New test for total glycerin

b100supply.com has a new field test for total glycerin level in your fuel. The ASTM spec says glycerin contamination should not exceed 0.24%, so you can use this test to get a ball park idea of whether your fuel is in spec. The 3/27 or methanol test is an even simpler and cheaper way to see if your fuel is likely to be in spec, as it seems to fail when fuel tests higher than about 0.24%. You might use the new glycerin level test along with 3/27 to see how they compare. Since glycerin contamination is usually the culprit when folks have fuel filter plugging problems, testing for glycerin is probably the single most important quality test to do. But make sure your fuel doesn't have water in it either!

City of Daphne using a BioPro to recycle veg oil into biodiesel

Here's a great example of how a small city is using a BioPro190 biodiesel processor to turn waste veg oil into fuel! This post compliments of Graydon Blair of Utah Biodiesel Supply..

Daphne Public Utilities - Daphne, Alabama
http://daphneutilities.com/daphne/recycle_bio.htm
The city of Daphne Alabama purchased a BioPro 190 earlier this year as a show piece for their oil recycling program. Citizens of Daphne, Alabama are encouraged to drop off their waste vegetable oil at designated drop off stations placed throughout the city. The oil is collected, filtered, and then processed into Biodiesel by the city in their brand new BioPro 190.

Recently I had a chance to follow up with them to see how they were enjoying it and they were extremely ecstatic about it. They said they were really impressed with how easy it was to use. All of their staff involved in the program really like using it & seeing how quick they can make a batch.

Prior to having a BioPro, they had more cumbersome equipment that they used to make their Biodiesel with. They said that using the BioPro is so much easier and more effective.

So much more effective that they'll be taking it on the road soon on a tour of several other municipalities in Alabama to show just how easy it is to create a city wide oil recycling program. Get this! They even recycle the glycerin and turn it into soap! So not only are they recycling waste oil which may have ended up in their sewer system, they now make biodiesel to power the city trucks and recycle the glycerin and make soap which they sell as well! How's that for being environmentally responsible!

How to break an emulsion

Here's a great post about how to use salt to break biodiesel emulsions formed when washing the fuel.

Kuma Stove warmth!

Came home from skiing in Canada on Sunday to a house that was stone cold. Fired up the Kuma stove, and now the whole house is warm and cozy.. Check out the nice flame it puts out in this 10 second video..

Coop open house for Biznik members

The snow started falling right about when the open house started today. This event was open only to members of Biznik, which is a great online networking community. Only a few people braved the snow today, but with some hot cider and interesting conversation we managed to have a good time.. Check out the snow in Seattle!

Building a processor with High School students

Had fun doing a processor build workshop with kids from Kamiak High School a couple weeks ago. The workshop was held in the diesel lab at the Sno Isle Skills Center in Mukilteo, WA, which the district uses to teach kids diesel mechanics- wish I could take the class! We had 7 students along with the chemistry teacher, John, and the diesel mechanics teacher Brent, who was a great asset- showing us their big diesel engines and explaining how they work. He also helped get the darn zinc anode out of the water heater with his air impact wrench when all else had failed!
They had ordered the b100supply Appleseed kit, so it seemed like it'd be no problem, except that they had gotten a gas water heater to start with, and that wouldn't do! So we started out the day with Brent and John rounding up an electric one- with amazing speed! - while I went over biodiesel basics with the kids.
Once we got the right water heater, and got that anode out, the rest was easy- we even made a 16 gallon batch using some of the waste fryer oil from the cafeteria..
Check out the pics from the day here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lesmithjr/BiodieselWorkshop

BioLyle's Biodiesel Workshop
http://biolyle.com

BioPro 190 fuel passes full ASTM series

The state of WA donated a complete ASTM test series for the fuel that we're producing with our BioPro 190, as you can see from the results on my fuel quality page here: http://biolyle.com/biopro/quality%20biopro%20fuel.html

that it passed nicely.. Total glycerin of 0.149 this time- we had that done a couple months ago and it was 0.122..

I do an overnight preheat of the oil in the machine to dry it which I think helps improve the reaction.. Am really psyched that we can produce such great fuel consistently.. Our oil usually titrates pretty low- 2 - 3 or so..

I love this machine!

Lyle

http://biolyle.com

Join Biznik!

I've been having fun with biznik, an online business networking community.. They also have all kinds of events where folks can meet each other, exchange ideas, and make valuable connections. I've gone to events the last two nights and met some great people. I'd recommend it to anyone who has any kind of business!

recent articles/ Bioneers conference/Mushrooms!

The Everett Herald did a nice little article about my class at the college there yesteday:

Also, National Geographic did a Biofuels piece, with some material on biodiesel from algae.. Sounds like it's still a ways off from commercial availability.

Heard Paul Staments speak at Seattle Bioneers conference yesterday- haven't been so blown away by a talk in a long time. He has found amazing things with mushrooms, from fractal patterns of their mycelium to wondrous healing powers of their extracts- powerful antiviral properties- got carpenter ants? no problem- he's developed an extract that will totally eliminate them for up to a decade, bioremediation of toxic waste- eg mushrooms cleaning up around Chernobyl by sequestering Cesium, Oyster mushrooms cleaning up toxic diesel-contaminated soil, etc, etc. Here's a good article about him, and he's got a new book out that I've gotta get: Mycelium Running: How mushrooms can help save the world. If you ever get a chance to hear this guy, don't miss it! His website: fungi.com

Teaching the Mayor to make bio!

