and so on. So the process goes more and more slowly, and never quite arrives -- there's always
half left. Finally comes a point when the remaining half is insignificant, and, indeed, within the
limitations set by the various quality standards. But it's very easy to fall short of that point and end up
with nasties in your beautiful clean eco-friendly nice-smelling home-brewed fuel, and in your motor.
See Kinetics of Palm Oil Transesterification in a Batch Reactor, by D. Darnoko and Munir
Cheryan, University of Illinois, for what actually happens during the biodiesel process reaction.
(Acrobat file, 72Kb)
You CAN make high-quality biodiesel, all it takes is a little care. On analysis, biodiesel made by home-
brewers with no qualifications and no special equipment using the methods detailed at this website has
proved the equal of professionally made commercial fuel or better. Professional mechanics checking
their motors have been amazed by the lack of wear and corrosion. You can do it too. See Quality
Message to the Biofuel mailing list from a biodiesel dealer in the US:
"Currently I resell commercial manufactured biodiesel in Atlanta, GA. Over the past two years
I have seen the quality of this fuel vary greatly. Funny thing about the "commercially
manufactured" biodiesel... One of the big arguments against backyard biodiesel (from industry
folks) is quality, yet every batch that I have made, and every batch I have seen by a homebrew
biodiesel maker has been much better than the "fuel" I am reselling. Individuals with small-
scale setups seem to really care, take their time, and craft their fuel... after all, most are using it
in their own cars, not selling to the boiler fuel market."
For beginners, start off with good practices: follow the instructions carefully, be meticulous with your
titration, make sure your measurements are as accurate as you can make them. Learn as much as you
can. You'll soon get a feel for it, and then, once you're familiar with the process in all its aspects, you'll
be able to decide what's best for you in your situation, with your source of oil, on your budget, and just
where you can relax a little and take calculated shortcuts, based on your own experience.
NOTE: It's a common misconception that biodiesel has lower viscosity than SVO or WVO because the
transesterification process shortens the carbon chain length of the fatty acid molecules in the oil.
This is not so. The biodiesel molecule is indeed smaller and less complex. Transesterification converts
the triple-chain triglyceride vegetable oil molecule to three single-chain methyl ester molecules, but the
chain lengths of the fatty acids themselves remain the same. The fatty acid composition of biodiesel
depends on the feedstock and is not changed by transesterification.

Many people make biodiesel from tallow, lard or chicken fat. It makes great fuel, but like the fat it's
made from, it has a high melting point -- when the temperature falls below about 15 deg C (60 deg F),
the fuel starts to go solid. It's strictly summer fuel.
Some people have difficulty processing animal fat.
Frequently asked question: "I have access to a source of animal fat that is used for deep frying. I
have tried to make biodiesel from it but only succeed in producing a very soapy gloop. Is there a
difference between using animal fat and waste veggie oil? Help!" -- Leo, Biofuel mailing list, 26 Apr
2006
Answers: "No real difference between the two, at least not relative to making fuel. The suggestion
would be to use KOH instead of NaOH for starters. That should help end your thickening/soap issue.
Don't jump the gun with large batches until you get the small stuff right if you're still having
problems." -- Todd
"Animal fat (tallow) has a different chemical make-up than vegetable oil. You need to do much more
purification. You get soap (glycerin) like results with vegetable oil, just not as much. I think that if you
use a stronger caustic agent to separate mixture components, you may have more success." -- Randall
"You're aware that saturated fats and oils tend to make harder soaps? Combining factors such as the
greater ratio of saturated glycerides and the common practice of overdosing caustic as 'insurance' by
new initiates to biodiesel and the groupies of others who prescribe the method as a guaranteed cure-all,
there will be inevitable and needless occurences of failed reactions due to the formation of 'glop soap.'
Animal fats do need to be rendered thoroughly to remove as much proteinaceous material as possible
prior to processing. But the 'chemical make-up' is essentially no different than any other triglyceride,
other than the ratio of saturated acids to unsaturated acids. It's the ratio of fatty acids to each other that
defines an oil or fat, giving each its general properties." -- Todd
"Tallow, lard, butter, vege oil, etc. are all the same chemically save very, very minor differences which
don't impact the transesterification reaction. Fats and oils are treated the same as to volume of
methanol, reaction time, and amount of catalyst. Impurities, mainly water present, will impact yields,
and soap production, but starting with relatively pure oils and fats requires no different treatment." -
Bob A.
"I stand corrected." -- Randall
"I have processed 100% virgin beef tallow fat with the 2 stage base - base process with great sucess. I
used 200 ml methanol / liter fat and 6.7 g NaOH Processed for 2 x 2hours at 58 - 60 deg C. That batch
washed better and easier then any other WVO I had dealt with. The only drawback is cold weather, it
will crystalize around 15 deg C (59 deg F). Otherwise it is great fuel with a light yellow color like the
fuel from virgin rapeseed oil. Good luck with it." -- Andrew
"I have also had excellent results from beef tallow using the acid/base two stage process. Although
when washing, I thought I was getting loads of soap out even on the third or fourth washes. It turned
out that my water was too cold, I was bringing the temperature of the biodiesel down to below 15 deg
C and forming waxes. I then washed with lukewarm water and got perfect results, crystal clear wash
water on the third wash." -- Bob C.
"Last time we rendered deer tallow and made biodiesel from it we were stonewalled after an overnight
temp of 56 deg F (13 deg C)." -- Todd
Oil molecule -- graphic by Jeff Welter
Again, vegetable or animal oils and fats -- what we make biodiesel from -- are triglycerides, composed
of three chains of fatty acids bound by a glycerine molecule.
Free fatty acids (FFAs) are fatty acids that have become separated from the triglycerides, leaving
diglycerides, monoglycerides and free glycerine. This is caused by heat, water in the foods cooked in
the oil, or oxidation. The hotter the oil gets and the longer it's cooked, the more FFAs it will contain.
As glycerine is an alcohol (glycerol), a fatty acid attached to it (a glyceride) forms an ester. A
"transesterification" is the conversion (switching) of one ester into another -- a glyceride ester into an
alkyl ester in the case of biodiesel, where methanol (or ethanol) replaces the glycerine.
An "esterification" is the conversion of a non-ester into an ester. FFAs are non-esters. FFAs are
converted into esters by acid esterification in the first stage of the two-stage acid-base biodiesel
process, but cannot be converted by the more common single-stage base transesterification process.
Here the FFAs must be removed from the process, or they will dissolve in the biodiesel being formed,
yielding an acidic, poor-quality fuel that will not meet quality standards.
In transesterification, extra lye is used to neutralize the FFA content of the oil, turning it into soaps.
These soaps drop out of the process as a by-product, joining the so-called "glycerine layer" at the
bottom -- often more of a "soap layer" as it may contain more soap than glycerine.
The basic lye quantity used in transesterification acts as a catalyst, not a neutralizer. Lye attacks ester
bonds, breaking the bond, and the alcohol drops off, leaving an open-ended fatty acid chain. With
glycerides the alcohol that drops off is glycerine. The affinity of the replacement methanol or ethanol
for the resulting open bond is strong enough to prevent the glycerine reattaching to the fatty acid.
This is also why it is critical that a minimal amount of lye is used, as lye will continue to attack ester
bonds, even those of biodiesel. Too much lye will break the biodiesel ester bonds; some of the broken
bonds will mate with the lye and form excess soap, and others will match up with a water molecule to
form FFAs, which dissolve back into the biodiesel. It is this excessive formation of FFAs that the "acid
number" in the US ASTM and other national quality standards refers to.
While it is unavoidable that some FFAs are formed by biodiesel ester bonds being broken, excess lye
increases the proportion.
According to the Fuel Injection Equipment (FIE) Manufacturers (Delphi, Stanadyne, Denso,
Bosch), FFAs can corrode fuel injection equipment, cause filter plugging and the build-up of sediments
on fuel injection parts.
-- With information from Todd Swearingen of Appal Energy, and DieselNet/Ecopoint Inc.
http://www.dieselnet.com/

Three main choices, all of them here:
Single-stage base -- Mike Pelly;

Two-stage base-base -- Aleks Kac;
Two-stage acid-base "Foolproof" method -- Aleks Kac.
What's the difference?
The single-stage base method is the place to start. The two-stage processes are advanced methods, not
for novices -- learn the basics thoroughly first. Single-stage base is the original method, and still the
most widely used, tried and trusted. It's the simplest method, especially for new oils which don't need
titration.
A lot of beginners want to use WVO but they're put off by the titration, thinking it's too complex.
Actually it's simple enough -- just follow the directions. However, the single-stage process produces
more and more uncertain results the higher the FFA content gets in WVO, with lower production levels
even when it works well.
The two-stage base-base method avoids the need for titration and produces good results even with
higher FFA levels. It's the method-of-choice for animal fats.
Growing numbers of biodieselers are now turning to the "Foolproof" two-stage acid-base method,
especially with high-FFA oils. Here are some of the reasons:
Less base catalyst needed.

Less soap production.
Higher conversion rates as a result of less soap formation.
Less emulsion formation in the wash.
Less loss of fuel in the wash as a result of emulsion formation.
Less wash water as a result of less soap formation.
Less neutralizing acid needed for the wash.
Less acid needed to neutralize base during glycerine recovery.
High-quality product.
The negatives:
A little extra processing time.
Even with higher-FFA oils the production rate should be 100% or more by volume (biodiesel has a
lower density than the original oil).
In fact the same advantages apply to new oil, although to a lesser extent. Many biodieselers who turn
to the "Foolproof" method for high-FFA oils soon make it their method-of-choice for all oils.
Here's some advice from Aleks Kac on using the Foolproof method: "Stick to the recipe, to the letter.
There's two years of trial and error research in this. Do not change, simplify or speed up anything. It
will take care of all sorts veg fats, even heavily used. The 'solid' portion must be reduced to less than
50% because of the much lower acid-stage temperature. Animal fats content is best at less than 25%
for pork or chicken and less than 10% for bovine. These fats at greater concentration should be
processed with the two-stage base-base method."
Still, if your oil is quite good and usually titrates at 3 ml or less, you might well be satisfied with the
single-stage process.
It says at the top of the Foolproof acid-base process page: "NOTE: The two-stage biodiesel processes
are advanced methods, not for novices -- learn the basics thoroughly first. The single-stage base
method is the place to start. Start here."
Here being here:

Where do I start?
But novices sometimes take no notice and plough ahead with the acid-base process anyway.
Sometimes they also take no notice of the advice on Test batches: "Whenever you're trying a new
method, it's always a good idea to make small test batches of a litre or less first to familiarize yourself
with the process before moving on to bigger batches."
All too often it results in a highly discouraging 40 gallons of glop. "It doesn't work!" they wail. It
works. It also works to heed the advice of the many who've gone before you. "DO AS THEY
RECOMMEND and bio will come," said a recent novice at the Biofuel list.
"But it doesn't sound difficult at all, in fact it sounds easier since there is no need to titrate. So what am
I missing?"
Quite a lot. First, we think it's worthwhile titrating your oil anyway -- the more you know about it the
better, and titration will tell you more than anything else does.
Avoiding learning how to do titration is a VERY BAD reason for using the acid-base process! Titration
is a basic skill needed for making biodiesel, no matter which process you use. Anyway, it's easy
enough:
Basic titration
Better titration
Second, it's not just a question of whether or not novices can get it to work. Some do -- mostly they
seem to get away with it. But that's a pity just the same, because it's doubtful that they'll get the best
out of it. The acid-base method is very flexible, people bend it and twist it every which way in adapting
it to their preferences and needs, and you just can't do that unless you have a good overall feel of the
process as a whole, not just of this one method.
Another novice at the Biofuel list said he had good chemistry knowledge so he could afford to skip the
"newbie" stuff. But: "Well, my first test batch is done, and the end result is less than spectacular..."
Suddenly he found himself facing an ocean of variables, and since he had no "feel" for what was
supposed to be happening he had no way of finding out what he'd done wrong. Several things, as it
turned out.
One answer:
"This is why this isn't a good place to start. If you were more experienced you might have had a
better idea of how to translate the mixing instructions for a full-sized batch to the small scale
you're using. Maybe it translates direct, maybe not -- I don't know how fast your drill stirs it,
nor what rate of agitation it gets with that paint stirrer, but, comparatively, neither do you, and
that makes it difficult for you. Starting instead with single-stage base and fresh oil, you begin
with fewer variables and they're less critical, and it's a logical progression from there. Now
you're facing too many variables and you don't have the experience to assess them -- and you're
more likely to make mistakes anyway because you lack a basis of comparison."
He relented and went back to the beginning, processing 1 litre of fresh oil by the single-stage base
method. "Despite people saying that in different ways, I hadn't heard it until now. All I was hearing
was that you have to start with the single-stage process then graduate to the foolproof process. This just
seemed like trying to learn something one way then do it in a completely different way, which doesn't
make sense."
"... so what am I missing?"
One answer:
"If everything goes exactly right, nothing. The problem is when something doesn't, and you
have NO IDEA what's going on 'cuz you've never seen all the possible quirks of even the basic
process.
"...What's all this white stuff?... Nothing seems to be happening... There's this weird layer, and
I'm wondering if it's biodiesel... etc etc."
Another answer:
"I can mention that from a beginner's perspective, starting with pure vegetable oil and single-
stage base is a really valuable learning process. It gives you an idea of what outcomes look like,
and the shake test provides feedback on the quality of the process. I am still playing around
with variables (processing time, %lye, %methanol, etc.) using pure vegetable oil, before
moving to waste vegetable oil.
"As many people continue to emphasize, process quality is really important, and that seems to
be best learned in small steps. My game plan is also to get to the 2-stage acid/base with waste
vegetable oil, but I still have a lot to learn before getting there. I think what the experienced
folks are cautioning is that troubleshooting a more complex process is extremely difficult (and
perhaps frustrating) if you don't have a solid grounding in the basics. I hope this helps. Good
luck with your experiments!"
The response:
"After reading the links to the discussion groups that you attached I see that the basics is to get
a feel of the process and see the correct colors and textures using the process that has the best
chance of success, then use that as a baseline for future mini batches using WVO. Then
progress to larger scaled processing, then full scaled process, and then finally graduate to the
two-stage method, with knowledge that the resultant biodiesel is clean and pure enough to run
through my beloved TDI."
Right!
"I would like to testify that the acid base method on JtF WORKS and it works well. That said
you will never get it to work unless you start at the beginning. Keith is not kidding - get to
know the oil." -- Jim, Biofuel mailing list, 12 May 06.
See:
http://snipurl.com/pie8
[Biofuel] Biodiesel test results
11 Apr 2006
D.P. wrote:
I am interested in biodiesel and used your foolproof method to make biodiesel. Four litres so
far... wow eh! However I have since constructed a 200-litre biodiesel reactor out of scrap
stainless steel so I can run my VW TDI without modification. My degree is in chemistry but my
main forte is a mechanical aptitude.
The main question I do have about your foolproof method of making biodiesel is during the
acid catylized process. I have tried four times to get separation... I have 100 litres in my new
reactor and I do not want to have a goopy mess.
Reply:
It says at the top of Aleks's pages:
"NOTE: The two-stage biodiesel processes are advanced methods, not for novices -- learn the
basics thoroughly first. The single-stage base method is the place to start. Start here."
Please don't take offence, but while you may have a background in chemistry, you wouldn't be
the first chemist who had to go back to the beginning with this and got it right in the end. With
only four litres behind you (four failures apparently) you're a novice, you have to get a feel for
it first, and you're not starting at the beginning.
You're not ready for 100-litre batches yet, stick to one-litre tests. Even if you can get it to work
at that level, transferring the process from a one-litre batch to a 100-litre reactor that you've
never used before might not be as simple as you think. The only good advice is to go back to
the beginning, with small batch tests of new oil using the standard single-stage base method.
-- Keith Addison
From D.P., some months later -- "Starting from the beginning":
Dear Keith:
Just a short note to thank you for such an excellent website for biodiesel. I took your advice and
went back to the basics. I am now making quality biodiesel with excellent seperation and water
washing is easy. Test batches thru my home-made reactor are a must. Keep up the good work
and keep encouraging anyone who wishes to make a difference.
Sincerely...

