My dad and brother have been repulsed by the high price of gas and decided to get into bio-diesel. It's worked out great for them! $.75/gallon as opposed to $4+/gallon. There are a couple of problems however. The driveway smells like french fries and they have buckets of glycerin that is left over after adding lye and methanol to the oil. We were all sitting around staring at buckets of glycerin. The conversation was pretty simple: Me: What are you doing to do with all that glycerin? Dad: Beats me. Guess we'll keep it in the shed for now. My Brother: I'm going to run to McD's. Been craving fries. So they have several 5 gallon buckets filled with glycerin. I've looked at some bio-diesel web sites to see what others do with the glycerin. Soap was mentioned several times. However, the glycerin we have looks "cleaner". It's almost translucent as opposed to what I've seen (see pic). My mother sells crafts at an antique mall and we think the soap may sell there. Otherwise the glycerin is wasted. But, for all those out there that know a thing or two about soap making, is this glycerin safe? How complicated would it be to work with? Is it even worth the effort? Just wondered if anyone had suggestions. Now excuse me while I go order some fries.
I just started working with bio myself. This is the same glycerin used in soapmaking, but the problem here lies that it will hold high quantities of methanol. That stuff is just plain bad for ya. I know it's possible to remove the methnol via distillation, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I figured I would save up a decent quantity of the stuff before I tried. The recovered methanol can be used to make more bio by the way What type of reactor are you using? It isn't an appleseed by any chance is it?
Well...adding an extra carbon to the methanol to make ethanol would be more tricky than origionally making the ethanol. Is it glycerol that you have as a byproduct or glycerine. They are 2 completely different compounds. Glycerol has a flash point of 160 degrees celcius while methanol has a BP of 64.7 degrees celcius. So you could easily distill the glycerol to make a uniform homogenious mixture.
It's glycerin. Talked to dad tonight and he had researched it. Although he was attempting to purify the glycerin to recover the methanol, the result would be the same. Apparently you have to heat the solution up to almost 500F. Pretty close to a flash point and the methanol didn't work as well after it is reclaimed according to him. Plus he said if he wanted to blow up the shed he'd start making crystal meth. Both high risk, but better profit margin in meth. So that's that for our potential soap making. Guess I'll just talk to Mama Bear. At least I'd be supporting a fellow Illinoisan. Sorry Sparky. Don't know a whole lot about the process to be honest. Dad and my brother are the wanna-be Arabs. I can ask. Get back to ya on that one.
500F? Ehhh.... Well, that would all depend on what is in the container. If the only thing in the container is glycerine and methanol, you could just distill the solution at 65C and distill the methanol out. Reclaimed methanol is the exact same thing as regular methanol. It is CH3-OH, no matter what. Methanol is methanol. Yes, I just finished up my second semester of organic chemistry, so I do have somewhat of a clue what I'm talking about. You need to find out the exact composition of what is coming out as a byproduct. If I knew what went in, it would help to know what comes out. Generally, the higher the molecular weight of a compound, the higher the BP (not always true, but a general rule to follow). Glycerine has a much higher molecular weight than methanol. If the solution that you wind up with was purely methanol and glycerine, it is extremely easy to distill and make pure solutions of the both. Also, any heating should be done with a sand bath. A steam bath would have too high of a temperature, and a flame would probably cause an explosion. You should have a metal container on an electric burner filled with sand. You can set the temperature rather low and move the sand around to controll the heat.
Dad's more the expert on this. Maybe there's more being distilled out than methanol. Maybe he's wrong. Either way, we won't be making soap! LOL. But that being that, the bio-diesel is working great for them. The only real problem they had was with fuel filters. From what they've been told it actually burns cleaner than diesel and seems to knock a lot of crud loose that clogs the filters. So for the first month or so they were all carrying extra filters around with them. I won't get into stoicheiometry with you. I'll guarantee that you're more proficient than me there. I'm more of a math person. Which is why I stopped drinking. Friends don't let friends drink and derive.
I'm not sure what process they are using to make it, but yes, home made fuels tend to have a lot more crap in them than the stuff you get from the pump. The composition of the fuel may also nock garbage loose thats in the lines and tank within the car. I would suggest either using a home made filter or going to Jegs and buying an inline fuel filter with a cleanable filter element. http://www.jegs.com/p/JAZ/751449/10002/-1/10293
It wasn't so much the home made fuel that was the problem, rather the bio-diesel cleaned out the fuel system. It was this stuff being "scrubbed" that was clogging the filters. Mercedes-Benz, at least the ones my family has, has secondary filters which were the ones being clogged as opposed to the filter on the fuel line. I thought it was an oil filter at first, but I was corrected. Once they had used the bio-diesel for a period they've never had problems with the filter. But they still don't have any glycerin soap. I'll keep mentioning glycerin soap so this thread doesn't get moved. I always seem to take that personally for some reason!
It wont be moved, as the threads intent is about glycerin soap. Anywho, I wouldnt bother with it one way or another. Nobodies got a Ph.D in organic chemistry that plans on distilling it, nor do I. Personally, I wouldnt want that stuff on me, distilled or not. Not without being passed through an IR or NMR Spectrometer for the molecular content.
I'm not so sure about that one JayKay. Most of the people making bio at home prefilter the oil down to 1 micron before adding it to the reactor. Also, the fuel must be washed, be it with water, or purolite, and in the end goes back through another 1 micron filter. The debris clogging a vehicles fuel filter is from the superior solvent capabilities cleaning out left over crud from years of dino d. RIght now the tank for my oil furnace has about 4 inches of garbage on the bottom of it from 40 years of commercial diesel. (off road diesel is the same fuel as #2 heating oil, aside from dye) Personally, I feel that properly made biodiesel is superior to dino diesel, in purity, and performance. The only point where bio ranks lower is the cloud point.
and i dissolves any rubber hoses! Check your hoses when converting to biodiesel.. and fuel pump gaskets... BioD is very harsh! If you are going to do anything but burning the glycerine you have to evaporate the methanol, it's not rocket science, just teduios. You SHOULD recover the methanol, pour it out and you have just made more damage to the eco system than dinodiesel does... You may have saved a buck, but you're no eco warrior anymore... Methanol recovery should always be included in the equation! Anything else is stupid!
Sorry to sidetrack this one. It can be made into a soap, and people do it everyday (i'm told it's good too), but the methanol must be entirely removed first via distillation. If you're thinking about it, i'd say buy a bar premade online, and see if it's decent first. I'm saving my glycerol... one day I might have enough that I feel it's worth distilling it, but i'd probably just be after the methanol. Until then, it sits in the metal barrel.
Glycerol/Glycerine - same thing just two terms, and glycerol is the correct term since it is an alcohol... Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerine
With the correct acid catalyst you can turn the fatty acids and methanol into methyl esters. Is it these methyl esters that are biodeisel? I dont know much about biodiesel, but I know my chemistry.