A few weeks ago I had the honor of showing Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels how to make biodiesel! The event was part of the Mayor's initiative to address global warming, Seattle Climate Action NOW- see http://www.seattlecan.org/ and he did a few presentations in different neighborhoods throughout the day. The biodiesel presentation was organized by General/Standard Biodiesel in the Chinatown neighborhood, to demonstrate how the local restaurant oil can be (and is) converted to biodiesel.. After the Mayor shook up a pop bottle batch, he poured some finished bio into a generator that was powering a popcorn popper for visitors.

Biodiesel in Schools Forum and koh purity testing

There's a forum specifically for biodiesel in schools, so teachers and students can chat with each other about their projects.

To sign up, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for "biodiesel in schools"
You can set it so you get either individual messages, or a daily digest (I prefer).

One of the members made a great offer today- he will test your KOH for purity- he and others at the school developed a test, and he found that his 90% KOH is actually 97% pure! So he can use less than he thought and save money. He's willing to test others KOH, as he says here:
"We would like to offer our services and test samples of your incoming catalyst. Please send a 10g dry sample of KOH or NaOH to the address below. Please double or triple Zip-lock it and send it in a bubble mailer. To support the schools' program, you are also encouraged to send a donation of $4 to Bloom High School (check or money order) with your sample. This will help offset the cost of our lab time and consumables.

Please also include an email address with your sample so that we may get the results to you as soon as possible (1-2 days from receipt of sample), otherwise we will mail it to the return address.

Barry Latham, M.A.Ed., B.S.
Biodiesel Project Director
Bloom High School
101 West 10th Street
Chicago Heights, IL 60411

Happy biodieseling...

Lyle
http://biolyle.com

BioLyle now a dealer of BioPro 190 and 380

With my very positive experience using the BioPro for the Dirty Hands Coop, I was invited to become a dealer for these machines. The BioPro's are all stainless steel, and I love the small footprint, the ease of use, and the fact that it has a pump to pump the finished fuel into your car or storage, right out of the same compartment that you dumped oil into 48 hours before. See my quality page for test results showing that the machine makes great fuel!
See my BioPro pages and let me know if you'd like to order one for yourself or a burgeoning coop.
Lyle
BioLyle's Biodiesel Workshop, LLC
http://biolyle.com
biolyle@gmail.com

Dirty Hands Coop uses a BioPro 190

In June, my friends Harry, Judy, and I got together to brainstorm a way to organize a biodiesel coop. I had mentioned wanting to do less brewing at home, and wanting more community involvement- also, really wanting a BioPro, which converts yucky oil to biodiesel in 48 hours. I had seen the test results on fuel from a BioPro at a Girl Mark advanced bio workshop in Berkeley, where the inventor of the pHLip test, Randall von Weddell was present, and said he'd never seen homebrew test so well with his test.
The long and short of it is that we got a BioPro 190, and organized the coop so that folks would have to bring their own oil (BYOO!)- hence the name, the Dirty Hands Coop.. The whole thing has been made possible by neighbor and friend Tom who has generously allowed the use of his workshop to host the whole operation. Thank you Tom! It was easy to get a bunch of interested folks together from various listserves in the area, and somewhat to my surprise, they found restaurants nearby to get oil from. We all ask the restaurants to put their oil back into the 5 gallon cubes that had the fresh oil. This is a little bit of a pain for them, cuz the oil in the fryer is hot, and can't go directly into those carboys- it ususally goes into a big steel pot to cool, and then someone (or two) has to pour the oil into the carboy thru a funnel (it's nice when you provide them with a big wide one).
Anyway, coop members deliver their oil to the separate bathroom at our facility, where they put their name on the carboy and log about how much oil they think they brought. I measure it by comparing it to a carboy with gallon markers, and adjust their number if needed, then bring it inside the shop. When the BioPro is free, I dump the oil directly into it thru a screen from a clothes dryer which happens to fit perfectly over the machine's rectangular opening.
Before that actually, I titrate the oil if it's from a restaurant that we haven't gotten oil from yet, and also take a look to make sure there's not a water layer under the oil. The carboy system is good for seeing that water contamination, and also for ease of picking up the oil w/o messy pumping.
Add the chemicals, push the start button and away we go. 24 hrs later, drain the glycerin, fill the wash barrell, and push the wash button. 24 hrs after that, the fuel is finished, and ready to pump into our 70 gallon storage cubes.
We pump the bio into cars using a handpump from the storage cube, which is also kept in the bathroom where the oil is dropped off.
We even applied for and received our methanol permit!
We also had our fuel tested and the total glycerin was 0.12 - half the ASTM spec! And recently we had our fuel submitted for the full gamut of ASTM tests, and voila, we have commercial quality fuel!
We are supplying 20 people with this baby!!

BioLyle's Biodiesel Workshop
http://biolyle.com