finished amount

[disaster4]

What is the normal amount of loss that everybody is averaging? For instance, if you start with 30 gallons going into the processor, how much do you have left after the drying cycle is done?

[Ctek]

Starting with 40 gallons of oil and 8 gallons of methanol/lye I end up with aywhere from 38 to 42 gallons of processed fuel depending exclusively on the quality of the oil. My recipe never changes.

[Bioguy]

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Starting with 40 gallons of oil and 8 gallons of methanol/lye I end up with aywhere from 38 to 42 gallons of processed fuel depending exclusively on the quality of the oil. My recipe never changes.

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How can you produce more fuel than oil that you started with ? I was under the assumption all the methenol and lye came out as glycerin, leaving only the original amount of oil as usable fuel.

[txcas]

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Starting with 40 gallons of oil and 8 gallons of methanol/lye I end up with aywhere from 38 to 42 gallons of processed fuel depending exclusively on the quality of the oil. My recipe never changes.

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How can you produce more fuel than oil that you started with ? I was under the assumption all the methenol and lye came out as glycerin, leaving only the original amount of oil as usable fuel.

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Not all the methanol comes out in the glycerin. After all, biodiesel is otherwise known as methyl esters. That means that some of the methanol reacted with the oil to make methyl esters and some of the methanol reacted with the oil to make glycerin. There were 48 gallons total in his reactor; so 38-42 gallons of fuel is very possible. It all boils down to the oil quality.

[scbaguy]

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Starting with 40 gallons of oil and 8 gallons of methanol/lye I end up with aywhere from 38 to 42 gallons of processed fuel depending exclusively on the quality of the oil. My recipe never changes.

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How can you produce more fuel than oil that you started with ? I was under the assumption all the methenol and lye came out as glycerin, leaving only the original amount of oil as usable fuel.

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Not all the methanol comes out in the glycerin. After all, biodiesel is otherwise known as methyl esters. That means that some of the methanol reacted with the oil to make methyl esters and some of the methanol reacted with the oil to make glycerin. There were 48 gallons total in his reactor; so 38-42 gallons of fuel is very possible. It all boils down to the oil quality.

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OK, wait a min. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

My understanding is if you had virgin oil, as in best quality possible, you could theoreticallly get 100% conversion to Biodiesel. We can't really get 100% in used oil, but we get close. So if he started with 40 gallons of oil, and he gets 42 gallons of "fuel", that would be 105% conversion. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img]

I would have to say that there must be 2 gallons of something that is not biodiesel there.

[scbaguy]

to answere your original question;

I have been makeing 20 gallon batches. I start with 20 gallons of oil. If I am careful, and let the wash seperate well before draining, i can end up with 17 gallons or so. I do lose some because I can't get every bit of the biodiesel off the top of the water in my standpipe tank.