Biodiesel can also be used in gasoline (spark-ignition) engines, but only as an additive. People have
had good results with it, but it's still experimental, there are no guarantees.
Biodiesel in 2-stroke gasoline engines: Many people have used biodiesel as replacement 2T
lube oil in two-stroke gasoline (petrol) engines. Biofuel mailing list member Martin R. of Australia
uses it in his chain saw, at a mix of 1 to 20 with gasoline. "It works fine," he says. "After using the saw
for 2.5 hours in one go on dead Australian hardwood with no hiccups I was very impressed to say the
least."
List member Franklin Del Rosario, biodiesel maker in Manila in the Philippines, uses it in his
motorcycle:
Biodiesel was first used as 2T replacement in the Philippines by a group who added a
viscosifier and sold it as 2T replacement for tricycle taxi use at several places outside Manila.
The biodiesel, pure or blended with oil additive, performed better than 2T mineral oil as lube
oil, according to the testimony of the tricycle drivers who tried it. Their motors ran smoother
and quieter than before, the engine block did not heat up, others experienced better engine
performance, no more carbon build-up inside the cylinder and muffler, no oil dripping on the
exhaust pipe and most of all no more smoke.
I use B100 biodiesel as lube oil for my 1983 Yamaha 125 cc two-stroke motorcycle instead of
Shell 2T lube oil which I previously used. I mix biodiesel with gasoline at a ratio of 1:20. I
replaced all rubber fuel lines, carburetor gasket etc., cleaned the fuel tank, and changed to a
new spark plug. The motor is running smoothly on city driving, the smoke has improved
because no more 2T lube oil.
The Yamaha was retired before because of the smoke it produces using mineral 2T oil. With
biodiesel as a lube oil it runs better than before and with less smoke at the exhaust pipe. I took
my motorcycle to the emission test center and it passed the gas standard limit with better results
than a new motorcycle which used mineral 2T oil.
The results were as follows:
Data reading
CO2 -- 2.90%
CO -- 3.39%
HC -- 5396ppm
O2 -- 13.29%
AFVR -- 20.95
LAMBDA -- 1.44
Standard Gas Limit
CO2 -- 20.00%
CO -- 6.00%
HC -- 10000PPM
LAMBDA -- 1.00 +/- 0.99
Result -- Passed
The main property of the lube oil is not the viscosity but rather the ability to mix well with
gasoline while maintaining its lubricity (ability to provide a film of oil at the metal surface) to
prevent wear of the crank shaft, connecting rod & piston pin and cylinder wall. Biodiesel's
lubricity is enough to do the job and it can be improved by adding compatible oil additives to
increase the film strength of of the biodiesel.
BD is a fuel with 11% of oxygen by weight, this property alone can help gasoline to burn well
reducing smoke emission and leaving no trace of oil at exhaust muffler. -- Franklin Del
Rosario, January 2004
Biodiesel in 4-stroke gasoline engines: List member Gregg Davidson wrote:
In June of this year, I posed a question about "Biodiesel in gasoline engines". I received a reply
from list member JC in Taipei. He advised me that he had mixed biodiesel with gasoline for his
car, using no more than a 15% mix. I have had success following his example and had no
engine problems. One of the three vehicles I tested this in is a Chrysler Town & Country mini
van with a 3.3 L V-6 Flex Fuel Engine, the other two are Jeep Grand Cherokees with 4.0 L I-6
engines. Even though the van can run on E-85, I do not use ethanol blends because E-85 is not
available in my home state of Georgia. -- Gregg Davidson, October 2004
Franklin Del Rosario wrote:
I'm please to inform our group about using a biodiesel blend with gasoline fuel to power a 4-
stroke gasoline engine. The company I work with has a fleet of service cars, most of them are
Japanese Nissan, Toyota and Honda. I persuaded one of our company drivers to try biodiesel in
a gasoline engine at 200-300 ml of biodiesel to 50 litres of gasoline mixed together in the fuel
tank.
We choose a Nissan Cefiro because it emitted a foul odor of unburned hydrocarbons irritating
to the eyes and nose during engine warm up and idling. I poured 200 ml of biodiesel into the
tank, shook the body for a while and started the engine. After 5 to 7 minutes of idling speed, the
exhaust odor improved dramatically and at the end of the day of driving the odor of unburned
hydrocarbon was gone and engine purred better than before because biodiesel lubricates the
fuel system, the upper combustion chamber, as well as the valve ports. Because of this other
drivers tried it in Honda cars. The immediate result was no more odor of unburned
hydrocarbons and visible trace of water condensation at the exhaust tail pipe as if the car was
new.
I tried using biodiesel as an anti-wear additive for a four-stroke gasoline motorcycle engine and
the result was the same.
My friend owns a surplus service car, a gasoline engine Toyota. His car was due for the yearly
renewal of LTO registration, and he had a problem because his old car smoked badly and one of
the requirement for LTO registration is to test the car at the emission test center. Cars must pass
the Emission Standard set by the government before renewal of LTO registration. I challenged
him to try biodiesel as a fuel additive, without any engine modification, changing of oil or
cleaning of air filter except cleaning of exhaust pipe by water hose to remove carbon particle
clinging to the pipe wall. He did so and took the car to the emission test center. The result was
very promising
Emission Standard
CO % (V) -- 3.5
HC (ppm) -- 600
Running condition gradual increase of rpm
Gas analyzer final result of service car were the following

CO % -- 1.25
HC (ppm) -- 278
PASSED
Biodiesel as an anti-wear and smog additive for gasoline fuel is very encouraging. -- Franklin
Del Rosario, January 2004
Storing biodiesel
Frequently asked question: "I read somewhere that biodiesel has a short shelf life. Does biodiesel
have an expiry date or a use-by date?"
Answer: We have some biodiesel we made six years ago that hasn't degraded. It's been kept sealed in
an HDPE plastic container with a bung and a lid. Others report 4-year-old biodiesel still being usable.
"We opened up a drum from our first reactor that was four years old a couple of weeks ago, 45
gallons of it. It had been sitting outside in a 55 gal steel drum with approximately 5 inches of
airspace over the it. It has been through some record-breaking winters and several high-heat
cycles unattended. Even though this was an unintentional test, it's showing us some things. This
batch was 50% soy 50% wvo processed at the same time. There was a little bit of cloudiness
but not much, which was easily removed by simply stirring. One of our trucks has run almost a
week on it with no change in performance from the freshest batch..."
-- Philip S. Okey, Biofuel mailing list, 28 Jul 2004
"The findings that we have are that biodiesel does more readily oxidize than petrol diesel. So if
left in an open container the shelf life is very short. It will still burn after being oxidized but not
nearly as well. On the other hand, most of us would be storing our biodiesel in a sealed
container, which limits the oxidation to the amount of air and surface area. The best thing to do
is to store it in a sealed container that is as full as practically possible. This limits oxidation to a
level that probably won't be noticeable."
-- Doug Memering, Biofuel mailing list, 11 Sep 2005
"A study on the stability of the methyl and ethyl esters of sunflower oil reports that ester fuels
(biodiesel) should be stored in airtight containers, the storage temperature should be < 30 C, that mild
steel (rust-free) containers could be used, and that tert.-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), an oxidation
inhibitor, has a beneficial effect on oxidation stability (166). Methyl esters were slightly more stable
than ethyl esters."
-- From: Storage stability, Biodiesel: The Use of Vegetable Oils and Their Derivatives as
Alternative Diesel Fuels, G. Knothe, R.O. Dunn, and M.O. Bagby, in Fuels and Chemicals from
Biomass. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society. Download full-text article:
Acrobat file, 912kb
MS Word file, 212kb
The US industry group, the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), recommends using biodiesel within six
months, but they're being overcautious as usual. Or maybe it's not overcautious if the fuel is to be
subjected to the existing petro-diesel infrastructure (dirty and wet). But homebrewers don't have that
problem.
Frequently asked question: What is the shelf life of biodiesel? Can I make 6 months of fuel at a
time?
Answer: Yes, if you store it properly.
See also:
Iodine Values
Lamps and stoves

Lamps that work with biodiesel.
Stoves that work with biodiesel.
Other uses
Wood treatment. Biodiesel is very useful stuff. "We must be crazy to burn it!" Mike Pelly once said,
only half-jokingly. He's a carpenter and had just finished refitting his house with wooden interiors. He
and his wife treated all the wood with biodiesel, floors included. The smell was soon gone (and it's a
pleasant enough smell anyway), and the results were fine. We also use it for wood treatment, nice! (But
we found it can attract mould, especially in wet weather.)
It's an excellent lubricant, very slippery. It's better than household lubricating oils, and it's non-
obnoxious and non-toxic -- it won't matter much if the kids swallow some by mistake. Great for
gardeners, especially organic gardeners, nothing better for lubricating your tools and keeping them
clean and rust-free, and non-toxic. Great in the workshop too. Great if you live in an old Japanese
farmhouse with wooden sliding doors!
Biodiesel is used as a lubricating additive for low-sulphur petroleum diesel fuels. With diesel
engines, upper engine parts are lubricated by the fuel itself. Diesel motors are not lasting as long as
they did because of the lack of lubrication with low-sulphur fuel (500ppm), let alone the new ULSD
ultra-low-sulphur fuel (15 ppm), and biodiesel solves the problem. Adding just 1% biodiesel improves
the lubricity up to 65%. Research suggests that just 0.4% to 0.5% is enough. In France it's compulsory,
biodiesel is added to all diesel fuel at between 3% and 5%; other countries are following suit.
Better than detergent
"A couple of weeks ago, while doing laundry, I opened up the dryer and found all the clothes and the
inside of the dryer coated in a multitude of colors. A box of crayons had made the trip through the
wash and disintigrated in the heat of the dryer. I tried using regular liquid detergent on a rag to remove
the crayon stains and got almost nowhere with a lot of vigorous scrubbing. Well, I saturated a cloth
with some homebrew biodiesel and started on the stains, with very little scrubbing, all the crayon was
easily removed in seconds. totally took everything that was stained off the dryer drum, in seconds, no
work at all!!!
"So, I sat down with a toothbrush and bowl of BD and started in on the 8 pairs of khakis, the scrubbing
starting freeing up the chunks of crayon imbedded in the material, it didn't take it totally out but
seemed to break it up greatly. After the pants were all scrubbed and saturated with BD, I put back into
the wash on hot with normal liquid detergent and everything came out perfectly clean after the first
wash, really impressive!!
"So I had a shirt with a deep ink stain in the pocket, poured some BD in the pocket and scrubbed with a
toothbrush, went through a normal wash and the ink stain was gone in one wash, again, impressive!
"I do have one pair of white khakis that I haven't attempted to clean yet. I'm trying to "force" my son to
wear them to school as an attempt to teach him a lesson about checking his pockets before washing the
clothes. What I want to do is just soak them in BD and see if that would work instead of all the
toothbrushing that was involved in cleaning his other clothes.
"Anyway, sometimes it pays to 'look outside the box', in this case, the detergent box." -- k5farms,
Biofuel mailing list, 15 Mar 2003
"Found the same thing in 'dissolving' Ohio crude oil and crude/grime out of work clothes. Lay the
clothing in a bathtub, 'saturate' the stain with a homemade liquid veg oil soap, brush a few seconds
with a warm-water soaked scrub brush, apply biodiesel from a dish soap squeeze bottle. Scrub to your
heart's content.
"The soap/water suspension pulls a good bit of the surface grunge off first, with the biodiesel removing
the balance of the oil embedded and soaked into the fibers. The suspension also seems to keep the oily
effect of the biodiesel from getting locked into the fiber, which can give the look of wet spots (oil
soaked spots) even when the garment is dry.
"Prior to figuring this out the alternative was lacquer thinner, soap and water --- home 'dry cleaning'
and toxic as hell." -- Todd Swearingen, Biofuel mailing list, 15 Mar 2003
Oil spill remediation -- CytoCulture's CytoSol Process

http://www.cytoculture.com/process.html
"Cleaning Oiled Shorelines with a Vegetable Oil Biosolvent", Port Technology International, 1998,
London, UK
http://www.cytoculture.com/cytosolarticle.htm
Appropriate transport
>> **Renewable Energy Online Newsletter**

>> August 24, 2001
>> Environment News Service:
>> European Government Support Growing for Biofuels
>
> <snip>
>> Since biofuels release none of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide,
>
> Interesting... Perhaps a silicon-based fuel? With sand for exhaust?
> Tom
> New Mexico, USA
Silicon and sand? Whatever makes you think that? Bit primitive aren't you? We do it this way. Of
course we use only the most advanced techniques to make our biodiesel, from whatever feedstock, and
then use it in the normal way, giving a thorough application to all the exposed woodwork on the
wagon, the wheel hubs, the front axle steering bolt, the canvas tarp cover, and all the leatherwork,
harnesses, etc. Then we add the glycerine to the yak-dung in the biogas generator, which powers a
small motor with an elbow crank connected to a long forward-mounted bamboo shaft on an offset
fulcrum, causing it to waggle, shaking the carrot tied to the end of the shaft enticingly at some suitable
point between the yaks' noses and our destination. No carbon emissions, just a bit of odd methane
escaping when the yaks fart, but you get used to it. We only use organically grown carrots, of course.
Keith Addison
Journey to Forever
For an explanation of "carbon neutral" fuels, see Greenhouse gases and global warming
What is this "HDPE" plastic that people use for mixing chemicals, and how do you identify it? What
sorts of plastics can withstand what sorts of chemicals?
Identifying different kinds of plastic and their properties, American Plastics Council:
http://www.americanplasticscouncil.org/benefits/
about_plastics/resin_codes/resin.html
This helps even more: Plastics Identification -- Society of Plastics Engineers, Mid-Michigan
Section
http://www.midmichiganspe.org/education/identification.pdf
Chemical compatability -- Chemical Resistance Database, Cole-Parmer:

