Home-Brewed Biodiesel Goes Prime-Time

Despite bio-diesel's "green" image, I can't help but wonder if it has a sinister dark side.

Right now, bio-diesel is being made in thousands of little homebrew shops using makeshift equipment. My concern is with the waste stream from these thousands of tiny homebrew refineries. What are they doing with the spent lye and other waste chemicals. My guess is that they go down the drain and the waste treatment plant has to deal with them. If this were being done by one large "corporate" refinery, environmentalists would be filled with righteous outrage.

I also have an observation: I keep hearing that bio-diesel fueled cars "have a pleasant smell, like french-fries." Try following one for an extended period. I did a few months back and it gets nauseating after a while. They're gonna have to find a solution to that smell problem!

The days of free oil will soon be past, the price for UVO [used vegetable oil] is around x5 what it was 3 years ago.

Using B100 [100% boidiesel] in a older model diesel is a good way to rack up a sizable repair bill, when the hoses & seals melt in your fuel system.

low quality, underprocessed fuel is a potential black eye for the entire industry.

Methanol & sodium hydroxide, are dangerous chemicals that require the utmost respect in their use. Methanol is a powerful greenhouse gas, proper recovery equipment & methods should be used, to avoid contributing to global warming.

Always do your due diligence when purchasing processors [biodiesel], The equipment is probably not as important as having good information about the operation & testing procedures.

I would suggest forming groups & having a dedicated area for production, this can be a garden shed or detached garage.

an efficent process should have a yield of 85% or better to minimize the amount of glycerol byproduct produced.

Despite some good advise this comment carries a few inaccuracies and/or misrepresentations which I believe are unintentional.

(1) When it comes to biodiesel we are talking of not only used oil but also use of non edible oils such as Jatropha which makes the products economical and also Green in many respects.

(2) No body use or propose to use B100. Most acceptable blend has been B20 in many countries and endorsed by many engine manufacturers. Using B20 in fact reduce the cost of maintenance of an engine

(3) What do you mean by low quality under processed fuel? Good quality bio diesel can be done small scale. Technology is simple. Small people can make small mistakes but BIG people make BIG mistakes. I find diesel sold by IndianOil in Sri Lanka is far inferior to diesel made by state oil refinery.

(4) Most chemicals are dangerous and have to be used with respect, I agree. Methanol is NOT a green house gas and does not contribute directly to green house gases.It looks like you have confused methanol (methyl alcohol) with Methane a gas!In this respect I must point out that crude oil exploration probably is one of the major contributors to global warming.

Biodiesel/Glycerol ratio depends more on the type of oil rather than process efficiency. Having glycerol as a by product really is not bad. If you purify it can be fetch a higher price than bio diesel!

I rather would encourage people to do biodiesel provided they do not use edible oils.

Feedstock, from what ever source is & will always be one of the key issues. Japotra still affects the food supply, acreage planted can redirect acreage & water from the production of food stuffs. UVO has been traditionaly been used as a suppliment to animal feed, further exacerbating the escalation of commidities corn, soy....... Algae has some real promise, along with other non traditional feedstock sources. The truth be told the vast majority of bio is produced from palm & soy

Many Bio users can get a bit extreme in an effort to be green & run b100. I certainly agree that even blends as low as b5 will nearly double the life of a compression engine [diesel ]

Fuel that has not been well separated & or washed/polished, can cause real problems for end users, leaving a bad impression of an otherwise fine product.

While liquid methanol is not a greenhouse gas, it is certainly a close cousin. Methanol in the gasous state it will contribute to the formation of smog, to a much higher extent than co2. methanol is generally produced by the reformation of natural gas [methane].

I couldn't disagree more, most feedstocks if properly processed, can have yields in the 90's. Most of the small units directed at the home brewer's market aren't typically used the most efficent way. Purifying glycerol requires a large amount of heat & is generally beyond the means of small scale producers.

I'm a producer & advocate of biodiesel. I from time to time share some of the negative aspects with this more technically oriented audience. I certainly spin it in more positive terms for other audiences, never the less I do go over the possible downsides. Biodiesel is a good partial solution, to the rising costs of energy & degradation of the atomosphere

around 1/2 the particalate

Newer compression engines are fully compatable with high concentrations [b100] of bio.

Hi Garthh,

Since you're a producer, can you educate me relative to my comment above? What's in the waste stream from your production, and what happens to it? Is this an issue as more people start home-brewing?

Steve

I'll try

There 3 components in the waste stream:

Glycerol the pH is fairly high from the remaining KOH [potassium hydroxide]. I've been mixing with water & using as a dust suppressant for roads.

Wash water, using for above. I have a better plan in the works to use the water separated from trap grease to wash with & then to be used in portapotties. Traditional water washing uses an equal qty of water to the bio produced. We use a combination process of water washing combined with filtering/polishing using an ionic exchange resin. our water usage is about 20% of the total. Being in california water is a big deal, we are working towards using each liter as many times as possible.

Drop out water from the acid esterification process same as above, which helps lower the pH of the glycerol.

Yes I have been recovering the methanol & am in the process of improving the efficency. I blend with new & reintroduce into the process.

I would like to use the glycerol to feed a digester & produce ethanol & precursors for plastic resins. This is in the long range plans.

The amount of water present in the feedstock & methanol will also affect the yield of the process. Water=soap

I think homebrewing probably leads to some irresponsible disposale of wastes [down the drain]. Glycerol & sodium or potassium hydroxide are not really all that hazardous over the long term. Biodiesel is much less hazardous than dino [petroluem] diesel.

here's some links you both may find useful & interesting:

National Biodiesel Board site

http://www.biodiesel.org/

The oldest BioDiesel forum [most info]

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x

The thumbnail explanation

http://www.biodiesel-fuel.co.uk/how-to-make-biodiesel/

Do you recover Methanol? What do you do with Glycerin?

I hear some small guy called A.Nobel tried this long ago

Hello Sisira

Yes, he also invested heavily in kieselguhr to complete the monopoly.

EDIT: This was supposed to be "Off-Topic", but somehow the system forgot that, and I'm unable to alter it to "Off-Topic - hangs head in shame

Kind Regards....

Now that it is in the open suggest you tell the full story. Otherwise an innocent reader may actually try it and can get into serious trouble.

That really was a bad joke! I thought of you as a more creative person judging by all the dynamite quality animations in your comments. In fact I asked the question how you do it in one of the threads. May be you do not wish to share that secret!

The Bio-fuels industry is another example of the same age-old principle:

Too many people competing for a limited resource.

A few years ago, when there was "Surplus used vegetable oil" from restaurants, fish & chip shops and the like, the collectors of that used oil were then often paid to haul it away for "disposal".

Now there is huge competition for the ever-shrinking resource.

The odorific qualities of the bio-diesel still need to be corrected.

No point in growing seed crops for bio-diesel, as the energy input far exceeds the energy output in the form of bio-diesel, when all the factors are taken into account.

The only practical source I can presently see, is to make bio-diesel from algae, which plants are very efficient workers at the chloryphyll cycle with minimum energy input from the sunshine.

Kind Regards....