Tutorial de Low-tech Lab | Categories : Energy
This tutorial gives you the process on how to make biodiesel on a medium-scale (about 50L) from used cooking oil. This tutorial was written following the Nomade des Mers crew's visit to Cambodia. The social enterprise Naga Earth collects and converts used cooking oil from the town's hotels and restaurants into biodiesel. They also make soap with glycerin that comes from this same reaction. This benefits various schools and associations who carry out hygiene programs throughout the region.
This tutorial gives you the process on how to make biodiesel on a medium-scale (about 50L) from used cooking oil. This tutorial was written following the Nomade des Mers crew's visit to Cambodia. The social enterprise Naga Earth collects and converts used cooking oil from the town's hotels and restaurants into biodiesel. They also make soap with glycerin that comes from this same reaction. This benefits various schools and associations who carry out hygiene programs throughout the region.
Biodiesel, Huile de friture usagée, Méthanol, Carburant, Transport, Diesel, Huile, NomadeDesMers, oil en fr 1
Biodiesel is an alternative fuel to petro-sourced diesel. It can be used alone in engines or blended with petro diesel with different concentration levels. This fuel is obtained from vegetable oil or animal fat that is converted by a chemical process named "transesterification". It involves making oil react with an alcohol (methanol or ethanol) and a catalyst (sodium or potassium hydroxide) in order to obtain methyl or ethyl esters (biodiesel) and a by-product called glycerin.
Biodiesel can be made in various amounts. The processes described here are suitable for occasional production and small amounts. Because the process requires practice, we recommend you start by making small amounts then gradually go towards a larger scale of production.
"Biodiesel has man benefits, making it an interesting fuel alternative:"
- Wear safety glasses, a gown, resistant gloves and long clothes. Working with a breathing mask is also recommended.
- Methanol is the most dangerous product in the making of biodiesel. It's very flammable and the slightest spark could cause burns or an explosion. It is also toxic and can cause blindness if inhaled or ingested.
- Sodium hydroxide (soda - NaOH) and potassium hydroxide (caustic potash - KOH) are corrosive products, avoid all skin contact (if skin contact should occur, rinse with vinegar then with water).
If you wish to reduce both your consumption and expenses on fossil fuel, there are several options available:
Youtube
1.1 Oil
Our approach being the most ecological possible, the oil used for making biodiesel is used cooking oil collected from all sorts of eating establishments. In order to collect the best sort of oil, talk to the owner of the restaurant as well as the chef so you can explain the purpose of your approach. Collecting oil without permission can be qualified as an offence. Furthermore, make sure you check the quality of the oil collected. Used oil contains free fatty acids. They appear when oil is left in the open air over a certain period of time and becomes rancid or when heated in the presence of water. Frying food (that contains water) therefore causes FFAs to appear in oil. During transesterification, these FFAs react with the catalyst (strong base) and create an unwanted soap. The soap stops the products of the reaction, biodiesel and glycerol, from separating correctly, which creates an emulsion that is difficult to work with.
The more the cooking oil is used, the more the concentration in FFAs increases and becomes browner. Therefore, try to avoid collecting old, brown oil. The better the quality of the oil is, the easier the converting process will be.
When making biodiesel, prefer using oil such as vegetable oil with a neutral pH or nearly neutral such as rapeseed, corn oil or sunflower oil. These oils have a low freezing point, which means they don't solidify if temperatures drop in winter (freezing temperatures for these oils range from -10°C to -2°C for rapeseed, -15°C for sunflower).
Avoid peanut, coconut and palm oil or animal fats because the temperatures at which they solidify are too high (>10°C), even if biodiesel has a lower freezing point than the oil it originates from. Also ban olive oil that is too acidic, these acids could interfere during the reaction in the creating of biodiesel.
1.2 Methanol
Methanol, or wood alcohol, used to be obtained by wood pyrolysis. Nowadays, it is synthesized from natural gas and is mainly used as an antifreeze for coolants, as a solvent for the synthesis of other chemicals or as fuel in the racing field (dragsters, model engines). It can be purchased through suppliers who specialize in chemicals, some DIY stores and garages.
