Waste Vegetable Oil Fuels

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I have actually been working on the processor and getting some loose ends figured out and have some documentation to do, but what I did tonight is just to good to pass up. Plus, I’ve got pics!

0. On Monday Mike Bergquist came over and helped me do some titration on my oil. I was a bit suspect of my oil (sure has a lot of cloudy particulate), and I didn’t have an accurate enough scale. He came over and we figured that I’d need 4.7 g of KOH per liter of waste vegetable oil (WVO) added to the 20% by volume Methanol. I’ll do an entry for that and back date it. Maybe even some photos with dramatic reenactments.

1. Here are all the supplies for the test batch. Left to right: a glass blender, 500 ml of WVO, way too much Potassium Hydroxide (KOH), and 100 ml of Methanol.

2. First I measured out 100 ml of methanol. Then I weighed out the KOH. I bungled the halving of my 4.7 g/L and ended up figuring 2.85 g/L. Oops! At least it looks like it worked. I hope the extra 0.5 g didn’t ruin it.

3. I added the Methanol and KOH and then blended it all up, until the KOH and Methanol became Potassium Methoxide. I feel it is important to note that this stuff is nasty, caustic, flammable, stunts your growth, and makes your eyes stay like that. I was wearing saftey glasses, and clothing that I don’t ever need again, just in case.

4. To the methoxide I added the WVO.

5. Then the fun part. Ok, it was fun for about the first 30 seconds, then it just became loud. I did notice a bit of a color and texture (the eddies in the blender behaved differently) as time went on. 16 minutes (should have been 20, but at that dB who’s counting) later I turned it off.

6. Right away I started to see dark red drops begin to form, run down the sides, and collect at the bottom of the “reaction vessel”.

7. After about 1 1/2 hours here’s what I have.

I’m going to sit on it now overnight and then I’ll do some washing tomorrow!