Three Dead Flies - Making Biodiesel

Making Biodiesel: I started making biodiesel in July 2006. I started studying the process at least 18 months prior (approximately February 2005). I got pretty serious about making biodiesel once the price of petro-diesel reached $3.00/gallon.

I decided to go ahead with making my own biodiesel about March 2006. I chose a single horse stall in my barn that I could convert into my biodiesel processing room. I started checking Craig's List for items I would need for my operation. I was able to find a 65 gallon electric water heater for free. I found a source for white poly barrels (used by many biodieselers because you can see through them and detect how the biodiesel is separating during processing) in Spanaway, WA -- $10 each for all the white poly barrels I wanted. They originally had balsamic vinegar in them so they needed a good scrubbing but $10 seemed like a good price to me.

We (my son-in-law Solomon and I) poured a concrete floor in the horse stall. I brought electricity into the horse stall; several 120V outlets arranged around the room and one 30-amp 220V outlet. The 120V outlets would be used to operate the liquid transfer pumps, air pump, and fish tank heater. The 30-amp 220V outlet would be used to heat the oil inside the electric water heater.

I built some 4-wheeled carts for all the barrels to sit on making them mobile and easy to handle. I welded a cart for the reactor (electric water heater) just because I had the materials and like to weld. (You'll see it in the pictures holding the electric water heater.)

So now I would like to show you how I go about making biodiesel. I have taken some pictures of the process and placed some notations on the pictures to make them easier to understand. I welcome your comments.

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I start out by going to the restaurant and collecting the used cooking oil. I use a 12-volt car battery to power a little transfer pump. I move the oil from the holding tank at the restaurant to the plastic bottles in which the oil first came. I have collected the plastic bottles (biodieselers call the thin-walled plastic bottles "cubies") from the dumpster at the restaurant. They are 5 gallons each and easy to carry around.

The pump has an on/off switch on it and a telescoping suction tube that goes down into the oil. It also has a power cord with alligator clips that reaches down to the 12V car battery on the ground. It's a real nice setup. If you can afford it, I highly recommend an electric pump like this one. It sure makes oil collection clean and easy. One thing I've noticed: when the temperature outside gets down below 28F degrees, the pump cannot draw the cold oil up the suction tube.

Here's some of the used oil I collected from the restaurant. Notice no separation layers in this oil, consistent color from top to bottom, and no visible particles. This is a very good sign and I would give this oil a very high quality rating -- just from the look of it.

I pour the waste vegetable cooking oil into a poly barrel that has been turned upside down. I cut the bottom out of the barrel -- the hole is about 18" in diameter. I plumbed one bung in the head of the barrel to allow easy gravity draining. Notice the height of this barrel. I built the cart for this barrel taller than the rest to get it above the pump on the reactor. The pump is not a self-priming pump so I have to rely on gravity to get oil into the reactor high enough to cover the pump. Then I can turn on the pump and it will draw the rest of the oil out of this barrel.

I created some transfer hoses from transparent poly tubing with 3/4" brass barb fittings (I found mine in the sprinkler/irrigation section of Home Depot) inserted and band clamped to each end. I also screwed 3/4" union fittings to each of the barb fittings, thereby giving me an easy way to connect the tubes to my tanks and reactor. In this step, I connect one end of the hose to the holding tank I just filled with used cooking oil.

I connect the other end of the hose to the reactor. When I open the valves at each end of the hose, the oil drains out of the holding tank, through the hose, and into the reactor. Once the level of oil in the reactor rises to the level of the pump, I can turn the pump on.

I can tell how much oil is in the reactor by the sight tube.

Now I can plug in the transfer pump and draw the oil out of the holding tank. Note the large transparent poly tubing above the pump. It's full of oil being drawn from the holding tank, up through the tube, and into the top of the water heater reactor. This process continues until the amount of oil I want to process is in the reactor. Again, the sight tube tells me that information.

This picture shows the reactor plumbing. I know this is a puzzle for some people who are trying to create their first reactor. I thought, if one could study the plumbing in a good photograph (something I could NOT find when I was making my first reactor), one could easily create their own reactor with far less fear of failure. If you have any questions about my reactor, feel free to email me and I will do my best to answer them.

For this example, I am making a 100 liter batch of biodiesel. I watch for the level of oil to rise in the sight tube to the 100 liter mark. When it does, I turn off the transfer pump, disconnect the fill tube from the fill tank, and open the valves to allow the oil inside the reactor to cycle around and around thereby mixing it thoroughly.

While the oil cycles out of the bottom of the reactor, through the pump, and into the top of the reactor, I want to heat the oil to 140 degrees Farenheit. So I take the plug attached to the lower heating element in the water heater (reactor) and...

...I plug it into the 220V outlet. 100 liters of oil takes my reactor about 30 minutes to heat to 140 degrees Farenheit. We stop heating at 140 degrees because Methanol will flash at about 147 degrees Farenheit and we do NOT want that to happen! So we leave a 7 degree margin of error for safety.

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