amount of water in washed biodiesel - Diesel Forum

yaric008 · 09-24-2007, 02:03 PM

Well, just from experience do you guys know about how much water should come out of the biodiesel when drying it? For our drying unit we have a closed loop setup with a vacuum pump and a reseiviour because we wanted to see how much water would come out. So we put about 20 inches of Hg on it and got it above the boiling point of water for that and cirulcated the biodiesel for an hour or two and we only got about 150-200mL of water out. Does that sound like the right amount of water to be coming out of 45 gallons of biodiesel that has just been washed?

We don't see anymore water vapor in the lines and what not. It just didn't really seem like enough to me.

Brentsbg · 09-24-2007, 07:20 PM

is the biodiesel clear?

VD350 · 09-24-2007, 11:09 PM

You get out as much as you put in. 5 gallons in/ 5 gallons evaporated

If you put it in a clear quart jar and cant see a vehicle through it then it is not dry. Dry Bio should not be cloudy.

RatherBNtheWoods · 09-24-2007, 11:38 PM

Was the bd hot when you washed it, and you drained the water from washing and then got another 150-200ml when you "dried" it. Or was 150-200 ALL you got total?

Murphy2000 · 09-25-2007, 12:43 AM

There is no way to tell you how much water will be in your biodiesel.. All that will depend on your altitude, atmospheric humidity, air movement, temperature, type of oil, quality of reaction, etc etc etc will all be HUGE factors in how much water is being held in suspension.
In addition to that, as time goes by, the water settles out so the quantitive number would be continuously changing.

Better is to just do a test for it. Chill a 200ml sample to 45 degrees.. if it stays clear, there's no water left in it.

I set up a guy in wyoming with a large 500 gallon system.. because of the super low humidity in his area, his biodiesel actually dries as its washing!! When the water is turned off, the stuff evaporates out the top almost as fast as it settles to the bottom.. Clear biodiesel within a couple hours of just standing there. All because of his altitude and humidity as well as a high quality reaction (using my designs of course).. ya.. shameless plug for me.. hehe..

hope this helps.

yaric008 · 09-25-2007, 01:23 AM

Well we decided it was dry. I found a spec online somewhere that said biodiesel can hold 1500 ppm water in suspension so with a little math that comes out to about 250mL of water that 45 gallons of bio can hold. We got out around that, so i decided we were good.

Here is a picture of our final product with water washed through it to show there is no soap barrier or anything.

http://www.samantha.cc/images/bio001.jpg
and a close up
http://www.samantha.cc/images/bio002.jpg

looks pretty good i think. That is after being run through a 2 micron fuel filter aswell.

On the right is some unwashed stuff with water run through it aswell.

In a few days when i have some time i'll post pictures of everything we have going.

VD350 · 09-25-2007, 01:01 PM

oh yeah that is some nice stuff there. I take it you get oil that is changed every few days?

yaric008 · 09-25-2007, 04:07 PM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: VegieDiesel250</div><div class="ubbcode-body">oh yeah that is some nice stuff there. I take it you get oil that is changed every few days? </div></div>

Yeah, we're pretty lucky, they change it daily. We found a place that goes through around 300-500 gallons per week, they basically fill up two large grease dumpsters. It's a great source except we pick up about 3-5 gallons of flour with our oil aswell. When you let it settle for a while it all goes to the bottom. When we did this first batch we sucked alot of it up anyways and when we washed the bio it all came out in a slightly thick goop almost.

I performed a 27/3 test on this stuff today and it passed it perfectly. I was amazed. My old test batch was horrible. This batch you can shake really hard and then stop and it'll almost instantly just turn clear.

Right now i have 15mL in the freezer to see how it holds up to the cold.

VD350 · 09-25-2007, 07:33 PM

wow that is an awesome amount of oil. But our whole family would have to buy trucks so we could use all that oil [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif[/img]

I was messing around with our Bio mixed with kerosene (in the tank there is 350 gallons of bio/150 gallons of kerosene) along with some FPPF Cold Weather Bio Treatment added to the big tank. So far at -4F it is extremely cloudy of course but has not gelled and has been in the freezer for 3 weeks, -8 it will gel. I have not tested B100 yet.

Let us know what you find out.

yaric008 · 09-25-2007, 09:16 PM

Well I checked out the stuff in the freezer and at 4F it was pretty much gelled into a solid, it wouldn't move even with the container upside down. I put it in the fridge and it got up to 40F and now it's liquid again and about 35% cloudy. So i guess I need to experiment with winter treatments before it gets cold, it only gets to about freezing here though.

I was thinking the winter dieselkleen stuff at walmart might do it.