1.3 Catalyst
Either sodium hydroxide (NaOH, caustic soda) or potassium hydroxide (KOH, caustic potash) can be used as a catalyst. They are both corrosive and highly basic. These chemicals are quite common and can be found in DIY stores, on line or through chemical suppliers. KOH and NaOH are both hygroscopic, which means they absorb the humidity in the atmosphere quickly. They become less efficient catalysts in the presence of water: always keep them in sealed, airtight containers.
NaOH vs KOH, different properties.
Transesterification
Filtration
Titration
Distillation of glycerol
There are at least three ways of making a diesel engine run with vegetable oil:
The two first methods look easy, but as for many things, it isn’t that simple.
1. Blends
Vegetable oil is a lot more viscous (thicker) than petro-diesel or biodiesel The purpose of blending or mixing SVOs with other fuels or solvents is to reduce the viscosity to make it thinner, so it will flow easier through the fuel system to the combustion chamber. However, this is not the only problem when using SVOs. Its chemical properties and combustion characteristics are different to those of petro-diesel, for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are designed for. Diesel engines, especially the most modern ones, are high-tech machines with specific fuel needs (see la controverse TDI-SVO).
People use various blends, ranging from 10% SVO and 90% petro-diesel to 90% SVO and 10% petro-diesel. Some people use it as it is, without preheating (which makes the vegetable oil a lot less viscous). Some even use 100% SVO without preheating. They often don't realize the long term effects on the engine
You might manage it during the summer period with something like an old 5 cylinder Mercedes-Benz that's over 80 years old, that has a very resistant and tolerant engine. It won't like it but you probably won't destroy the engine. Otherwise, it probably isn't a good idea.
I can't guarantee it but using a blend containing up to 20% of good quality vegetable oil with 80% of petro-diesel is known to be quite safe for old diesels, especially in summer.
If you blend SVO with petro-diesel, you'll still be using fossil fuels - so you'll be cleaner than average, but still not enough for others. Yet, for each litre of SVO you use, you save one litre of fossil fuel and lower carbon dioxide emissions. dioxyde de carbone
However, in order to do it correctly and safely all year round, you will need a system suitable for SVO, including a preheating fuel system at the least (see below) and in that case, blending isn't needed, you can simply use 100% SVO.
Lastly, blending SVOs with other solvents like mineral turpentine (white spirit) or other "secret" ingredients such as naphthalene or xylol or with unleaded petrol are only experimental processes at this point in time and the effects of these additives on the characteristics of fuel combustion or their long term effects on the engine remain unknown. We highly recommend you don't choose this kind of solution: use such blends at your own risk.
2. Straight vegetable oil with engine modification
Direct SVO fuel systems can be a clean, efficient and economical option.
Unlike biodiesel, you will need to modify your engine so you can use SVO. The best way to get one is to purchase a professional single-tank SVO system with optimized injector nozzles, glow-plugs for vegetable oil as well as a fuel pre-heating system. With this system Elsbett system, you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, with any combination you like. Start up and go, turn off and stop, just like any other car.
There are other SVO systems with two tanks that preheat the oil to make it less viscous. You must start your engine up with ordinary petro-diesel ( or biodiesel) in the tank, then switch to SVO in the other tank once the vegetable oil is hot enough (so quite liquid) then come back to petro-diesel before turning the engine off, or you'll clog the injectors.
You can find lots of information about SVO systems on here.
3 Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has many obvious advantages over SVO:
Biodiesel is a clean replacement fuel, safe and ready to use, whereas many SVO systems are still experimental and need to be developed.
On the other hand, biodiesel can be more expensive, depending on the amount you produce, what you get from it and the comparison with oil or new petrol. And unlike SVO, it requires treatment. (The purpose of this tutorial). But the community of biodiesel producers that is continuously expanding, doesn't seem too concerned about the matter - they do their weekly or monthly produce and become familiar with the process quite quickly. Many have been doing so for many years.