To search, select at least one of three criteria to search on, Chemical, Material, Compatibility Level. If
you wish to search by compatability level, you must specify a chemical or material.
http://www.coleparmer.com/techinfo/ChemComp.asp
Glycerine
General
Burning glycerine
Glycerine and biogas
Separating glycerine
Purifying glycerine
Soap
Glop soap
Paintbrush cleaner The only real
High-explosives "cake" of soap
Heart disease drug we've ever
Love potion seen --
solidified
Safe sweetener glycerine from
Health supplement the bottom of
Preserving plants our first-ever
Photocopying biodiesel.
Other uses
Composting
General
Glycerine (glycerin, glycerol) is the main by-product of making biodiesel. The name comes from the
Greek word glykys meaning sweet. It is a colourless, odourless, viscous, nontoxic liquid with a very
sweet taste and has literally thousands of uses. That is, pure glycerine has thousands of uses -- the
biodiesel by-product is crude (and it's not colourless, and it's not only glycerine).
There is a market for the glycerine once you've separated it from the soaps and the lye that's also in the
by-product (see Separating glycerine, below) and probably refined it too, neither of which is cheap,
and then only if you can supply it by the tonne on a regular basis, unless you're lucky enough to find a
small niche market.
But there are other things you can do with it other than sell it, read on.
Lots of information on glycerine, from a Japanese manufacturer (in English) -- Sakamoto Yakuhin
Kogyo Co., Ltd.:
http://www.sy-kogyo.co.jp/english/sei/1_gly.html
Glycerin -- King's American Dispensatory, by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr.
M., Ph. D., 1898
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg13553.html
Burning glycerine
The glycerine by-product burns well, but unless it's properly combusted at
high temperatures it will release toxic acrolein fumes, which mainly form at
between 200 and 300 deg C (392-572 deg F). Three 1-litre milk-carton
glycerine-sawdust "logs"
We've used it to heat a wood-fired bath (see next, Sawdust "logs") and to are enough to heat our
bath.
pre-heat the vegetable oil for biodiesel processing (below, Burners).
Sawdust "logs"
We thought of mixing the by-product with sawdust to make briquettes, and

in a message to the Biofuel mailing list Tony Clark suggested using milk
cartons instead of making briquettes, which need to be pressed: "By mixing
this with sawdust to make a dry paste, and filling used milk cartons with this
mixture, the use of timber for fuel can be significantly reduced. A 1-litre milk
carton (about 1 quart US) of this mixture will give off more heat than twice
or three times that weight in firewood."
Filling a milk carton with
wood shavings...
We used wood shavings, not sawdust. A 1-litre milk carton holds 450 gm of
wood-shavings and 750 gm of glycerine by-product. Used for heating the
traditional Japanese iron-cauldron bath at our previous house, three milk
cartons burned for about 45 minutes and heated 100 litres of water from
room temperature to 60 deg C (140 deg F). In sub-zero C winter weather it
took five cartons instead of three. We started the fire with wood to get the
burning chamber to a high temperature before adding the milk-carton "logs".
We heated the bath this way for more than a year.
Burners
... adding the by-product,
Using the by-product in a burner to pre-heat the vegetable oil for biodiesel then tamp it down hard with
processing would be an elegant solution, if it worked well enough. a piece of 2x2 -- the soiled
newspaper makes a good
fire-starter.
It's an elusive goal. Prof. Michael Allen thinks complete and clean
combustion of the by-product requires a burning temperature in excess of 1,000 deg C (1,800 deg F)
"and you will probably need a mean residence time in the "Hot Box" of about 5 seconds". And perhaps
pre-heating and atomisation as well (spraying).
With the sort of low-tech burners backyard brewers have made so far, what happens instead is that the
burner might burn for long enough to pre-heat the oil, but then it gets gunged up with sticky black stuff
that won't burn (mostly soap) and it goes out. If you want more heat you have to clean it out and start it
up again.
Another disadvantage is that it's not a clean burn, it smokes, especially towards the end of the burn
when it's trying to combust the soap.
We've used a Turk burner for pre-heating. It works, but we prefer using our kerosene pressure stove,
which burns pure biodiesel.
We doubt any Turk-type burner will overcome these combustion problems, we haven't heard of anyone
successfully using a Babington-type burner with biodiesel by-product either.
We've found that Mother Earth News waste oil heaters also won't burn the by-product for long before
coking up. We'd hoped a modified version using a forced air-supply, which burns much hotter, would
solve the problem, but it didn't.
Instead we developed a cheap and simple bioheating oil to use with heaters and burners. See Journey to
Forever's forced-air biofuel heater. We're adapting this method for pre-heating WVO for biodiesel
processing, etc.
Both the bioheating oil and biodiesel work well in Turk burners, and so does the separated FFA from
the by-product (see next, Separating the glycerine).
More interesting than trying to burn the glycerine by-product efficiently is the prospect of using it as
part-feedstock for a methane digester to produce biogas, a clean-burning and efficient cooking gas
which can be used for heating in the biodiesel process. See next, Glycerine and biogas.
Glycerine and biogas

A visitor to our website told us this:
"I work at a wastewater treatment plant and I was doing a search on glycerin and biofuels and
came across your website. It has good information, thanks.
"Here's another use of glycerin: Our treatment is accepting the glycerin from a biofuel
producer, we feed it to our digesters, slowly very slowly. The addition of glycerin has
dramatically increased our gas production, so that we run all three engines that produce
electricity for our plant and occasionally need to flare off the excess methane (we have four4
flares).
"This might be of interest to your readers who use digestion for electricity."
The biogas is used as fuel in diesel engines which power electricity generators. But this wasn't raw by-
product, it was separated glycerin from a commercial producer:
"The glycerine is agricultural grade and looks similar to thin maple syrup.
"As for pH, since the chemistry in the anaerobic digester is healthy, a high pH wasn't much of a
concern. Our main concern was foaming with the introduction of glycerin, and we did see an
increase hence the slow feed rate to the digester."
Can the unseparated by-product, the whole glycerin-catalyst-soap

cocktail, also be used to increase biogas production?
Biofuel mailing list member, researcher Prof. Pagandai Pannirselvam in

Brazil, said:
"Very good news to make the gas and liquid biofuel in an integrated way.
"There are many published papers about the enhanced production of biogas from oily wastes
and glycerine is a good intermediate metabolite, hence the results agree with theory.
"But here too we need a mixed microbial population to work well and they will need a lot of
adoption time for glycerine, otherwise one may totally fail to produce gas.
"There are two routes to get energy from waste of the BioDiesel making process, bioconversion
and thermo-conversion. I believe the combined Biogas generation is better than combustion.
The correct mixture of proteins and glycerine and salt needs to be carefully solved by practical
work."
We'll be constructing biogas digesters here in Tamba, perhaps starting with this one: "Methane
Digesters for Fuel Gas and Fertilizer, With Complete Instructions For Two Working Models", by L.
John Fry, Chapter 10: Building an Inner Tube Digester.
We'll investigate glycerine by-product digestion. We've been wanting to do this since 2001 -- see
Appropriate transport (though not quite this way).
Some home-brewers have pointed out that wastewater treatment systems should be able to handle the
glycerin by-product without problems. It mixes with water, it's biodegradable, and if you reclaim the
excess methanol first, it's non-toxic. As for the lye and the soap, lye is a drain-cleaner after all, and
wastewater plants are no strangers to soap. Even the methanol might be an advantage, some of the
digester bacteria like it.
But it's best not to pour by-product down the drain or the toilet without checking with your local
authority first.
The raw by-product can alsop be composted, and the separated glycerin (next) can be used to help heat
up a compost pile. See below, Composting
Separating the glycerine

What sinks to the bottom of the biodiesel processor during the settling stage is a mixture of glycerine,
methanol, soaps and the lye catalyst. Most of the excess methanol and most of the catalyst remains in
this layer. Once separated from the biodiesel, adding phosphoric acid to the glycerine layer precipitates
the catalyst out and also converts the soaps back to free fatty acids (FFAs), which float on top. You're
left with a light-colored precipitate on the bottom, glycerine/methanol/water in the middle, and FFA on
top. The glycerine will be approx. 95% pure, a much more attractive product to sell to refiners. Here's
how to do it: Separating glycerine/FFAs
A commonly asked question: How much glycerine do you get? A better question would be: How much
of the "glycerine layer" is actually glycerine? The rule of thumb is 79 milliliters of glycerine per liter of
oil used -- 7.9%. In fact there's usually more soap -- the "glycerine" layer is more of a "soap" layer than
anything else. Unless you use Aleks Kac's "Foolproof" acid-base two-stage process, that is -- see this
photograph and the caption for an idea of how much less soap you'll make.
Purifying glycerine
Biodiesel can be made with ethanol (which you can make yourself), instead of methanol (which is
toxic, fossil-fuel derived, and you can't make it yourself). Here's a recipe: Optimization of a Batch
Type Ethyl Ester Process. But the ethanol has to be anhydrous -- free of water -- which can't be
achieved by distillation. One way to dry it is to use the by-product of making biodiesel -- glycerine.
Here's how:
Absolute Alcohol Using Glycerine -- Mariller-Granger Processes, from E. Boullanger: Distillerie

Agricole et Industrielle (Paris: Ballire, 1924). Mariller's absolute alcohol production process by
dehydration using glycerine, various systems examined and explained. Translation from the French by
F. Marc de Piolenc.
But -- the glycerine has to be 99%+ pure. Purifying it is no simple matter -- it's difficult to distill it
because glycerine has a very high boiling point (290 deg C). Solvent purification distillers will purify
the glycerine, but they are expensive.
Soap
The crude glycerine by-product from homemade biodiesel makes a powerful degreaser.
Remove the residual methanol first.
Letting the by-product stand in an open container for a few weeks will NOT evaporate the methanol as
it's often said it will, or not much anyway.
Boil it off -- NOT over an open flame, do it in the open, don't inhale any fumes, or (better) use a simple
condenser to recover the methanol for re-use.
The disadvantage of raw by-product is that it contains most of the lye catalyst used in the processing,
which makes it very caustic, it can burn the skin if you don't use gloves.
Saponifying the by-product makes an even better cleaner, and it won't burn your skin -- in fact it's kind
to the skin because of the high glycerine content. Glycerine is a natural product of the soapmaking
process. Glycerine moisturizes the skin, but commercial soap manufacturers remove the glycerine for
use in lotions and creams, which are more profitable. Handcrafted soap retains the glycerine, and hence
the boom in do-it-yourself craft soapmaking, and the high prices of handmade soaps.
Saponified glycerine by-product is a great cleaner, we use it for all cleaning jobs, whether to clean old
machine parts filthy with dirt and grease, or as an effective and economical dishwasher, laundry soap,
or an excellent hand-cleaner. It cuts through oil, grease and dirt like a knife, and it doesn't take much of
it.
There are various recipes for making by-product "soap", but they're rather vague and imprecise.
Basically, remove the methanol first, then mix extra lye with water, add it to the heated by-product and
mix for 10 or 15 minutes while maintaining the temperature. Then you have to cure it for a couple of
weeks.
The difficulty with by-product soap is in calculating how much extra lye to use. It depends how much
you used in the first place.
The results also depend on which catalyst you used: sodium hydroxide (NaOH) will give a solid bar
soap, potassium hydroxide (KOH) makes liquid soap. We prefer KOH as a catalyst and seldom use
NaOH, and we have no experience of making bar-soap from the by-product. We'd rather have a liquid
cleaner anyway.
You have to stay with the catalyst you started with -- if you used NaOH in the biodiesel process you
can't then use KOH to make soap from the by-product, it has to be NaOH, and vice versa: if you started
with KOH, make soap with KOH.
Use the soapmaking resources listed below to find a good general method to tell you how to go about
heating, mixing and curing.
We use 100 ml of water per litre of by-product, which works well with KOH to make liquid cleaner.
That should be okay for NaOH bar soap too, or try using less water.
The lye quantity is more critical. It depends on the titration of the oil you used. Common
recommendations are that if you used say 5-7 grams of NaOH per litre of oil in the biodiesel process,
then you need another 30 to 40 grams of NaOH to saponify the by-product. We think it should be more
precise than that -- we've found if you don't use enough lye the soap tends to leave an oily film, and if
you use too much it's too harsh.
Here are some starting figures you could try, apply them proportionally according to the titration of
your oil.
If your oil titrated at 1 ml 0.1% NaOH solution try using 22 grams of NaOH; if the titration was 2.5 ml
0.1% NaOH solution, try 30 grams of NaOH. Make a few tests first with small quantities, varying the
amount of lye by 2 grams on either side until you get the best result.
For KOH, multiply by 1.52 for 92% pure KOH, by 1.56 for 90% pure KOH, or by 1.65 for 85% pure
KOH.
If you separate the glycerine by-product from the impurities (see Separating glycerine/FFAs), you'll
be left with about 80-90% pure glycerine. You can add it to plain liquid soap to make a high-glycerine
shower-soap or shampoo. It doesn't need much -- try 10 to 20cc per 500cc of liquid soap, and add some
essential oils for fragrance.
Excellent soap book
The Soapmaker's Companion: A Comprehensive Guide With

Recipes, Techniques & Know-How, by Susan Miller Cavitch, Storey
Books, 1997, ISBN: 0882669656
Recommended by Todd Swearingen, and, after we bought it, endorsed by us --
great on soap and of much interest to all biodiesellers. One reviewer said: "This
was the most complete book on soapmaking I've ever read. The first to actually
explain the chemistry & give formulas to figure the ratios of lye to fat." From
Storey Books:
http://www.storeybooks.com/
Web resources
So, you want to make soap? -- 3,400-word online article by Elaine White, author of
"Soap Recipes: Seventy tried-and-true ways to make modern soap with herbs, beeswax and
vegetable oils". Covers locating lye and safety precautions; equipment list; ten-step
procedure; herbal soap; superfatting soap; soap recipes.
http://members.aol.com/oelaineo/directions.html
How to make soap in a blender! by Elaine White -- "Blender Soap is the easiest and quickest way
to make soap!" says Elaine White. But you should learn the basics first: "I suggest this method for
experienced soapmakers only," she says.
http://members.aol.com/oelaineo/blender.html
The Amount of Lye Required to Make Soap by Elaine White -- Saponification, Lye/Fat chart
http://members.aol.com/oelaineo/sapchart.html
Online Lye Calculator at Majestic Mountain Sage helps soap makers calculate their soap
formulations. Extensive soapmaking resources at this site.
http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php
NOTE: The directions given at the above websites for using potassium hydroxide (KOH) instead of
sodium lye (sodium hydroxide, NaOH) assume that the KOH is pure. Sodium hydroxide is usually
99% pure, but 99% pure KOH is rare, though it does exist. Most KOH is between 85% and 92% pure,
and it's fine for making soap.
To calculate the lye amount needed for making soap with ordinary, less than pure KOH:
For 85% KOH use 165% of the NaOH amount (x 1.65).

The old way
Colonial soap making, history and techniques -- 5,250-word online booklet by Marietta Ellis
of the Soap Factory, who has researched soap making techniques and the history of soap making for
over 30 years. She also works with VITA (Volunteers In Technical Assistance), providing people in
developing countries with soap making information. Detailed instructions, some illustrations,
bibliography.
http://www.alcasoft.com/soapfact/history.html
Soap Making - Traditional Methods -- Prepared from information in many soap making books
which describe old pioneering methods used up to the end of last century in America, Australia,
Canada, and New Zealand, using substances which are easily found or made in most parts of the world,
such as wood ash and rainwater. Many of these techniques are now being used in African countries.
6,700-word article by Paul Norman, with illustrations.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/paul_norman_3/soapmake.htm
Soap -- King's American Dispensatory, by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M.,
Ph. D., 1898
http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/kings/sapo.html
Soap forums
Toiletries mailing list -- Large email discussion group for soapmakers, good reference library,
ongoing co-ops for essential oils, bulk items, etc.
http://www.yahoogroups.com/community/1Toiletries
Soap & Candle Making -- Web forum for those making soap and candles to share ideas and
techniques. Post, browse or search messages.
http://forums.thathomesite.com/forums/soap/
See: Natural vegetable soap
Glop soap
If you use too much lye when trying to make biodiesel it won't separate into biodiesel and glycerine
but turn instead into a sort of gloppy jelly, maybe with some soap solidified at the bottom. You can turn
it into soap.
In a nutshell:
Don't do this with an open flame gas stove!
Pour glop into pot, turn on medium heat, let residual methanol evaporate, don't breathe, pick a
soap recipe, subtract caustic already in glop from weight required by recipe, mix this amount of
caustic with the specified amount of water, pour into pan, stir to trace, pour into mold or other,
wait two weeks, bathe either self or dog.
-- Todd Swearingen, Biofuels mailing list
Or both.
Paintbrush cleaner
From Tony Clark to the Biofuel mailing list:
"I have another use for the by-product from biodiesel production -- cleaning paint brushes which have
been used with oil-based paints. I have found it to be superior to turps (turpentine), and have not had
the brush harden from residual paint.
1. With the oily brush, dilute the paint in the brush (with biodiesel or turps) until it is runny when
the brush is pushed onto a firm surface. I used about 50ml with a 2" brush.
2. Work the brush to ensure that the bristles are fully moistened.
3. Remove from dilution liquid.
4. Work brush in a small container with about 20 ml of glycerin, more for bigger brush/container
(you will see the paint coming out).
5. Rinse brush under water until all milkiness is removed.
6. If brush still shows signs of paint, repeat glycerin stage with fresh glycerin.
7. Check that brush doesn't smell of paint and store brush as usual.
"I disposed of the paint / biodiesel / glycerin / wash water in the compost."
High-explosives
The most earth-shattering use of glycerine remains that discovered by Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero
150 years ago when he subjected it to nitration to make the world's first real high-explosive,
nitroglycerin, one of the most dangerous substances ever concocted.
Sobrero's face was badly scarred in an explosion during an early experiment. He said nitroglycerin was
so dangerous it was useless, and it had killed so many people he was ashamed to be its discoverer.
But Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel set about mass-producing the stuff, in spite of several explosions --
one of which killed his brother. Nobel discovered that nitroglycerin could be mixed with silica
(diatomaceous earth) to form a stable high-explosive which he called dynamite. It made him one of the
richest men of the age.
Nitroglycerin is extremely powerful. A mere 10 ml will expand 10,000 times into 100 litres of gas at an
explosive velocity of 7,700 metres per second (17,224 miles per hour) -- more powerful than TNT.
It's easy to find recipes for nitroglycerin. You mix deadly compounds like sulphuric acid and nitric acid
with the glycerine and unless you can control the following runaway reaction it explodes in your face.
Most formulas carry warnings like these:
"Caution: Nitroglycerin is extremely sensitive to decomposition, heating, dropping,

or jarring, and may explode even if left undisturbed and cool."
"Caution: Nitroglycerin has the capacity to sense when a stupid or clumsy person is
around and, if given a chance, it will try to kill him."
"Caution: This formula assumes that the maker has no qualms about killing his/her Alfred Nobel
self in the process."
These cautions are very well-founded!
Every now and then newspapers rediscover these "resources" on the World Wide Web and set up a hue-
and-cry for Internet censorship, claiming it promotes terrorism, but any terrorist worth his Semtex
knows better than these amateurish offerings.
Anyway these things have been around much longer than the Internet. We found a nitroglycerin recipe
in a general how-to book published more than a century ago, along with a dozen other explosives,
including dynamite. Did Civilization-As-We-Know-It survive? It's a little hard to tell! (But we think it
did.)
Heart disease drug

