How to make BIODIESEL (part 1)

***How to make BIODIESEL
Biodiesel forms due to a chemical reaction called transesterification, meaning that glycerol in the oil is substituted by an alcohol in the presence of a catalyst. In our case we use Methhanol and NaOH (caustic soda) or KOH (caustic potash). In this "How to" we will do our best to make clear to you how to prepare a good biodiesel. Don't let yourself be put off by our method, though. There are many other ways and tricks to prepare good biodiesel and you can find much about it at the other websites mentioned above.

*The 3 ingredients

1/Oil

The primary ingredient is oil or fat. This will be waste vegetable oil for the average producer at home, which may be collected for free in most restaurants.
One can, of course, grow rapeseed or Jathropa and crush it for oil, as often happens in the United States.

Many US farmers are nowadays self-supporting with regard to energy. They use biodiesel in tractors and other farming machinery and mostly diesel aggregates are used to generate electricity. People who prepare diesel on a larger scale are able to use waste frying fat, fish oil, animal fat and several other kinds of oils. The nice thing about biodiesel is that you can make it out of so many different substances, mostly waste products. There is always something in stock, and even the use of new oil is cost-effective still.

2/Alcohol

The second ingredient is alcohol. Methanol is mostly used in the application of recycled vegetable oil. When processing new oil, it is often possible to use ethanol, but as ethanol is more difficult to handle, we use methanol here. We like to point out that methanol is a very dangerous material, as is ethanol. Avoid inhaling and skin and eye contact, always wear gloves suitable for this substance, eye-protection and face-mask and always work in a well-ventilated room.

3/Katalysator

The last ingredient is the Catalyst. Both KOH (potassium hydroxide, caustic potash) and NaOH (Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda) may be used. The advantage of KOH is that the residual glycerine is much less toxic than when NaOH is used. In that case, it is even possible to process the glycerine into artificial fertilizer. KOH dissolves much more readily in methanol as well. However, an advantage of NaOH is that it is very simply and cheaply to get as a plunger, while it is good to handle. That is why we use it in this manual. You can always have a go with KOH as well. Take care that you use NaOH with a purity of 96% or higher. KOH of that percentage is rather hard to find, but 92% and 85% will work fine as well. Both NaOH and KOH are very dangerous chemicals. Please take the precautions mentioned above when using these chemicals.

**How to get OIL
Although biodiesel can be derived from many oils and fats, mostly waste frying oil is used. Restaurants often have to pay for the removal of their waste oils. Therefore it is rather simple to collect oil for free from a restaurant.
The most convenient way is to collect it in its original packaging. Oil mostly is supplied in plastic containers. If your supplier is willing to refill these containers with the waste oil you are certain that the oil is not polluted extra by water, dirt and other externally interfering factors. Another option is that you provide the restaurant with a barrel to catch the oil. Obviously, you can spare yourself the trouble and use new vegetable oil. It simply is for sale at supermarkets and wholesalers.

**Oil quality
The cleaner and newer the oil, the simpler it is to make high quality diesel.
Its colour and transparency tell a lot about oil quality. Light and clear is good; darkand turbid smelly oil is less suitable to produce biodiesel.
When you are not sure of the oil quality, it is advisable to make first a small amount of diesel. If this turns out to be good, then you can process the rest of the oil.
Our manual may seem to be very simple and in fact making biodiesel is not that difficult. It only becomes tricky when you have oil of lesser quality, like oil with much water. Too much water may interfere with the process, especially when you are using too much of catalyst a kind of gel may form. One way to check your oil for water is by heating about half a liter of oil to a temperature of 50º C. If it starts to bubble/hiss/crack etc. then the oil contains too much water. When you do not see any of these phenomenons at 60º C, there is no reason to remove the water.

*note: source from http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel.html