Anyhow, SVO must also be treated, especially WVO that many people use with SVO systems because they are cheap and sometimes even free. When using WVO, food particles, impurities and water must be removed from it. It will also need to be deacidified. Biodiesel producers think: "If I need to do all that, I might as well make biodiesel instead". But SVO supporters will claim it requires a lot less treatment than biodiesel.
Everyone's taste is different....the decision is yours!
On the table opposite is a summary of the main differences between making biodiesel and modifying your engine to use SVO directly. SVO/WVO are the English-speaking equivalences of HVC/HVR in French.
$ Financial considerations: $
On average, a French person consumes: 1,3[€/L]*4/100[L/km]*19000[km/an] = 988 €/year, representing roughly 1000€ per year on diesel.
Biodiesel costs between 0.5€ and 1€ per litre to produce from recycled oil, representing between 380 and 760€ per year. A good treatment system, adapted to this production volume can be built for roughly 100€. The cost is therefore recovered within a few months.
A SVO system costs between 900 and 1800€. If SVO is free, the cost will therefore be recovered within 1 to 2 years.
Before it can be converted, the used oil must be filtered first in order to remove any possible food residues (fries, doughnuts...). We recommend you let the oil settle for a few days. An initial filtration must be carried out to get rid of the biggest particles (e.g.: with a double cotton sheet or a sock...). Then pour the oil into a 5µm maximum filter bag (the finer the better) above the clean canister, prepared beforehand.
Catalyst mass required (g) = (B+ Vtitration (mL)) x Volume of oil (L)
With:
Vtitration: volume of titrant added to neutralize the acidity of the oil (mL)
B: base quantity (catalyst) required for the reaction with unused oil.
B (KOH) = 7.0 g/L
B (NaOH) = 5.5 g/L
- Heat the oil at 60°C and maintain at this temperature.
- Pour the methanol into the glass container.
- Weigh the amount of soda calculated during the previous stage if using used oil and add to the methanol.
- Stir and let the catalyst dissolve completely in the methanol. This takes roughly 2 minutes. And once again, be careful: the blend deteriorates quickly. Carry on with the next stage as soon as the catalyst/methanol blend is homogeneous.
- Add the catalyst/methanol blend to the hot oil (60°C). Leave the elements to blend together for several hours. Two products are formed from this reaction; biodiesel and glycerol. Biodiesel being less dense, it forms the top layer.
-Wait 24 hours or more before carrying out the next stage.
Drain off the glycerol from the bottom of the tank into a new container. Make sure there is no glycerin left in the biodiesel. Keep the glycerol aside.
-Slowly add the washing solution representing the equivalent of 20% the volume of biodiesel, to avoid the formation of soap and wait 10 minutes. Drain off the washing water.
-Carry on with a second wash. This time, slowly turn the container upside down 4 to 5 times and wait 10 minutes. Excessive agitation could result in the formation of an emulsion and delay the process. Drain off the washing water
- Carry on with a third wash. This time, shake the container energetically for a few minutes. Leave to settle then drain off the washing water.
- Transfer the new, washed biodiesel to a new container
- Heat up to 50°C for a few hours until the biodiesel becomes clear.
Video tutorial on making your own still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H1UVv8FaO8
• Form a coil with the copper pipe (around a canister for example). Leave both ends straight, roughly 30cm long. • Attach the flexible tube to the outlet of the pressure cooker with pipe clamps. • Connect the copper pipe and the flexible tube together with pipe clamps. {For information
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub-summaries/?pub=318
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#start
http://carburerauxalgues.com/site/download/download_file_st/ActiviteI_ELEVES/pdf
http://www.make-biodiesel.org/
Published
You entered an invalid page name, with one or many of the following characters :
< > @ ~ : * € £ ` + = / \ | [ ] { } ; ? #