"In one of the more curious coincidences of science, the first modern high explosive -- nitroglycerin --
also became one of the very first man-made drugs. To this day, it remains the most commonplace
treatment for chronic angina, the chest pain of heart disease," writes cardiologist Esmond A. Barker,
MD, in "Nitroglycerin is most frequent medication for chronic heart pain".
http://www.cardio.com/articles/nitrogly.htm
Nitroglycerin is a vasodilator -- it relaxes the blood vessels, reducing the pressure on the heart. There
can be side-effects -- some patients get killer headaches, others low blood-pressure and dizziness -- and
it can clash seriously with other drugs (see next). It comes in the form of tablets for under the tongue,
ointment and skin patches -- and it cannot be turned into an explosive.
The dosages are low: the tablets contain a maximum of 0.6 mg nitroglycerin, the ointment is 2%
nitroglycerin.
This may be because nitroglycerin isn't only a deadly explosive, it's also a deadly poison: the lethal
dose is only 2 grams, but toxicity begins with a much smaller amount.
Love potion
Nitroglycerin's action as an effective vasodilator led in 1998 to the release of RESTORE, the "first
ever fully tested, effective topical cream for the safe treatment of male erectile dysfunction
(impotence)".
http://pharmacology.about.com/library/98news/bln0309a.htm
"Restore" contains 1% nitroglycerin and is "effective within minutes of application of achieving an

erection of up to 45 minutes duration. No significant side effects or instances of priapism were
reported."
Want to double the effect? Forget it: do NOT take Viagra (sildenafil) if you are taking any form of
nitroglycerin, whether for heart pains or for heart pangs. The combination could kill you.
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9805/21/viagra.warning/
Safe sweetener
Glycerine is an alcohol (glycerol) and is used as a preservative in the food industry, as well as a
sweetener: it is very sweet, yet it contains no sugar. This makes it an ideal sweetener for patients who
cannot take sugar, such as the increasing number of Candida sufferers. Vegetable glycerine is said to be
the "only acceptable sweetener" for Candida patients. Here are a couple of healthy recipes.
Sweet potato casserole

1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons 100% pure vegetable glycerin
2 teaspoon (alcohol free) orange flavouring
Ground cinnamon to taste
1/2 cup chopped or ground fresh walnuts
1/2 pound sweet potatoes, scrubbed, peeled and quartered
Preheat oven to 175C. Place sweet potatoes in a greased 8-inch casserole. Put all other ingredients into
a small bowl: mix. Pour mixture over sweet potatoes and bake 35 minutes, or until fork-tender.
Vanilla Pecan Icecream
3 eggs
2 tablespoons softened butter (optional)
1/2 cup food-grade glycerine
2 cups (unsweetened) soy or almond milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoons sea salt (optional)
2 cups cream, or 2 extra cups of soy or almond milk to lower the fat content
1/2 cup pecans (roast lightly in oven and cool before using)
Beat eggs and milk together in large saucepan on low heat. Stir constantly until thickened -- mixture
should smoothly coat a spoon. Takes 5-10 minutes. Cool. Add glycerin, cream (or soy or almond milk),
vanilla, salt, and pecans. Refrigerate overnight or longer. Process in icecream maker (or freeze). Add
carob flour to make a chocolate version.
Health supplement
Health supplement for sportsmen -- Glycerine increases blood volume, enhances temperature
regulation and improves exercise performance in the heat, or so it is claimed. It helps "hyperhydrate"
the body by increasing blood volume levels and helping to delay dehydration. Following glycerol
consumption, heart rate and body core temperature are lower during exercise in the
heat, suggesting an ergogenic (performance enhancing) effect. In long duration
activities, a larger supply of stored water may lead to a delay in dehydration and
exhaustion. However, read the safety provisos.
http://www.supplementwatch.com/supatoz/
supplement.asp?supplementId=152
Preserving plants
This won't work with flowers. For foliage, cut sprigs or leaves, wash off any dust and Mulberry leaves
-- preserved
dirt. Cut away the lower inch of the stem, and stand the specimen in a solution of two (dark) and fresh-
parts of water to one part of glycerine. Big, heavy leaves might do better in a 50-50 picked
solution.
The leaves might change color with absorbtion. Ready when the entire leaf has changed color, having
absorbed as much liquid as possible. The process takes a week or two. If the leaves start to droop,
they've been in the solution too long.
Take them out, wipe them off, tie a string round the stem and hang them
upside down.
Another way is to completely submerge the leaves in the solution (you'll have
to weigh them down). This method works better with some leaves.
Six hours later the fresh When ready, wipe any moisture off the leaves. Wipe off any moisture or
leaves have wilted "leakage" for the first few weeks. They're now permanently preserved.
Photocopying -- from long before the age of photocopiers

Copying Pad for Taking Transfers of Writing.White gelatine 4 ounces, water 8 ounces,
glycerine 8 ounces, gum dextrine 2 ounces. Always use these same proportions for any amount. Melt
the gelatine in the water at a gentle heat, add to it the glycerine, in which the gum dextrine has been
thoroughly incorporated. Now stir all together, until thoroughly mixed, and then pour into pans of the
desired size, to the depth of 1/2 inch.
RECIPE FOR INK TO BE USED.Violet analine 40 grains, gum arabic 12 grains, alcohol 1/4 ounce,
water 1/2 ounce; dissolve the gum in the water and alcohol, then add the analine. Shake in a bottle
from time to time, until the analine is dissolved.
TO WORK THE COPYING PAD.Write with the ink on any good paper, press the written surface on
the pad, and allow it to remain two minutes; then take off and the writing will remain, from which
impressions may be taken by laying on plain paper and smoothing with the hand. As soon as the last
impression is taken, be sure and wash off with a wet sponge.
-- From "Lee's Priceless Recipes: 3000 secrets for the home, farm, laboratory, workshop and every
department of human endeavor", Laird & Lee, Chicago, 1895 (facsim. Algrove, Ottawa, 1998).
Other uses
Glycerine is also a source of lecithin (used in foods as a fat emulsifier, and a vital component of all cell
membrances in the body) and of tocopherols (vitamin E). It is used in skin moisturizers, lotions,
deodorants, makeup, toothpaste, sweets and cakes, pharmaceuticals and patent medicines, in paper
manufacturing, printing ink, in textiles, plastics, and electronic components.
Composting
You can compost excess glycerine by-product -- it is non-toxic and biodegrades quickly.
It will need to be mixed thoroughly with other materials so that the air and bacteria can get at it, or it
will just make a sticky mass -- mix thoroughly with dry, "brown" materials, use in conjunction with
other composting materials as only a part of the overall mix.
Composting should be "hot" compost -- aerobic, thermophilic compost that reaches high temperatures.
See Journey to Forever's Composting pages.
The separated glycerin helps to heat up a compost pile, see below, Compost activator
NaOH or KOH?
"What to do with Glycerin Compost? -- but probably not if NaOH, only KOH", says a US biodiesel
website, and provides the link to this webpage.
Not so. You can safely compost the by-product of biodiesel made with either NaOH (sodium
hydroxide) or KOH (potassium hydroxide), as well as of biodiesel made with the acid-base method,
which leaves some sulphates in the by-product mixture (sulphur is a "macro-nutrient", essential for
plant growth, all soils contain sulphur).
Potassium is sold as a chemical fertiliser, and sodium isn't used as a fertiliser, so some people jump to
the conclusion that sodium will harm the soil and the plant life. In fact both sodium and potassium are
a part of healthy soil, and on the other hand both of them can harm the soil if used in excess.
Composting greatly reduces that risk.
"It has been concluded that sodium makes potassium available [to plants], that it tends to
conserve soil calcium, magnesium and potassium. It can assist in plant nutrition when soil
potassium is not suffiicient for the requirements of the crop." -- Charles Walters Jr., C.J.
Fenzau, "An Acres U.S.A. Primer"
Sodium and potassium are cation elements. In a healthy soil with ideal conditions for plant growth, the
proportions of the cation elements are: calcium 60 to 70%, magnesium 10 to 15%, potassium 2 to 5%,
sodium 0.5 to 3%, hydrogen 10 to 15%, and other elements 2 to 4%.
You can add sodium up to the level of 3% with no harm. The upper limit for potassium is only 2%
higher anyway.
Too much sodium and/or potassium will unbalance the soil both physically (packed soil, poor
drainage) and biologically (less biological activity overall, higher proportion of pathogens).
Adding minerals direct to the soil can be an imprecise and hazardous game. Composting widens the
margins for error considerably, resulting in higher organic-matter (humus) levels which help to
"buffer" the soil, along with increased quantities of all the cation elements. When it's been composted
first, the soil can absorb reasonable amounts of sodium or potassium without harm.
If you try to use too much by-product in the compost mix it won't compost, you'll have re-mix it with
more dry brown stuff. If it composts well, it will be safe to use.
If you want to recycle your glycerin by-product this way learn to make good compost.
Compost activator
More about composting the glycerin by-product -- separated glycerin speeds up the composting
process:
Composting glycerine might not only be an environmentally sound way to eliminate the
coproduct, but it may actually speed up decomposition of the materials in the pile.
I diluted crude glycerine (2 water : 1 glycerine) split from the glycerine cocktail. I added some
of the potassium phosphate that precipitates out and some ammonia to raise pH a bit. This was
added to my compost as it was being built. After 48 hrs the temp of the pile was 160F (71C).
This is considerably higher than temps I normally achieve.
Upon turning the pile the second time I divided the large pile into 2 smaller piles.To one I
added the solution as I built it, to the other I added water, only. After approximately 36 hrs the
pile with the solution added was 150F, the one with only water was 125 F. This , I think,
corroborates what the earlier results suggest: The glycerine and minerals split from the cocktail
can not only be composted safely, they seem to stimulate the process.
-- "Crude Glycerin and Hot Compost", Tom Kelly, Biofuel mailing list, 30 May 2006,
http://snipurl.com/rq1z
See also:
http://snipurl.com/rq20
Re: [Biofuel] more goofy questions [composting the glycerine cocktail]
31 May 2006
Don't try to feed glycerine by-product to manure worms (see Vermicomposting), it will kill them
unless it's been pre-composted.
Washing
Why bother?
Which way is best?
Mist-washing
Bubble washing
Stir washing
Washing tanks
Settling and separation
The washing process
Recycling the wash-water
Washing temperature
Emulsions
Using acid
Wash-water disposal
Drying the fuel
Why bother?
Frequently Asked Question: "Do you really need to 'wash' biodiesel? I've been running a 50/50
biodiesel/petro diesel mix for a few months so far and my Dodge Cummins runs great on it."
Answer: "Yes, we do. Detergents in gasoline or petroleum diesel? Maybe. Sodium or potassium soaps
in biodiesel? Not. A can of HEET (methanol) in the tank every once in awhile to resolve a water issue?
Maybe. A dose of methanol to hoses and seals with every inch on the odometer? Not. And certainly
there isn't any benefit to leaving caramelizing glycerin floating freely in a fuel and headed for an
injector. I think it best be left to the petro-chemical distilleries to leave varnishes, paraffins and the like
in their fuel and serve it up as champagne to the unsuspecting. As for 'no problems 'til now?' You might
take note that nothing is ever broken until it breaks." -- Todd Swearingen, Appal Energy, at the
Biofuel mailing list.
Read what the Fuel Injection Equipment (FIE) Manufacturers (Delphi, Stanadyne, Denso,
Bosch) have to say about the contaminants left in unwashed biodiesel:
Summary -- html
See: Determining the Influence of Contaminants on Biodiesel Properties, Jon H. Van

Gerpen et al., Iowa State University, July 31, 1996 -- 12,000-word report on contaminants and their
effects. Acrobat file, 2.1Mb
Quality biodiesel must be washed.
Frequently Asked Question: "I don't wash my biodiesel, but I filter it through an automotive oil
filter, then through a 3 micron oil filter, this is after allowing the biodiesel to settle in a 55 gal barrel for
a couple days. Is this adequate?"
Answer: No. Settling and filtering will not remove the soap, catalyst, glycerin or excess methanol
contaminants.
Frequently Asked Question: "Methanol is good fuel, why wash out the excess methanol, what a
waste!"
Answer: Methanol is good fuel in specially prepared race car engines, which are not diesels. Excess
methanol in unwashed biodiesel is not good fuel and does harm, corroding the fuel injection system.
Recover the methanol for re-use or wash it out of the fuel.
Which way is best?
Frequently Asked Question: "I was wondering if anyone could tell me which way might be best
for washing large batches of biodiesel? I was wondering if bubble washing or top-mist washing would
be better." -- Biofuel mailing list, July 2004
Answer: Perhaps neither.
First you have to know what an emulsion is and why it matters. Briefly (more below), oil and water
don't mix, and well-made biodiesel should separate quickly and cleanly from the wash water when it
settles. But if the biodiesel isn't made properly there'll be more soap in it than there should be, along
with half-processed oil molecules, monoglycerides and diglycerides (MGs and DGs), which are
emulsifiers. Emulsifiers are used to make stable mixtures of oil and water, such as mayonnaise. Soap
also does that. If there's too much of this stuff in your biodiesel, some of the biodiesel or all of it won't
separate from the wash water, or at least not quickly, and in some cases maybe not for weeks. You have
an emulsion problem.
In fact it's a quality test -- if it doesn't separate, you need to work on improving your processing.
Properly made biodiesel with good completion of the reaction will not emulsify.
You can "fix" an emulsion, or prevent it forming (see below), and emerge successfully... but with poor-
grade fuel. The emulsifiers are fuel contaminants, they can't be washed out, and the upper limits for
them in the national standards specifications are low. Above those limits they'll cause injector coking
and damage your engine, especially with prolonged use.
Gentle and super-gentle washing techniques like bubble-washing and top-mist washing simply mask
the problem that the fuel may not have been made properly in the first place.
Todd Swearingen of Appal Energy replied:
"Mist- and bubble-washing have become 'institutionalized' amongst home-brewers primarily

