Any biodieselers in here?

[dixiedrifter]

Here lately I've been working on doing small test batches of biodiesel. All have appeared to have turned out OK without scientifical testing, and I have just bought a lab setup to be able to titrate the free fatty acid content to mix in the proper catalyst amounts during transesterification.

Biodiesel is EASY to make. Without the long scientifical words, measure the fatty acid content of the oil to see what you need to put in it. Dump in appropriate amount of sulfuric acid and 100 milliliters of methanol per liter of oil according to those results. Stir for 1-2 hours. Add in sodium hydroxide and another 100 milliliters of methanol. Stir for another 1-2 hours. Drain off bottom gunk that seperates, wash with water 3x, dry and your done.

After figuring out my costs, I figure I'll be spending around 80-95 cents per gallon which figures out to about $1.75 less than what I'm paying at the pump!

It used to be that biodiesel cost more to make than what its worth. With fuel prices going up near the $3 mark soon, not only would biodiesel be good to cut down on your farm costs, it would also make a darn good business of its own.

Think, if you could make $1.50 per gallon off of biodiesel, and you did a measly 500 gallons per week, that means you would be making 3.64 times minimum wage.

Since most of the "work" involved includes driving around, picking up oil or methanol and going back to the house and turning on some pumps, valves, and switches. You could easily do 500 gallons per week with 10 hours of time invested.

The only problem with biodiesel is getting your waste oil. Most restaraunts already have companies to handle their waste oil disposal, and some of them actually pay the restaraunt for it. In addition, most of those are under contract.

If you want to get into the business, it will probably require a grease container and you paying more per gallon than their current company. If your doing it or yourself, you can just ask them politly if you can get a few gallons out of their tank.

 

[Bates]

Great idea, but I fear that the days of "free" fryer grease are almost over. As soon as people catch on to the fact that it has value as fuel, they'll want as much for it as one would have to pay at the pumps.

Driving around to collect it uses fuel, too. This cost would be offset if you were using a biodiesel vehicle to actually collect it in the first place, though.

 

[dixiedrifter]

I'm not really for sure how much the recycling companies are paying for the oil right now. I have yet to get a definitive answer. Mostly I just get told that they recieve a check in the mail each month and don't really know.

But I do know that the waste grease is hauled all the way from Jackson TN, to plants in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Alabama so it's definatly worth something for a company to pay a chain for it.

As for transport, I'm planning on just using 55 gallon drums for small independantly owned restaraunts for the time being, then upgrade to tanks and aquire a few chains. Heck, its worth it to drive 100 miles round trip to pick up 200-400 gallons of oil.

 

[arthr31]

hi there, some interesting ideas here. I have a couple of questions for you: aren't there some considerably by-products with the making of biodiesel? And, if you are making large batches, won't you need a special permit/license to be able to obtain large quanties of some of the chemicals?

thx

 

[RedRocker]

I'm with Bates, I was looking at a high dollar setup, like 3K, but figured about the time I got set up, the restaurants would wise up and all your savings would ge gone. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[PBinWA]

Look for "renderer" in your yellow pages. They are the guys who drive around and pick up the oil from the restaurants. You can buy the oil from them for a pretty low price. I assume the quality and consistency of the oil will be a bit of a crap shoot. I was going to do this myself until we had one kid, bought a house that needs too many repairs, had another kid, and now I don't have 10 spare hours a week.

 

[dixiedrifter]

Most chemical companies are picky about who they sell their chemicals to.

One of the chemicals, concentrated sulfuric acid, is a DEA list II chemical. However, you only get "raided" when you buy multiple (as in 55 gallon quantities) of it. All you have to do then is just show then what your using it for, and they will leave you alone.

Smaller quantities are OK and perfecly legal, in fact you can buy concentrated sulfuric acid as drain cleaner in any hardware store, but most contain buffers and a few percentage points too much of water for biodiesel purposes.

Methanol is very easy to get, last I bough it was $3 a gallon and comes in 55 gallon drums from tennessee farmers CO-OP. They get it from Cone Solvents out of memphis. It seems to work pretty good, but I want to call them up and make sure it's anhydrous as possible since it's not labeled.

Finally, there is the sodium hydroxide. You can buy this pretty much at any smaller grocery store as red devil lye. Its fairly expensive at nearly $4 a pound though. Alternatively, a place on the web called www.thechemistrystore.com also sells it to individuals. I've ordered from them before and they have good service. It's about 50% cheaper to buy it buy the 50 pound bag, but its cheaper to buy pound quantities in the store.

However there is a catch to buying bulk, and that is that sodium hydroxide will absorb CO2 and moisture out of the air in a heartbeat. In the steamy south this can present lots of problems as everytime you open the darn container, a small part of it can turn into worthless sodium carbonate. This throws off its effectiveness and can lead to less than desirable biodiesel results. You would have to have some way of storing those 50 pounds to keep it fresh, which involves handeling/degradation.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that all the materials used in biodiesel are considered HAZMAT, and that if you have to order your chemicals off the internet the hazmat fees will eat your pocketbooks and profits alive.

I have been working on a way to actually get a usable sulfuric acid product over the counter. In the pool supply section of your local store there is a product called pH down. It is sodium bisulfate. When heated to 400 degrees celcius, it loses moisture and turns into sodium pyrosulfate which will dehydrate the few remaining percentage points in the sulfuric acid to where it would be sufficiantly cocentrated enough to use. The only brand I would suggest using is ROOTO, its recycled but should work out ok. It's not practical to boil off the water out of sulfuric acid due to its boiling point being over 600 degrees farenheight. There is just not that many containers out there that can take the acid/heat combination.

So what do you do about waste? There are a few options. Probably the best is just save it, then "crack" it with phosphoric acid, separate off the glycerine layer in the middle, and dump the free fatty acids and sodium phospate on your fence rows. It ain't gonna kill the weeds, but the sodium might slow them down a bit. The glycerine has value as a soap additive, and will come out nearly pure enough to use in soaps.

It may be possible to obain phosphoric acid by going to the store and getting real trisodium phosphate (a cleaner) then "salting" it out (literally) with hydrochloric/muriatic acid. The HCl bonds with the sodium molecules in the TSP forming regular old table salt, leaving the phosphoric acid behind. A quick distillation of the phosphoric acid should be all you need to get it up to snuff.

 

[dixiedrifter]

I went to a small restaraunt out in the country last evening and did my best social engineering that I could do.

The result, approx 60+ gallons of waste veggie oil per month possibly hitting 100. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I'm not planning on spending much to get set up, all I really need is a bunch of barrels, wood burning heater, a motor with a propeller on it for agitation, a water pump from harbor freight for moving stuff from one tank to the other, and some ingenuity. A 500 gallon cone bottom wash tank though would probably be something I would definatly have to invest in.

I seen the small set up on the net with pictures and all for 3K. I bet that with some work and some scrounging, a person could have it for half that price.

 

[arthr31]

Thanks, Dixiedrifter, good information in there... I do think there is a business opportunity here, but there is also significant work to make it happen. One last question (for now) is it a one for one gallon to product bio? In other words, how many gallons of fuel do I get per gallons of grease? Thanks! -art

 

[MikePA]

Another interesting 'byproduct' of making your own biodiesel is learning just how much capital expense is needed to get things set up and how much you have to make to cover your costs.

In many, if not all cases, when people determine cost/gallon they do not include the cost of their own time. Granted, some of these things you only do once, but other expenses are recurring.