It was just a matter of time.....

It happened, just like I knew it would... but it lasted a little longer than I had originally thought. The Gravy Train just couldn't last. What am I speaking of? I now have to pay for my WVO. It was just a matter of time. The good news is I secured a new contract to collect the oil for WingZone (Arvada store). The owner just purchased a new store and gave me the oil contract. I negotiated what I believe is a good monthly price for me (regardless of the amount of oil collected) and a fair deal for the owner.

Now with both Colorado WingZone stores, I will have plenty of oil to keep my biodiesel tanks full for some time (so long as I have a place to process it).

The operation has found a new home

Well, just like a plethora of my other hobbies, this has come to an apex.

I have set it up to supply WVO and any assistance needed (which is a bunch at the moment) to a friend who is just beginning his adventure in Biodiesel. By doing this, I will be divesting my garage of all of its clutter and mess and focus my attention on a new venture (like always).

I have no intention of halting my learning and experimenting with Biodiesel, but by assisting Darek who has a large and operational work area, this makes sense. I see no reason to duplicate work when I am working very closely anyway with him to achieve his goals of high volume high quality Biodiesel.

More Bio-Soap...maybe

This afternoon I attempted to make another batch of glycerin soap. This time I actually followed the recipe instead of just estimating all the amounts. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the mood to wait for the glycerin to cool down some (and my pot was quite full), so I ended up with a HUGE mess in the kitchen when the pot boiled over all over the place. Now, I'm not sure if the soap is going to come out the way it should since I lost so much (it might be short of lye); but I guess well see how it turns out in a week or so of curing.

This time I also added in some ground up oatmeal and a peppermint scent essential oil. If it does end up thickening up, it should have a better smell and ex foliate more easily. If it doesn't thicken, I'll either see how it works as a liquid soap or maybe I'll try to add more lye and see what happens..... everything is just an experiment so far anyway. What fun.

My Biodiesel Calendar... keep up to date

Below I have imbeded my biodiesel calendar and will try to keep it up to date with what I have been up to.

WVO collection contract

I just solidified a verbal contract to collect WVO from Wing Zone in Thornton.

2661 East 120th Ave
Thornton, CO 80241
720-872-WING (9464)

I will be collecting about 25-35 gal of WVO every week and picking it up in the original 35lb (~5gal) jugs.

I'd like to thank Jim, the owner, for giving me his used vegetable oil for my biodiesel project. Jim is a great guy and his generosity is making this project even more worth while. Please, go see Jim at his restaurant and have some of his fantastic chicken wings.

Re-Building for the new 'waterless' wash

Well, I have sourced another water heater and have begun the process of turning it into a still. Hopefully, if all goes well, the still will be used to de-meth the biodiesel into its finished product without the use of a water wash. De-meth'ing the biodiesel will perform the same function as a water wash... removing the impurities (soaps, methanol, etc...). The basic reason this works is the soaps are disolved in the methanol; removing the methanol leaves nowhere for the soaps to reside, causing the soaps to essentially fall out. Running this through a filter is all that should be left to do.

If possible, I will use this same still to recover the extra methanol from the glycerin byproduct for re-use.
More on this later if it all works as designed.

The current plan is to have the still finished by the end of this weekend (4/01/07)...we'll see how it goes.

Another discovery

Research is a wonderful thing. In researching the biodiesel making process (again), I have come across a new procedure where a 'water wash' is no longer needed.

Water washing is a process used to take out the excess methanol, soaps, and other impurities in the raw biodiesel. There are problems with using a water wash; they include the following:

• possibility of causing an emulsion
• the necessity of having to now dry the biodiesel
• waste water disposal
  
• time (dealing with adding/removing the water multiple times)
• and there are probably others...

This new process (called the GL's 1 Day Process) eliminates the need to use water in the wash process. To make a very long discussion about this process shorter, it goes by the principal that soaps can not stay in suspension in biodiesel without excess methanol. Thus, removing the excess methanol (without using water to do so) will cause the soaps to quite literally fall out to the bottom of the 'wash tank'. There have been a few ways discussed on the 'best' way to do this, but basically, evaporation or distillation of the methanol seems to work the easiest.

I have chosen to distill the raw (un-washed) biodiesel in another water heater. The plan is to set up the water heater as a still to collect the methanol if at all possible for re-use (and at worst case keep it out of the air in my work area.

We'll see how this goes... back to the drawing board on the processor.