due to the frequency of incomplete reactions that lead to washing problems. They are both
methods of treating incomplete reactions with little kid's gloves in the hopes that any resulting
emulsion won't be 'too bad' or 'too noticeable.'
"No wash method should be used on any batch unless it is known for certain that the reaction
has completed. (See Quality testing.) Unfortunately, many people fail to guarantee this for
themselves, opting to just 'go ahead and wash it gently.'"
Quite so. See below, Stir washing.
There is a lot of confusion about this. Here's a different reply to the same message, from a champion of
super-gentle washing methods:
"Either mistwash or bubblewash works fine for big batches, but the same rules apply as for
small batches -- more water is needed for misting and less emulsification happens, much less
water is needed for bubblewashing but more chance that emulsification can take place.
"I actually use both now -- mist for a few gallons and then I bubblewash with good use of water
recycling during bubblewashing. In my 350 gallon wash tank, my small aquarium air pump
gives fine results, but not all of the air pumps might be able to handle such large batches. It
looks like a tiny amount of bubbles are rising but it works really well -- less emulsification than
the same air pump agitating up a smaller batch."
-- Maria "Girl Mark" Alovert, July 2004
But what sort of fuel will emulsify at all in a 350-gallon tank with only a small aquarium air pump to
"agitate" it? Well-made fuel can take rough washing with a paint-stirrer without emulsifying, you can't
emulsify it with an aquarium air pump.
Strangely, the same person had previously said this about mist-washing:
"The bad news is that poor quality biodiesel can emulsify just from the agitation of
bubblewashing. The good news is that it's easy to make good biodiesel... Some people use a
super-gentle 'mist washing' method to take vigorous agitation out of the picture. To me it seems
that this masks the real problem -- which isn't agitation, it's poor fuel quality. I'd rather make
sure I've produced fuel that contains less soap and less emulsifying monoglycerides and
diglycerides, instead of decreasing the agitation to 'ease washing'."
-- "Bubblewashing 101", Maria Alovert, 12 May 2003
But Ms Alovert was now using a sealed 200-litre hot water tank "Appleseed" reactor, based on Dale
Scroggins' excellent Touchless Processor design, and the 1" Clear Water pump she was using to agitate
it is too small for more than 100 litres -- it won't mix a 200-litre tank batch thoroughly in the usual time
allowed. There were also problems with the plumbing of the Appleseed reactor, making clear
separation of the biodiesel from the soapy glycerine by-product layer difficult. Poorly processed and
possibly contaminated biodiesel needs super-gentle washing methods.
But as Ms Alovert said earlier, it's easy to make good biodiesel. These problems are easily solved.
"I went from 1 & 2 liter test batches to a small 15 liter processor and all went fine. When I
bumped up to a 30 gal batch I got incomplete reactions and the emulsions during wash that can
go with it. The washed and dried biodiesel looked great, but produced more glycerine when a
sample was reprocessed. Following advice from Keith Addison at Journey to Forever I scaled
down the volume of the batches, increased the temperature a few degrees, and increased
processing time. It is often necessary to tweak the process as you scale up. It is much easier to
wash good quality biodiesel. It takes less time and it's less expensive to process it right the first
time than to have to reprocess a batch." -- Tom Kelly, Biofuel mailing list, 5 October 2005
Tom left emulsions behind and now uses stir-washing (see below). We also use stir-washing, so do
many others. We make biodiesel all the time, but it's years since we had an emulsion problem at
Journey to Forever.
Mist-washing
Mist-washing uses a superfine spray above the wash-tank to send a mist of water droplets down onto
the surface, creating zero agitation. It works, or anyway it does wash the biodiesel, though it's slow and
it uses a lot of water, and usually the water is not re-used.
Why do it? After all, the basic quality test for biodiesel is to shake it up violently with some water in a
jar and see how long it takes to separate. (See Quality testing.) If you can't agitate it during the wash
without it foaming up or forming an emulsion then go back to the beginning and learn how to make it
properly. Then you can use more effective washing methods that won't just mask poor processing.
Bubble washing
Bubble-washing was developed at the University of Idaho and is popular

among home-brewers. It uses a small air-pump, usually an aquarium aerator
pump with a bubble-stone. Water is added to the biodiesel in the wash tank
(usually a quarter to a half as much water as biodiesel); the water sinks to the
bottom; throw in the bubble-stone, which also sinks to the bottom, and Milky water after the first
switch on the pump. Air-bubbles (lots of little bubbles is best) rise through wash...
the water and into the biodiesel, carrying a film of water around them, which
washes the biodiesel around the bubble. When it reaches the surface the
bubble bursts, leaving the water to sink back down again, washing the fuel
again.
Usually three or four washes are used, each of six to eight hours, often less
for the first wash, with a settling period of at least 1 hour between washes
(some people settle it for much longer). After it's settled the water is removed
via a bottom-drain and replaced with fresh water.
Washing is completed when the water is clear after settling, with a pH of 7

2nd wash -- murky water...
(or the same as your tap-water).
Some of the cheap air-bubble stones aren't biodiesel proof and can crumble
away any time from immediately to soon, especially the blue ones, for some
reason.
Get ceramic stones, they'll last indefinitely. A rough-grade carborundum

stone will also work, or a pumice stone, though you'll have to weight it. Or
try experimenting with wood, and weight that too.
Here's Aleks Kac's method: Washing.

3rd wash -- clear water at
Mike Pelly's method: Bubble washing. pH7, clear biodiesel on top
Advantages of bubble-washing: It's easy, it works, it doesn't take much effort -- add the water,
switch on the aerator, come back later, do it again. For added convenience add a timer to switch off the
air-pump after eight hours so you don't have to come back until a couple hours later (or a week later if
you like) when it's settled and you can just change the water.
Disadvantages of bubble-washing: It might not take much effort but it takes a lot of time -- there
are quicker (and better) ways (see below).
Bubble-washing is gentle and can mask an incomplete reaction, which

agitation will reveal immediately. (It's always wise to do a wash-test
first by shaking up a quarter or half a litre of the fuel with some water
in a sealed jar or a PET bottle.) Ian uses three of these pneumatic
exhaust silencers for bubble
Oxidation and polymerisation: A more complicated problem with washing. They don't rot, they're
bubble-washing is fuel oxidation. cheap and they work very well.
See: Ian's vacuum biodiesel
processor
All oils are not the same. Some are 'drying' oils such as linseed oil, which is why it's used in paints and
varnishes. When it dries the oil irreversibly polymerises (polymerizes) into a tough, insoluble
plastic-like solid. At the high temperatures in internal combustion engines the process is accelerated.
Steadily accumulating films of tough, insoluble plastic-like solids are not what you want in your
engine and injector pump.
Polymerisation happens when the double bonds in unsaturated oil molecules are broken by oxygen
from the air or water. The oil oxidises, forming peroxides (hydroperoxides), and the peroxides
polymerise, bonding with carbon to create a long and stable molecule called a polymer (plastic).
Another effect of oxidation is that the hydroperoxides attack elastomers, such as rubber seals.
Without oxygen the oil can't polymerise.
Oxidation and polymerisation don't only affect the drying oils, there are also semi-drying oils, many of
which are commonly used to make biodiesel, including sunflower and soy.
Saturated oils don't polymerise, unsaturated oils do. The level of unsaturation is called the Iodine
Value (IV) -- the higher the IV the more unsaturated the oil, the faster it will oxidise and the more it
will polymerise. Linseed oil, tung oil and some fish oils have IVs of between 170 and 185. Coconut oil
has an IV of 10 and won't polymerise. More information on IV: High Iodine Values
Converting unsaturated oils to biodiesel lessens the polymerising effect but doesn't prevent it.
Mixing biodiesel made from high-IV oils with biodiesel made from lower-IV oils also lessens the
polymerising effect but doesn't prevent it.
The Euro standard for biodiesel, EN 1421 of 2003, is the de facto world standard, now copied by
Australia, and soon by Japan. It sets both a maximum IV limit and an oxidation stability limit. The IV
limit is 120, which excludes soy oil and sunflower oil as feedstocks for standard biodiesel in Europe,
but includes rapeseed oil, the main oil crop in Europe.
Soy is the main oil crop in the US, and the US ASTM D-6751 standard sets no IV or oxidation limits.
In a paper published in 1996, leader of the Iowa State University biodiesel project Prof. Jon H. Van
Gerpen stated: "The specification for biodiesel should include a limit on the tendency of the fuel to
oxidize and a limit on the maximum degree of oxidation allowable for use of the fuel in diesel
engines." See: Determining the Influence of Contaminants on Biodiesel Properties, Jon H.
Van Gerpen et al., Iowa State University, July 31, 1996 (Acrobat file, 2.1Mb)
A November 2005 report by the Southwest Research Institute for the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory of the US Dept. of Energy, An Evaluation and Comparison of Test Methods to
Measure the Oxidation Stability of Neat Biodiesel, proposes test methods suitable for the
inclusion of oxidation stability limits in the US ASTM D6751 biodiesel standard specifications.
Acrobat file, 816 kb:
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/npbf/pdfs/38983.pdf
The issue is still being widely ignored or denied in the US, but the European results are conclusive --
even when made from rapeseed oil with its lower IV, well within the EU standard limits, oxidised
biodiesel can polymerise and damage pumps and engines. Anti-oxidant additives for biodiesel sell well
in Europe.
Homebrewers and oxidation: Many homebrewers in the US think biodiesel shouldn't be used in
the newer TDI or PDI diesel engines because the high injection pressures cause polymerisation. High
pressures cannot cause polymerisation, only oxidation can do that.
Others think that if the biodiesel meets the US ASTM standard it will not polymerise -- but the ASTM
standard sets no limits for oxidation or IV levels.
"I agree with Mike Briggs [ Biodiesel Group, University of New Hampshire] on
polymerization. If we are talking about ASTM fuel, then it is a non-issue... Polymerization was
pretty much dismissed at at least one session at the NBB [US National Biodiesel Board]
conference in February of this year, as biodiesel performed far better than anticipated in the
lecturers' tests... Meanwhile, quality control is not enforced in this country, so what do you
expect?"
-- Kumar Plocher, owner, Yokayo Biofuels in California, "Concern over Bio polymerization",
BioDieselNow Forums, 21 October 2004
Any problems there may have been with TDI/PDI engines using biodiesel in the US could be due to
poor fuel quality, and they also could be due to oxidation and polymerisation of high-IV soy biodiesel.
But the problem is unacknowledged or denied. (See also The TDI-SVO controversy.)
From a more recent discussion, at the "wastewatts" group at Yahoo, "Biodiesel, comparison of oils", 2
May 2006:
"Is there any one out there that has experience with using different oils and comparison of
results when making biodiesel? I have been using Canola oil [IV 98] for the last 3 years, but
now need to find another oil supply in addition to the canola I am getting. Have found Soya [IV
130] and Cotton seed oil [IV 105] users. So would like to know what to expect if I was to start
processing these oils?"
-- Trevor, "wastewatts" group at yahoo, May 01, 2006
"There is no difference between soy, canola, cotton or the myriad of other oils."
-- Steve Spence, Dir., Green Trust Sustainability & Renewable Energy
"There's a comparison of various vegetable oils on the journeytoforever.org site [linked] that
details the cetane ratings, melting points, Iodine Value, and oil yields from seed and nut crops.
High Iodine Values are reportedly associated with polymerisation and subsequent possible
engine damage (not just when using SVO but biodiesel made from these oils as well). A link
within this page references the Euro standard for biodiesel, EN 1421, which sets the maximum
Iodine Value (IV) at 120. The IV level of 120 reportedly includes rapeseed oil but excludes
soybean and sunflower oil as sources of standard biodiesel in Europe. ASTM standards in the
United States don't set Iodine Value limits."
-- Rosannah
"Very thorough article. Nice find!"

-- tinkerbill (william)
"The key word being "reportedly". In reality, when picking up used fryer oil from a variety of
sources, it tends to average values out and there are no real world issues."
-- Steve Spence, Dir., Green Trust Sustainability & Renewable Energy
In reality, mixing oils with different IVs or mixing the biodiesel made from them has no effect on the
IV or the oxidation stability of a higher IV oil: if it is oxidised it will polymerise no matter what other
biodiesel you mix it with. Different IVs are not "averaged out", and many biodiesel homebrewers only
have one source of used oil anyway.
Iodine Values are not "reportedly" associated with polymerisation, they ARE associated with
polymerisation. And there have indeed been "real world issues" in the shape of damaged engines.
All oils are not the same.
Another issue remains ignored -- the hydroperoxides formed in high-IV biodiesel when it oxidises are
more likely to rot elastomer injector seals than biodiesel is.
Oil paint is based on high-IV vegetable oils. Paint doesn't dry when it's in the paint tin with the lid
sealed. It does dry if you paint a thin film of it on a surface exposed to the air.
Biodiesel tends to cover everything it touches with a thin film. When motors stand idle overnight or
longer, thin films of biodiesel cover many engine parts, including elastomer seals.
This isn't exactly scientific, but you could try painting a thin film of your biodiesel on a piece of glass,
or any clean, smooth surface, along with a thin film of the oil you made it from, see if it starts getting
sticky to the touch and dries. Pour about 1/8" (2-3mm) of your biodiesel into an uncovered shallow
dish and keep an eye on it, watch for it turning a reddish colour, darker and more viscous. If it happens,
check how long it took. You might want to consider finding a source of better oil.
If you're using a higher-IV oil for biodiesel, make it well, store it well, and use it fast.
See also Storing biodiesel
Bubble-washing and oxidation: Without oxygen the oil can't oxidise and polymerise. Everyone
knows what a fish-tank aerator does: it pumps the water full of oxygen so the fish can breathe. Bubble-
washing does the same thing to biodiesel, pumping it full of oxygen.
Bubble-washing certainly increases oxidation. We've been sent some lab test results from Europe, or
rather a precis of them. The home-brewed WVO biodiesel tested ("Foolproof" method) passed all the
standards requirements except the Oxidation stability level. Those home-brewers no longer use bubble-
washing for their fuel. They use stirrers.
If you do use bubble-washing, use the fuel quickly, especially if your feedstock was soy or sunflower
oil or another semi-drying oil. Storing it for a long time might not be a good idea. There are a lot of
variables: the kind of oil you used, how you store it, the weather... Keep it airtight in full containers in
a cool, dark place. There are also anti-oxidant additives which you could try. We have no experience of
them. With semi-drying or higher IV oils, try alternating or mixing with batches of biodiesel made
from lower IV oils in your tank. It won't solve the problem but it will help.
We seldom use bubble-washing, we use a stirrer (see next).
Stir washing
Frequently Asked Question: "Is there a way to speed-up the water-

biodiesel wash? I've read the bubble washing techniques and understand it,
but for the best quality of biodiesel, it can take up to a week, with several
washes."
Stir-washing, the first wash
Answer: "You can speed up the washing process considerably. It involves -- homogenised biodiesel
and water immediately after
the following: a thorough mix with a paint
stirrer.
1) Throw out your mist washer.
2) Box up your bubble washer.
3) Make absolutely sure that you never try to wash an incomplete reaction by
test-washing a 1-ounce sample in a sealed jar.
4) Use a motor-driven impeller to mix the water/fuel mixture to the point of

appearing homogenous for about 5 minutes.
5) Let settle 1 hour.
6) Syphon off the top layer of fuel and repeat steps

4, 5 and 6 two more cycles.
3rd wash -- clear water at
7) Let the fuel air-dry or heat to 120 deg F (48 deg pH7, clear biodiesel on top,
C) to dry. Stir-washing a 60-litre no loss of yield.
batch -- in goes the first
Depending upon the volume of oil in your batch, wash water, 20 litres of it. the hp/size of your
reactor tank and wash tank motors/impellers, you could get your entire
batch process time down to 24 hours.
Most people avoid mechanical mixing of the fuel at the wash stages,
thinking that it will create emulsion problems. And they're right if they try to
wash 'fuel' from incomplete reactions." -- Todd Swearingen, Appal
Energy, at the Biofuel mailing list. A paint-stirrer on a drill
agitates the whole tank
Comments: (avoid making a vortex, but
it helps for photographs!).
"Todd, I had a chance to try your 'fast' wash method today (35
gal white poly drum) with a simple 55 gal drum mixer and wanted
to thank you for the time you just gave back to me! Success! At
least for me, this procedure is much better and faster to wash
biodiesel this way, compared to the bubblewash method. Just five
minutes of 'appearing homogenous' and allowing the 1 hour
The double paint-stirrer.
Three washes in a day
leaves the biodiesel clean
and clear, with no emulsion
formed and no loss of yield.
settling, drained-off and replaced the water and repeated for a total of three wash cycles. The
water and biodiesel layers are currently clear and it's settling for 24 hours. Excellent separation,
no emulsion!" -- Kevin Shea at the Biofuel mailing list.
Thank you Keith and Todd -- I followed your advice and stir-washed the 15L batch instead of
pump-washing it. The first wash water came out a bit cloudy. The second was crystal clear.
Thanks again. -- Tom Kelly, Biofuel mailing list, 14 Aug 2005.
It is my belief (may be wrong) that the higher the quality of biodiesel the more rigorous the
wash agitation can be. The batches that I have made that cannot take stir washing (emulsions
occurred) have invariably been the result of incomplete reactions. As the biodiesel I make has
increased in quality, it has stir washed very easily. -- Tom Kelly, Biofuel mailing list, 5 Nov
2005.
Advantages of stir-washing: Quick and effective, no masking of a poor reaction, no oxidation.
Disadvantages of stir-washing: There aren't any. BUT you have to process the fuel properly in
the first place. Some beginners have difficulty with this, all seems well until they start the wash, and hit
problems -- it foams, or it turns into chicken soup and won't separate. And then they get discouraged.
Don't be discouraged, keep trying! It's just a matter of practice and getting a good feel for the biodiesel
process. Make sure your titration and measurements are accurate, be as meticulous as you can, make
sure your chemicals are fresh and high-quality, that you're using enough methanol, that you're
processing the fuel at the right temperature and agitating it for long enough. Make small test batches
for comparison -- see Poor man's titration.
More advice from Todd Swearingen:
"You can use a prop agitator for not much more than 5 minutes, enough to homogenize the fuel
and water, and 99% of the water will settle out of a 500 gallon batch in an hour. You could
probably conduct one wash every three hours. Leave the last wash to settle 12-24 hours before
drying the fuel.
"Some people express concern with pump- or prop-washed fuel not clearing as quickly as mist-
or bubble-washed. There's sound reason for this. Pumps and propellers have the ability of better
mixing the fuel and water ('atomizing' it), bringing both in more frequent contact with each
other. This means greater surface to surface contact between water
molecules and all suspended/dissolved impurities. Fifteen minutes with a
1/2 hp motor and 4"-6" prop in a 200 gallon wash tank or bigger will
achieve the same thing or more as an all-day-affair with a mist- or
bubble-washer. This allows for hours of washing time to be converted to
settling time, in turn hastening the entire wash process.
"Pump washing has the potential to more quickly and thoroughly

'atomize' the two fluids and generate an emulsion in washes of biodiesel
that are borderline to or perhaps far less than a reaction completion than
does mechanical agitation."
Using the same pump you use for the biodiesel reaction to wash the fuel might
save some money but before you process your next batch you'll have to flush it
out thoroughly with biodiesel. The same goes for using the reactor vessel as a
wash-tank. It is an option if you're short of space, but having a separate wash-tank with its own stirrer
is a much better option.
If you use a sealed water heater tank as a reactor, there'll probably be residues of soapy glycerine by-
product that didn't drain left in it to foul up the washing process, and the wash process will leave traces
of water to foul up the next biodiesel batch. Get a separate wash-tank.
(If you do manage to get some by-product in the fuel when you're
transferring it to the wash-tank, let it all settle again overnight in the wash
tank, then add up to a quarter as much hot water, pour it over the surface of
the fuel. Let it settle for a few hours and separate it. Do a wash-test -- see
Quality testing. If the fuel separates quickly from the water, continue with
washing the batch as usual. If not, treat again with hot water, or use a gentle
washing method.)
An alternative to stir washing is to use a small pump and a garden

sprinkler. This has nothing in common with top-mist washing, there's
nothing very gentle about it -- it homogenises biodiesel and water the same A revolving garden
as mechanical stirring does though it takes a bit longer, about 15 or 20 sprinkler does a good job
minutes. It splashes a bit, but the danger of oxidation is very much lower of mixing fuel and water.
than with bubble-washing's millions of little air-bubbles. Water is drawn from the
bottom of the tank and sent
to the sprinkler via a small
Washing tanks pump.
You need a separate washing tank. If you have the space have two wash tanks, it really increases your
production options. If you're short of space you can compromise by forcing the reactor vessel to serve
as a washing tank as well (see above), but don't expect to like it.
The wash tank should be the same size as the processor tank or bigger. We wash 60-litre batches in 90-
litre tanks, with 1/3 water v/v oil for each wash, ie 60 litres of biodiesel and 20 litres of water. That
leaves a few inches of headroom, enough for stirring or sprinkling or bubbling. (See photographs in
Stir washing section, above.)
The tank should have a bottom drain fitted with a valve. Cone-shaped tank bottoms help, but it also
helps if it's convex, which you can achieve by standing a flat-bottomed tank on a few bricks under the
bottom edge (which is usually a lip) and bashing the bottom down a few millimetres with a heavy bit
of lumber wood. Often the drain fitting has a raised edge a millimetre or so above the floor of the tank,
which is annoying but you can live with it.
If there's no bottom drain and it's a closed drum there should be filler caps in the lid and one of them
might take the standard plumbing fitting thread on a 3/4-inch ball valve or gate valve. Closed 200-litre
55-gal drums have two caps, one with a standard 3/4" thread. Cut the bottom of the tank out instead of
the top and turn the tank upside down, fit a drain valve to the cap.
Otherwise cut a hole for the drain and weld a female-threaded valve fitting into place. Use the fitting to
mark out the size of the hole and carefully drill a circle of small holes, maybe 2mm, next to each other
just inside the circle. Cut through the metal between the holes, remove the inner bit of metal, and use a
half-round file to file the edges of the hole smooth until it fits the valve fitting. If you do it carefully
you should be able to screw the valve fitting into the hole. Then weld or braze the fitting in place.
Some people use a standpipe in the washing tank, with two drain outlets. One has a length of pipe
inserted into the outlet inside the tank, calculated so that the open end will be higher than the depth of
the wash water in the bottom of the tank. You drain the wash water from the ordinary outlet for the first
washes, but after the final wash is finished use the standpipe outlet to drain the biodiesel before
draining the wash water, which makes certain you don't get any of the water along with the biodiesel.
We use standpipes in the oil pre-heating tank, the settling tank and the fuel and oil storage tanks, but
not in the washing tank. A standpipe only helps with standard-sized batches and the standard amount of
wash-water, and we don't find any difficulty getting clean separation after the final wash anyway. See
the standpipe set-up in the settling tank used with the Journey to Forever 90-litre processor, which
works the same way. Glycerine moves like treacle and sticks to the inside walls; bottom-drain
separation isn't very efficient. The standpipe keeps the biodiesel above the problem. The same problem
doesn't exist with water removal. Nonetheless, many people find standpipe wash tanks a useful option.
You can make a lid for the tank from a piece of compound board cut to
fit with sheet plastic glued on the underneath surface and four toggle
latches. Give it a silicon seal too if you like -- apply a generous
helping of silicon round the underside edge, allow to set for 6-8 hours
(depending on the weather) until it isn't sticky to the touch anymore
but is still soft. Then place the lid carefully in position on top of the
processor and weigh it down with something heavy, making sure the Wash tank lid, on the right the
weight is spread evenly around the edge. The silicon takes the shape of hose-barb connection for the
the rim but doesn't stick -- no need for a release agent. transfer pipe from the settling
tank. The other fitting is a water
Rig a stand for the wash tank that's high enough for a bucket to fit inlet but we never use it.
easily under the outlet valve. We use steel stands cut and welded from angle iron. Consider that a 200-
litre 55-gal steel drum with a batch of biodiesel and wash-water weighs about 350 lbs, 160 kg, don't
use a flimsy or wobbly stand for it.
Settling and separation
After processing, settle for at least 12 hours, preferably 24 hours, before separating the glycerine by-
product and starting with the wash.
Be careful separating the by-product layer from the biodiesel, it's very soapy stuff -- much rather have
some biodiesel in the by-product than by-product in the biodiesel when you want to wash it.
If you do manage to get some by-product in the fuel when you're transferring it to the wash-tank, let it
all settle again overnight in the wash tank, then add up to a quarter as much hot water, pour it over the
surface of the fuel. Do a wash-test -- see Quality testing. If the fuel separates quickly from the water,
continue with washing the batch as usual. If not, treat again with hot water, or use a gentle washing
method.
This is how we separate the glycerine by-product from the biodiesel, via a standpipe in the settling tank
(see caption).
The washing process
Transfer the biodiesel from the settling tank/processor, leaving ALL the glycerine by-product behind.
Add water, wash.
Most people use 25% to 50% as much water as biodiesel or more for each wash. We use one-third as
much, 20 litres of water and 60 litres of biodiesel.
Take no notice of advice that you have to pour the water in carefully and gently, that you mustn't pour
it straight into the biodiesel, pour it against the side of the tank instead like you fill a beer mug or you
might emulsify it. If you've used wash-tests to tune your processing and you test each batch before
washing, just tip the water into the tank, it won't froth over like beer. Or pump it in through the lid.
The water sinks to the bottom. Proceed with the wash, whether stir, sprinkle or bubble.
Settle the fuel between washes for as long as you practically can before replacing the water and starting
the next wash. Generally, the longer it settles, the more effective the next wash will be.
The first wash water turns white, like milk. Washing is completed when the water is clear after settling,
with a pH of 7 (or the same as your tap-water), usually after the third or fourth wash.
Freshly washed biodiesel is often a bit cloudy. It should clear in anything from a day to a week. Leave
it in a container out in the sun, or heat it to 45-50 deg C (113-122 deg F) and let it cool in a vented
container. If it goes cloudy again on cooling you probably haven't washed it thoroughly enough. Give it
another wash, or if you're in a hurry, heating it to 45-50 deg C a second time might clear it. When it's
clear go ahead and use it. See Drying the fuel, below.
If it doesn't clear, it probably needs reprocessing. Try the Reprocessing test and the Methanol test.
Recycling the wash-water
The counter-current method of re-using the washwater reduces water use for three washes by two-
thirds.
The water doesn't become saturated with the contaminants it removes from the biodiesel. Instead a sort
of equilibrium is reached between the contaminants in the water and the contaminants still left in the
biodiesel. Water from the first wash contains the most, with less in the second wash water and less
again in the third. Water from the second and third washes can be re-used in washing your next batch
of biodiesel. The second wash water is used for the first wash of the next batch, the third wash water
for the second wash, with fresh water for the third wash. Only the water from the first wash is disposed
of, and only when it has already been used for three washes in three successive batches of biodiesel.
Washing temperature
It works better in summer than in winter, and the more cold it gets the less effective the washing -- it
takes longer and uses more water.
If your processor and wash-tank are in a heated room you shouldn't have any trouble. Otherwise, either
heat the biodiesel or, easier, use hot water. Try to get the overall temperature to at least 30 deg C (86
deg F) or more. We use hot water in the winter. It's cheap for us, but it still uses energy, and energy isn't
cheap no matter how little you pay for it. We have a Kyocera solar water heater, we just have to plumb
it in, and then we'll use that.
Emulsions
... shouldn't happen if you processed the fuel properly (see above). When they do happen, the first
thing to think about is why it happened so you can prevent it happening next time -- make good fuel!
The second thing to think about is how to save the batch. One batch of sub-standard biodiesel with too
much glycerine in it won't hurt your motor (though constant use of it will), so rescue your bad batch
and use it. Best to mix the bad batch in with better batches in your fuel tank.
A mild emulsion makes a third layer between the biodiesel and the wash-water after your first wash
has settled. A paper-thin layer is fairly normal, just go on with the second wash. Thicker layers are not
normal. Drain the layer off, with a bit of water and biodiesel on either side, and set it aside to settle, it
will eventually separate. Heating it will usually separate it. Leave it to dry, then add the top layer to
your next batch of oil for reprocessing. Meanwhile continue with the second wash, which shouldn't
produce an emulsion, or much less anyway.
A severe emulsion is when the entire tankful turns into a third-layer -- it looks like you have a tankful
of chicken-soup or dirty-looking mayonnaise.
If you leave it overnight or for 24 hours it will usually separate, and again you'll be left with a third
layer in the middle to deal with, as above. It might take longer to separate, several days or a week,
especially in cold weather. Meanwhile your wash-tank is full of mayonnaise and you can't wash the
next batch.
There are several ways of breaking the emulsion. Heating it will usually work -- 50-60 deg C (122-140
deg F) is usually enough. As with drying the oil before processing, if you use higher temperatures
beware of causing steam explosions. Another way is to add hot water to the mix, if there's enough
headroom in your wash-tank. The hotter the better. That should at least start the separation process:
allow it to settle, drain off any water that's separated, add more hot water, and so on.
Another way is to add ordinary table-salt, sodium chloride. Dilute the salt in water first, add while
stirring gently, keep adding until it starts to separate.
This works well to break the emulsion, the trouble is that salt is an impurity that you should be
washing out instead of washing in. It will take more washing than usual to get all the salt out and end
up with clear, neutral water. And salty wash-water is not as innocuous as ordinary wash-water, so take
care in disposing of it.
A third way is to use some acid to "quench" the wash, which will also break an emulsion. See next
section.
Whichever method you used, once the emulsion is broken, continue with the rest of the washes until
clear and dry as usual. Now you can use your rescued batch while pondering how to make better fuel
next time.
Using acid
Some people say it's a mistake to "quench" the wash with acid. They say that while the acid will
neutralize the alkali catalyst, it will also convert some of the soap to Free Fatty Acids (FFAs), which
dissolve back into the biodiesel, and which you don't want in your fuel.
We seldom use acid in the wash, but many people get good results using an acid quench. Some of them
have had their biodiesel analysed, again with good results -- acid-quenched biodiesel can and does
meet and exceed standard specifications such as EN 14214 and ASTM D-6751. It's a normal procedure
in commercial production.
Does it in fact convert soap to FFAs? Typical quantities of acid used are: 8 milliliters of 5% vinegar per
liter of wash water used (usually a quarter to half as much water as the amount of oil used); 2
milliliters of 10% phosphoric acid per liter of washing water; enough ("not much") 5% phosphoric acid
to bring the pH down to 7 (neutral). (Other acids used are sulphuric, citric or acetic, all well-diluted.)
This is how to convert soap to FFAs: Separating glycerine/FFAs. What it says is that for "average"
WVO, titrating at 3 ml, you'd need 9.75 ml of 85% phosphoric acid per liter of oil used to convert the
soap to FFAs, thus separating it from the glycerine. That's about 50 times as much acid as you'd use to
quench the wash, and in the wash it's buffered by all that water too. FFAs? Naah.
But be sparing with the acid anyway.
An acid-quench will also break an emulsion or prevent it forming, which might disguise a processing
problem that the emulsion would reveal. Always do a wash-test first! You can "break" an emulsion by
slowly adding dilute acid (phosphoric, acetic, citric, sulphuric, 10% concentration) until you see it start
to separate (see "Emulsions", above).
Wash-water disposal
Used wash-water is (or should be!) about as innocuous as the average family's laundry water.
Wash-water may contain:
Some biodiesel -- this is poor practice. How to avoid it: When draining wash-water, stop a few litres
short of the interface with the first washes. With the final (3rd or 4th) wash, stop well short of the
interface again, and drain the last water separately, along with some biodiesel. Let it settle in a separate
tank. After a few batches' worth you can syphon clean biodiesel from the top and drain clear water
from the bottom.
Some excess methanol -- also poor practice. Most of the excess methanol is in the by-product, but
some remains in the biodiesel and is removed by the wash-water. It should be reclaimed from the
biodiesel for re-use. Do this after settling and separating the by-product, when the biodiesel is on the
way to the wash-tank. This is best done with a flash evaporator.
The lye catalyst -- potassium hydroxide (KOH) or sodium hydroxide (NaOH). See below.
Sulphur (sulfur) -- if the acid-base process is used, the wash-water will contain some sodium sulphate
or potassium sulphate salt. This is innocuous -- sulphur is one of the six plant "macro-nutrients"
(nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur), it's essential for plant growth, all
soils contain sulphur.
Soaps. See below.
Of course all wash-water should be used three or four times before disposal or recycling (counter-
current washing, see Recycling the wash-water, above), so it is only the final water that needs
disposal:
4th > 3rd > 2nd > 1st > disposal/recycling
Lye is commonly used as a drain-cleaner and presents no problems for waste-water treatment
operations, and all domestic waste-water contains much soap, also no problem for waste-water
treatment.
Therefore, with good practices, wash-water can be disposed of as safely as domestic waste-water.
Check with your local authority.
Even the methanol might be an advantage -- some of the waste-water digester bacteria like it. See
More about methanol.
But this is treating the wash-water as a waste. There are better ways.
The wash-water can be treated with either magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts) or calcium hydroxide
(both common chemicals), which will convert the water soluble soaps (sodium or potassium) in the
water to insoluble magnesium or calcium soaps, which float to the top and can be collected. These
soaps can be burnt as heating fuel.
The water should then be neutralised with dilute phosphoric acid. Now it contains potassium
phosphates or sodium phosphates and can be diluted for use as irrigation water for pastures and fields
(sodium needs more dilution -- see Composting the by-product for more information on soil and
plant nutrients).
The water can also be handled safely by a simple greywater system. There are many resources on the
web to teach you how to do this.
Drying the fuel
When the fuel is clear -- not colourless but translucent, you can see through it, there's no haze or
cloudiness -- then it's dry. Actually it's never dry: despite what the standards say, it always absorbs
some water from the atmosphere, between 1,200 and 1,500 ppm, but this is dissolved water, which is
harmless, unlike suspended water, which must be removed.
It should clear by itself in a day or so after you separate the final batch of wash-water. Leaving it in the
sun will help, or heat it to 45-50 deg C (113-122 deg F) and let it cool in a vented container. If it goes
cloudy again on cooling you probably haven't washed it thoroughly enough. Give it another wash. If
you're in a hurry, heating it to 45-50 deg C a second time might clear it.
If it doesn't clear, it probably needs reprocessing. Try the Reprocessing test and the Methanol test.
Work on improving your processing to achieve better process completion.
Another method is bubble-drying -- the same as bubble-washing but without the water. Drain the final
batch of wash-water and use a bubble-stone and an aquarium air-pump to bubble air through the
washed fuel. This will usually clear the fuel overnight. Sometimes it doesn't stay clear, in which case it
might need another wash.
The disadvantage of bubble-drying is the same as with bubble-washing -- it oxidises the fuel, and you
could have problems with the fuel polymerising unless you use it quickly. It won't pass the European
EN 1421 standards requirements. We don't recommend bubble-drying for this reason. Our fuel is clear
in a day or two anyway.
Biodiesel and your vehicle

Compatibility:
-- Filters
-- Timing
-- Rubber
Biodiesel quality
-- Homebrew quality
-- Homebrew vs commercial production
Why quality matters
Quality testing
-- Wash test
-- What should you do if your fuel doesn't pass the wash-test?
-- Reprocessing test
-- Methanol test
-- Reprocessing biodiesel
-- How to use the quality tests
-- More quality checks
Standards for biodiesel
Using biodiesel in winter
Very Frequently Asked Question: "Can I use biodiesel in my car?"
Answer: If it's a diesel, yes. But there are a few things you need to know.
Filters
Conventional fossil-fuel petrodiesel is dirty stuff. Not only are the exhaust fumes dirty, but the fuel
itself leaves a deposit in the tank and fuel system. Biodiesel isn't only clean, it's a good cleaner -- it
does a great job of cleaning up the gunge the fossil diesel leaves. But then all the freed gunge blocks
up the fuel filter.
When you first switch to biodiesel, check the fuel filters often and change them when needed. The first
few weeks are the most important. Some people fit a second cheap filter upstream of the main filter for
the first few weeks.
If a car has been left standing for a long time with petroleum diesel fuel in the tank, as with some
second-hand cars up for sale, the bottom of the tank may have rusted (water content is a common
problem with petro-diesel fuel). Biodiesel will free up the rust, and it could clog the particle filter
inside the tank. At worst the car simply stops, starved of fuel. More likely the engine steadily loses
power first, probably for long enough to get you there before it stops, the first time anyway. It's not a
common problem, but it happens.
It's happened to a few older Mercedes in the US, and it happened to our 1990 Toyota TownAce, after
running on 100% biodiesel for about a year. We took the particle filter out of the tank and replaced it
with an external filter, which we cleaned very often, and after awhile it stayed clean. When we checked
the tank the rust had gone. It had cost us an extra final filter element.
There's probably no need to take the precaution of removing the particle filter from the tank before
there's a rust problem just in case it happens because it probably won't happen, and with some cars it's
not easy to get the particle filter out of the tank.
Timing
Optional: Retard the injection timing by 2-3 degrees -- this overcomes the effect of biodiesel's higher
cetane number. The engine loses a little of the extra power you get with biodiesel, but it runs quieter
and the fuel burns cooler, reducing NOx emissions. (See also NOx emissions and biodiesel.)
Rubber
Rubber parts in the fuel system may corrode in time with biodiesel, especially 100% biodiesel (B100).
Newer cars (since the mid-1990s) use resistant parts, and biodiesel is used in many older engines
without any problems. If necessary, check with your vehicle's manufacturer. Viton parts are best. In
fact these problems are rare -- just do it, go ahead and use biodiesel, and wait and see. If you do have
problems it won't be soon and it won't be sudden, you'll have warning and it's easily fixed.
This is what commercial biodiesel producer Camillo Holecek of Biodiesel Raffinerie GmbH, Austria
(http://www.energea.at/en_info.html) had to say about it:
"As a commercial producer I used to tell my clients: Any European car maker's product after
1996 is 100% biodiesel-proof, as countries like France are already mixing 5% biodiesel in their
standard diesel fuel sold at the pump, and in the Czech Republic it is 30% in the 'Bio-Naphta'
that is also sold to anyone at the pump, and none of those car makers wants to get a bad name
that his brand car failed in those important markets.
"And by the way, Nissan Austria just approved its Primera for 100% biodiesel, too.
"We did hear of a few medium-aged trucks having the original injection pump seals going to
pieces, after growing bigger over several months due to biodiesel 'attack'."
Terry de Winne (Biofuels for Sustainable Transport -- http://www.biofuels.fsnet.co.uk/) had this to

add:
"Ultra low sulphur diesel fuel (ULSD) suffers from two things -- lack of the lubricity of the
sulphur and also its ability to vulcanise any rubber components. Ergo, when Europe went over
to ULSD in 1993/95, all fuel components were changed by all manufacturers to Viton or
similar plastic.
"Initially, supplies of ULSD were found to be very harsh on the injectors and caused many
problems. Most oil companies added lubricity additives to compensate.
"The French, being farmer-friendly, opted for biodiesel. The three main companies add 5% to
all their ULSD. Shell International adds just 2%, but even this small amount is enough to
compensate for the removal of the sulphur. It also oxygenates the fuel and brings the emission
levels down marginally -- particularly carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide.
"Hence, all Euro vehicles are compatible with biodiesel, whether or not the manufacturers
acknowledge it.
"Biodiesel, being an organic substance, tends to be absorbed by natural rubber -- after a month
or so exposure, the rubber swells and rots. This applies to all ratios of biodiesel additive to
petrodiesel. A tank or two to try it out will do no harm, if ULSD or standard diesel fuel is used
thereafter.
"This is particularly applicable when using biodiesel in diesel generators, which are usually
designed to run on high sulphur fuel, so probably have rubber hoses."
In fact it seldom happens. Any vehicle made from the early 1980s on is unlikely to have problems,
even using 100% biodiesel. Some 1980s Volkswagen models eventually suffer return-line leaks, but
you'll have warning of it and it's easy to replace the damaged part. As for injector pump seals, we've
yet to hear of it actually happening with any clear proof that biodiesel was the culprit. Petro-diesel is
also tough on seals.
Two of many similar enquiries sent to the Biofuel mailing list:
"I own a Toyota Corolla 2.0D van (1993), I was told that diesel fuel pumps in older diesel
vehicles aren't compatible with the use of biodiesel. The rubber parts inside the fuel pump will
be damaged and they aren't replaceable. A fuel pump is a very expensive part (hundreds of
euros). Can anyone tell me if that's true?"
And:
"I've spent weeks since my first batch of corn-based BD came out of the processor trying to
determine what will need to be done to my Datsun pickup before I get to use B-100 in it. It's a
1981, and although it's running alright on B-20, I have gotten the lengths of fuel line I'll need to
replace to run on 100% biodiesel.
"It's my only vehicle, so I will have difficulty removing the seals for comparison at the auto
parts store, unless I disassemble it in their parking lot.
"Has anyone else out there done a conversion on the same engine (vintage) as I'm dealing with?
What parts are needed to complete? Do I just need a new pump? Are there rubber impeller seals
inside it?"
Reply:
"If your biodiesel is properly made (i.e. a complete reaction) and, more importantly well
washed (typically three or four washes), I see no reason to fear pump failure even in early
pumps. The car companies say otherwise to cover their backs, and likewise the oil companies
want you to keep buying their diesel. Having the pump rebuilt with a Viton kit is not
necessary." -- Malcolm Maclure, June 2005
Petroleum diesel, even when it's not low-sulphur diesel, is aggressive stuff itself, it also attacks rubber
and plastic. We have some tough 12-litre plastic carboys which we've been using for years for
biodiesel, methanol, methoxide, glycerine by-product, by-product separated with concentrated
phosphoric acid, and never had any problems until we stored some petro-diesel in one of them. After a
while it just broke, the whole side fell out. Fuel-system parts are made to be resistant, but seals can
wear out eventually anyway.
Biodiesel quality
Homebrew quality
Biodiesel made from different kinds of oil can have slightly different characteristics (see Oils and
esters characteristics) -- some are better for cold climates, for instance. But it's all excellent fuel, even
when made from used cooking oil (WVO) -- as long as it's well made. You CAN make high-quality
biodiesel yourself if you follow the instructions given on this site.
Our normal production biodiesel made here at Handmade Projects from used cooking oil was
tested by Gas Chromatograph at a technical university in Tokyo. "Very clean biodiesel!" was the
comment on the lab test results. Ester content was 99.09%, a very complete reaction, better than the
European EN 14214 biodiesel quality standard specification of 96.5% minimum ester content.
The lab staff said later it was the cleanest biodiesel they'd seen. "How do you make such good
biodiesel from WVO?" they asked. See:
http://snipurl.com/pie8
[Biofuel] Biodiesel test results
11 Apr 2006
Aleks Kac, making homebrew biodiesel with his "Foolproof" acid-base two-stage process, has passed
the German DIN 51606 tests twice, as well as the Austrian ONORM test, with samples taken from his
normal production without any special preparation. Again, the lab was surprised he could make such
good biodiesel from WVO.
Make your own biodiesel

Mike Pelly's biodiesel recipe
Aleks Kac's two-stage process
Aleks Kac's FOOLPROOF biodiesel method
"Backyard" and small-scale producers take a pride in what they do, many or most of them make high-
quality biodiesel. Jack Kenworthy, a teacher at the Cape Eleuthera Island School in the Bahamas,
joined our Biofuel mailing list in November 2002 as a novice. List members helped him learn how to
make biodiesel from scratch, helped him solve problems he encountered, then helped him design and
build a processor. Nine months after joining he wrote to the list:
"Hey All -- just thought I would let you know that I just received my results from the ASTM
tests [the US ASTM D-6751 biodiesel standard] and we passed all categories. Just another good
example of a homebrewer in a remote setting (Bahamas) making spec-grade biofuel! Thanks! --
Jack"
Jack uses the single-stage base process and makes the fuel in 150-gallon batches, totalling about 300
gallons a week. He uses waste vegetable oil from cruise liners that call at the island once a week.
See: Standards and the homebrewer -- "Most of the ASTM D-6751 standards can be met simply
by preparing and washing the fuel well," says Todd Swearingen of Appal Energy.
We've received many reports from people using their own fuel of how diesel engineers were surprised
at how clean their engines are following a professional inspection.
Homebrew vs commercial production
You can make better fuel yourself than the big commercial companies often do, despite the industry
mythology to the contrary.
On 7 Nov 2002 Graham Noyes of World Energy, a major commercial supplier of biodiesel in the
US and beyond, wrote to the Biofuels-biz mailing list:
"The big fear of the biodiesel industry is that homebrewers are going to destroy the market. I
have seen home-brewed biodiesel cause problems in multiple locations and it has taken
significant efforts to undo the damage. One region of the country in particular had large
quantities of homegrown off-spec fuel that was being sold and distributed. The use of biodiesel
was substantially delayed in this area until trust for the fuel was re-established."
But, though put under considerable pressure by list members, he was unable to provide any details of
this catastrophe. Three weeks later he changed his tune:
"After some experience here, I have a much better understanding of the efforts that are being
made to make top-quality fuel. I also think I should provide some more details regarding my
perspective on homebrew (and should have been more careful about sweeping statements in the
first place). While I do nothing but biodiesel 40-70 hours/week, I have not seen any significant
problems result from the use of homebrew. There are concerns but these are primarily
perception rather than experience."
An apocryphal tale, as we'd charged: there was no off-spec homegrown fuel causing problems, it was
just industry rumour-mongering. But Graham earned the homebrewers' respect for admitting it -- and
now he works to counter such negative mythology in the industry in the US, and heads a committee
focusing on small-scale producers at the National Biodiesel Board (NBB, which represents the
commercial industry in the US).
Some months later, in May 2003, World Energy recalled a consignment of commercial biodiesel from
the Pacific Northwest because it was sub-standard, with a "high glycerine content" (ie unwashed fuel).
To their credit, World Energy acted quickly to withdraw the fuel, replace it with quality fuel and repair
the PR damage. But soon afterwards several thousand gallons of commercial biodiesel distributed in
the San Francisco area (not by World Energy) turned out to be very poor-quality, sub-standard fuel
(also unwashed, and worse) and was recalled, fortunately before it reached consumers.
In summer and fall 2003 there were serious problems in California with bad-quality biodiesel produced
by NBB member Imperial Western Products' plant, which cost drivers repair bills. IWP went on
delivering the bad fuel, it wasn't just a single bad batch. The fuel was independently tested twice and
found to contain high levels of triglycerides -- there was unconverted oil in the biodiesel. The NBB
was not aware of the issue, and in fact scheduled a tour of the Imperial Western Products plant on the
NBB convention agenda after the incident.
The NBB continues to attack homebrewers: "'Unlike commercial biodiesel, the homemade fuel is not
held to ASTM International specifications drafted to protect engines,' said Jenna Higgins, spokesman
for the National Biodiesel Board. ... Fuels from home reactors would void engine warranties, she
added." -- From Grease-guzzlers thrive on leftovers, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 26,
2006
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/146919/
There is similar industry prejudice in other countries, and it's similarly baseless.
Aleks Kac reported this:
"For nosyness' sake I tried the ole' quality test (mix a little water in your finished product and
watch the separation -- see below) but with a commercial biodiesel sample from Austria.
Horrifying results: it created a thick white foam between the water and bio layers. The white
foam thinned to 1/4 of the thickness in two weeks, but hasn't disappeared. After two weeks the
fuel still hasn't cleared. Conclusion: this commercial biodiesel is not washed with water! I
suspect it has merely the methanol distilled out and been neutralized in a solid acid bed."
Rob Del Bueno of Vegenergy http://www.vegenergy.com/ resells commercially manufactured

biodiesel in Atlanta, Georgia. He told the Biofuel mailing list:
"Over the past two years I have seen the quality of this fuel vary greatly. Funny thing about the
'commercially manufactured' biodiesel... One of the big arguments against backyard biodiesel
(from industry folks) is quality, yet every batch that I have made, and every batch I have seen
by a homebrew biodiesel maker has been much better than the 'fuel' I am reselling. Individuals
with small-scale setups seem to really care, take their time, and craft their fuel... after all, most
are using it in their own cars, not selling to the boiler fuel market."
You can do it too.
Why quality matters

A message to one of the biodiesel discussion groups told how someone had made some biodiesel by
shaking the ingredients up a few times in a plastic bottle and put it straight into his tank: "... I've had
dozens of trouble-free miles!" he enthused.
Unlike gasoline engines, diesels will run on bad fuel -- for a while: they'll run on used motor oil, or
with kerosene or even gasoline added, or on sub-standard, unwashed biodiesel. But diesel motors and
their fuel systems should last 250,000 miles or more, half a million miles is common. Dozens of miles,
10,000 miles or even 20,000 miles don't mean much. A real test would be over at least 250,000 miles
on unwashed biodiesel with all its contaminants -- soaps, excess methanol, residual lye, free glycerine,
with regular engine disassembly and full professional examination for wear. There aren't any such
scientific tests, especially as standards committees and other professional bodies in several countries
have already determined what damage these contaminants and impurities do -- that is the basis of the
various national standards for biodiesel.
Here's what the Fuel Injection Equipment (FIE) Manufacturers (Delphi, Stanadyne, Denso,
Bosch) have to say about biodiesel quality:
Summary -- html
Quality testing
Wash test
This is the most useful all-round test, and it's very simple: Put 150 ml of
unwashed biodiesel (settled for 12 hours or more, with the glycerine layer
removed) in a half-litre glass jar or PET bottle. Add 150 ml of water, screw
the lid on tight and shake it up and down violently for 10 seconds or more.
Then let it settle. The biodiesel should separate from the water in half an
hour or less, with amber biodiesel on top and milky water below. This is
quality fuel, a completed product with minimal contaminants. Wash it, dry it
and use it with confidence.
But if it turns into something that looks like mayonaisse and won't separate, Wash-test with unwashed
or if it only separates very slowly, with a creamy white layer sandwiched biodiesel -- left, after a
violent 10-second shaking;
between water and biodiesel, it's not quality fuel and your process needs right, biodiesel and water
improvement. Either you've used too much catalyst and made excess soap separated cleanly within
(better titration), or a poor conversion has left you with half-processed minutes. The biodiesel will
mono- and diglycerides, fuel contaminants that act as emulsifiers (better be cloudy, and the water can
be milkier than this, but as
long as it separates quickly
and cleanly, it passes the
test.
titration, try more methanol, better agitation, longer processing time, better temperature control), or it's
both too much catalyst and poor conversion. See Emulsions.
Whichever, you're headed for washing problems. Super-gentle washing techniques might avoid the
problems, but you'll still be left with poor-quality fuel laced with contaminants that can cause injector
coking and engine damage and they can't be washed out.
If you have an emulsion any thicker than the normal "paper thin" interface layer between oil and water,
the batch should probably be retreated. See Reprocessing biodiesel, below.
Bubble-washing is also gentle, and it's worth repeating the test with some washed fuel after bubble-
washing -- it should separate from the water cleanly within a few minutes.
Also try the Methanol test, see below.
See:
Washing
How to use the quality tests
What should you do if your fuel doesn't pass the wash-test?
See Accurate measurements
Frequently Asked Question: "Alright, I'm stumped. When I tried to wash the biodiesel with tap
water, it formed a white emulsion. I've waited a long time but there was no separation, absolutely
nothing. What happened?? What am I doing wrong??? Can I make biodiesel with this oil?"
Answer: Keep trying, make more test batches, practice makes perfect.
Learners at the Biofuel mailing list:
Re: Alright, I'm stumped -- Sad to say but I think most of us have screwed up at one point or
another. My big mistake was the very first thing doing the titration with the Better Titration
method, but I forgot one minor thing. So from that point all was up hill. I was checking my
process one thing at a time, checking and rechecking, but all I did seemed to be A1. After
thinking that this was all a trick, I found the first thing I did was wrong. Now all is well with
the process. Until I mess up once more. -- Derick Giorchino, 10 Oct 2005
Re: Alright, I'm stumped -- Sounds like my first run and I'm no expert now but ... I had to
eliminate the variables one by one. So I got virgin oil, got better at titration, got better lye (and
how to measure it!) -- and Bingo, there it was, perfect biodiesel. Make sure you measure your
lye very carefully, I found I added too much the first time and smoked a blender. But it was this
and several other blunders that have made it easier to get along with now. -- Jim, 10 Oct 2005
Perseverance furthers.
"I went from 1 & 2 liter test batches to a small 15 liter processor and all went fine. When I
bumped up to a 30 gal batch I got incomplete reactions and the emulsions during wash that can
go with it. The washed and dried biodiesel looked great, but produced more glycerine when a
sample was reprocessed. Following advice from Keith Addison at Journey to Forever I scaled
down the volume of the batches, increased the temperature a few degrees, and increased
processing time... It takes less time and it's less expensive to process it right the first time than
to have to reprocess a batch. -- Tom Kelly, Biofuel mailing list.
Now Tom uses stir-washing and doesn't get emulsions.
"It is my belief (may be wrong) that the higher the quality of biodiesel the more rigorous the
wash agitation can be. The batches that I have made that cannot take stir washing (emulsions
occurred) have invariably been the result of incomplete reactions. As the biodiesel I make has
increased in quality, it has stir washed very easily.
"For anyone starting out or still in the R&D phase of scaling up and tweaking the process to
improve quality, disregard anything other than the tried and tested directions at Journey to
Forever. Read them and then re-read them. Follow the instructions, don't add or subtract
anything and you will be making quality biodiesel." -- Tom Kelly, 5 Nov 2005
Reprocessing test
Todd Swearingen of Appal Energy in the US offers some useful D-I-Y quality tests:
"The barnyard tests for your fuel are to take a liter of finished fuel, process it again as if it were
new veg oil. If any more glycerine drops out, then you know it wasn't as good as it could have
been.
"Also, look at your wash water. The second wash should be almost completely clear. The third
wash should be nearly crystal clear.
"After settling 24 hours after a third wash, the fuel should be transparent when held up to light
in a glass jar. If slightly hazy, simply heating the fuel to 90 deg Fahrenheit (32 deg C) should
clarify it.
"If it clarifies with minimal application of heat, throw it into your tank and go see your mum
for the weekend.
"If all of the above 'tests' turn out well, you probably have a fuel that would analytically beat
fuel produced using continuous process (i.e. commercial) methods."
Methanol test
Jan Warnqvist uses this test:
"Take exactly 25 ml of biodiesel and dissolve it in exactly 225 ml of methanol in a measuring

glass.
"The biodiesel should be fully soluble in the methanol, forming a clear bright phase. If not,
there is pollution in the biodiesel. Each ml of undissolved material corresponds to 4% by
volume. Is there any undissolved material at the bottom of the measuring glass? If there is, your
reaction is not complete and this is causing you trouble with the water test.
"This method does not cover every aspect of quality, but it gives a hint. It is valid only for
biodiesel made from vegetable and animal oils. It is not valid for biodiesel made from oils with
a very wide fatty acid pattern, such as fish oils."
Reprocessing biodiesel
For failed batches, reprocess as with fresh oil, with the standard 3.5 g of lye per litre of oil but using
only 100 ml methanol per litre of oil.
Message to the Biofuel mailing list, 22 September 2005:
I tested some biodiesel after processing it by treating it as new virgin oil and some additional
glycerine dropped out. Do I use 10% methanol and 3.5 g NaOH/liter per Journey to Forever to
reprocess the batch? Won't that cause washing problems because of the additional NaOH
causing an emulsification? -- Todd H.
Reply:
I reprocessed a 95-litre batch using 10% methanol and 3.5 g NaOH per liter as per Journey to
Forever. I recall having the same question you pose re: the lye. I simply followed the
instructions given at Journey to Forever and slightly more than a gallon of additional glycerine
mix separated out. The reprocessed biodiesel washed beautifully without emulsion and after
three washings and a few days drying in the sun was crystal clear and ready to use. -- Tom K.
How to use the quality tests
From Tom Kelly, Biofuel mailing list, 9 May 2007:
It is my impression that a thicker than "paper-thin" middle layer in the Wash test may not
indicate an incomplete reaction, but rather excess soap production. This may be due to high
FFA content in the WVO oil, water in the oil, water in the caustic [lye catalyst], or in the
methanol. It may even be due to too much caustic.
For these reasons, and others, beginners should start with small (1-liter) test batches using
virgin oil, the highest quality chemicals, and balances that allow accurate measurements.
Much of the soap settles out with the glycerin, as does most of the caustic and excess methanol.
Even after 12 or 24 hours of settling some of the soap, caustic and excess methanol is still in
the biodiesel fraction. That's why we wash it. The amount that remains is related to the amount
produced in the reaction.
Using virgin oil eliminates not only the need to titrate, but also soap formed due to FFAs in the
oil. Initial test batches with anything other than the "paper-thin" middle layer (wash test) are
unacceptable because it indicates either an incomplete reaction or excess soap. Given virgin oil,
accurate measurements, and quality chemicals excess soap should not form.
After success with small (1-liter) test batches using virgin oil, one may begin using WVO and
eventually scale up to larger batches. This not only increases the volume of a potential disaster
(Emulsions), but also increases the number of variables that must be considered when a
problem arises.
How do you know what is causing the problem?
Become familiar with the Methanol test described at Journey to Forever (see above).
If there was an incomplete reaction and various glycerides remain in the "biodiesel", they will
remain undissolved in the methanol and form a residue at the bottom; reprocessing is in order
(above). If the entire sample of biodiesel dissolves in the methanol, but the wash test resulted in
a thicker than "paper-thin" middle layer, the problem is soap formation. If using virgin oil (or
low-titrating WVO) and too much soap forms, consider the possibility of water contamination
or inaccurate measurements/calculations.
Example: During methanol recovery (from glycerin mix) one must consider water
contamination in the distillate. Using the recovered methanol may result in a complete reaction
with little soap (good methanol), complete reaction with more soap than expected (some water
contamination), or incomplete reaction with a lot of soap (serious water contamination).
The more serious problems are invariably associated with the last liters of methanol that were
distilled. I have had a similar experience using the last gallons of methanol from a barrel. As
the barrel empties, water in the air condenses, with more water in the final gallons.
The wash test and the methanol quality tests are both valuable.
Towards the end of each reaction, I shut off the pump and draw off a sample of the mix, and
then turn the pump back on. I let the mix settle for about 10 minutes and then do a solubility-in-
methanol test (Methanol test) on some of the biodiesel fraction. If it passes, I pump the mix
into my settling tank. If I'm making fuel for my car, and the biodiesel fails the test, I'd add a bit
more methoxide and continue processing. If I'm making fuel for my oil-fired boiler (larger
batches; only 16% methanol vol/vol) a small residue of unreacted oil is acceptable. Testing this
way saves the expense of time and resources involved in reprocessing.
Prior to washing a batch I always do a wash test. If the batch passed the methanol test, but there
is a thicker than "paper-thin" middle layer I may let it settle longer, or put a few extra ml. of
phosphoric acid in the first wash water.
Having passed the methanol test, I wouldn't consider reprocessing.
-- Tom
More quality checks

Aleks Kac has provided some useful quality checks you can do yourself:
"Diesel engines require fuel of a certain quality. You just can't pour poor-quality biodiesel into
the tank and expect the engine to go on and on without problems. You have three very
dangerous enemies: free glycerine, poorly converted oils/fats and lye catalyst. Free glycerine
and mono-, di- and triglycerides (poor ester conversion) will form gum-like deposits around
injector tips and valve heads, lye can damage the injector pump. The key to good fuel is to just
do it right and finish it! Use pure chemicals (sulfuric acid, lye and methanol) and measure them
accurately. A proper wash will get rid of any glycerine and remaining lye.
"There is a rule of thumb: the brighter yellow in color, the better the crack. As a standard you
should take virgin sunflower oil yellow color in see-through sunlight. (It's a sort of
colorometry). Then take a glass jar of your fuel and place it in front of a white wall in the
evening. When seen in the reflected light of a tungsten bulb it should not change to orange (a
very simple case of absorbtion spectrometry).
o Nicely cracked biodiesel: very pale yellow (less than virgin sunflower oil) and no
change in color with artificial lighting;
o Acceptable biodiesel: yellow like virgin sunflower oil or straw, but will get orangey
undertone in reflected tungsten light;
o Deeper color biodiesel has a lot of glycerine in it in the form of various glycerids. Not
good for standard engines. Remedy: If the diesel is too dark and you are sure that you
used the correct quantitie(s) of catalyst(s), add a pinch more alcohol -- you could be
losing it due to evaporation."
The USDA's Agricultural Research Service has adapted a sophisticated tool known as Near
Infrared spectroscopy, or NIR, for testing the quality of biodiesel.The standard method is the gas
chromatograph, a complex piece of equipment that needs technical expertise, takes time, and requires
special chemicals. NIR can also be used for determining fatty acid composition in vegetable oils and
oil content in seeds, and needs no special training. It uses light rather than chemicals to perform the
analysis, and can measure the conversion of vegetable oil to biodiesel in less than a minute.
Standards for biodiesel

Oils and esters and characteristics
Iodine Values
Quality standard for rapeseed oil fuel
Cetane Numbers
Fuel properties of fats and oils
Fuel properties of esters
US standard -- D6751-02 Standard Specification for Biodiesel Fuel (B100) Blend Stock for Distillate
Fuels. Download from the ASTM site, costs $30 (pdf):
http://www.astm.org/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/STORE/
filtrexx40.cgi?U+mystore+mofc8213+-L+D6751+/usr6/
htdocs/astm.org/DATABASE.CART/PAGES/D6751.htm
Or: http://snipurl.com/fva4
EU standard -- DIN EN 14214, Publication date:2003-11 Automotive fuels - Fatty acid methyl esters
(FAME) for diesel engines - Requirements and test methods. Order from Beuth Verlag GmbH
("search" for "EN 14214")
http://www.beuth.de/index_en.php
Standard testing:
Biodiesel fuel testing for the US ASTM D-6751 standard:
Analytical Testing Services, Inc.

http://wetestit.com/
Harris Testing Laboratories, Inc.

http://www.harristestinglab.com/quote/d6751.htm
Using biodiesel in winter

Like petroleum diesel fuel, biodiesel clouds when the weather gets cold, filling with little crystals of
wax that can clog the fuel filter. When it gets colder still the biodiesel gels -- sets solid and won't flow
or pour. But petroleum diesel fuel, especially winterized or #1 diesel fuel, can take more cold than
biodiesel can.
Here's what you can do about using biodiesel in cold weather:

Biodiesel in winter

Make Your Own Biodiesel

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Spanish version -- Versin en espaol

More about fuel mixing and blends.

2. Straight vegetable oil

More information on straight vegetable oil systems here.

To each his own.

Needs Guaranteed Engine

This is how it works -- comment from a Biofuel list member:

NaOH is often easier to get and it's cheaper to use.

See also Making lye from wood ash.

Chemicals for WVO

See Accurate measurements

All equipment should be clean and dry.

Read and observe the Safety instructions below.

3. Mixing the methoxide

Allow to settle for 12-24 hours.

10. Read on!

Our first biodiesel

It worked, though two of our first six batches

Practices, knowledge, technology, equipment and safety measures have all

Simple, safe, efficient

Biodiesel from new oil

We'd made a wooden jig with a portable vice clamped to it holding a

Biodiesel from waste oil

Add 2 drops of phenolphthalein solution.

Using a graduated syringe or a pipette, add 0.1% lye solution drop by

Moving on to bigger things

See Biodiesel processors.

Removing the water

See Mike Pelly's recommendations: Removing the water.

See Biodiesel and your vehicle

For fire risks, see Hazards

More about methanol

Question: How much does it take to kill you?

Generally 80% of methanol in sewage systems is biodegraded within 5 days.

-- With information from: United Nations Environment Programme / International Labour

Safety (MSDS) data for methyl alcohol

Methanol as a plant nutrient

Make your own biodiesel (contd.)

How much methanol?

Ethyl esters -- making ethanol biodiesel

See: Ethanol biodiesel

Reclaiming excess methanol

More about lye

Lye is hygroscopic -- it absorbs water from the atmosphere. So make

Titration is basically the same.

85% KOH -- 5.8 (5.775) grams

85% KOH -- 5.1 (5.115) grams

To convert NaOH quantities for KOH:

For 85% KOH use 165% of the NaOH amount (x 1.65).

Number of grams of KOH required for the reaction:

Basic amount: 5.8 g KOH (5.775)

Basic amount: 3.5 g NaOH

How much lye to use?

Joe Street's titrator

Full how-to instructions at Biofuel cooperative, Joe's website:

See Technical tips for advice on using and maintaining pH meters.

High FFA levels

You can also deacidify the oil.

1. Use the two-stage base-base method;

The basic lye quantity -- 3.5 grams?

Mixing the methoxide

For HDPE, see below, Identifying plastics

Stock methoxide solution

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