Posted on 07/31/2008 5:26:46 AM PDT by Red Badger
A Northamptonshire man destroyed his garage and badly injured himself at the weekend while attempting to make biodiesel from used cooking oil. A devastating explosion levelled the makeshift reprocessing plant on Saturday afternoon, when sparks from an electric drill being used to mix ingredients ignited explosive vapours.
Firemen hastened to deal with the smoking wreckage, in Middleton Cheney, and the unnamed thrifty motorist was airlifted to hospital with 20 per cent burns.
"Firefighters would like to urge members of the public to take extreme caution if undertaking such chemical mixtures in their own homes," said a statement from the Oxfordshire fire brigade, quoted by the BBC.
The injured biodiesel fancier reportedly made motor fuel from used cooking oil obtained from his local Chinese takeaway. Such oil can often be used in diesel vehicles without preparation, but this will typically knacker the engine in short order. It is normal to treat the oil with alcohol and other ingredients before use, and this process was apparently underway when the mishap occurred.
The explosion would most probably have been caused initially by alcohol fumes building up in the garage, a process likely enhanced by the hot weather this weekend. Open-air - or at least better-ventilated - biodiesel manufacture might have been wiser.
Home biofuel making is legal and tax-free to the amount of 2,500 litres per annum. With so much of the pump price of fuel being duty, such an effort is becoming more and more worthwhile to motorists as fuel costs soar. Quite apart from the risk of a devastating garage or garden-shed explosion, however - and the chance of then being mistaken for a terrorist - care is needed to avoid engine damage. ®
I believe it took from the garage and blew him somewhere near the curb.
There’s no better teacher than “experience”............
...and some learn by accident....;)
Carolyn
Honestly, I don’t know.
Most of my acquaintences on the local PF know I’m making biodiesel and soaps, so they leave me alone - unless they want to try out my degreasers, which I give away. I sell NO product or by-product.
My State Legislators passed a law in ‘07 making all biodiesel made in one’s backyard for use in their own vehicles registered in their name EXEMPT from all taxation; net result is homebrewers enjoy the same tax exemption the FedGov is accustomed to. I call it smart on their part to exempt motorfuel moonshine to help starve a Persian Gulf terrorist.
Also, the FedGov screwed themselves and tied their own hands, saying in order to claim a 50 cent/gallon tax credit (using waste oil), one must have an expensive ASTM test done declaring the product fit as a motor fuel. So, if the IRS pursues anyone for failure to pay highway tax on biodiesel, they are, in essence, saying the government (the only agency the IRS has the authority to represent) recognizes the quality of the homebrew product as a motor fuel, thus the tax credit that exceeds the motorfuel tax should have been applicable.
But, those are seperate topics.....
No, methanol (or methyl alcohol) is not methamphetamine. That said, methanol is very toxic, and if there were enough fumes in the garage to explode when ignited, he was breathing a LOT more than enough to do damage to himself.
Carolyn
Can you point to a recipe?
woof, woof, woof, .....
Correct, and it has an interesting Irish derivation, which is not very complimentary...:^)
Try here: http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/
ALL CHEMICALS USED IN THIS PROCESS ARE DANGEROUS!
Employ appropriate safety measures while handling any of them.
The recipe for biodiesel is to test the oil (titrate) for the amount of catalyst required, heat the oil to 135-140*F, mix the methanol (20% by volume of dry, raw, strained, settled, used cooking oil) and lye (I use NaOH, so my base # is 5 to which I add the titration number).
Example: for 20 gallons of oil titrating at 2.5g/l you would use (20 x 3.785 - gallons to liters) x (5g base + 2.5g titration) = 567.8 grams of NaOH @ 100% purity.
This batch will require four gallons of methanol @ 20%. Pour the full, measured amount of NaOH into one or two gallons of methanol and agitate until all crystals are completely dissolved, then top off with the remaining two or three gallons and mix well.
This is your METHOXIDE. IT IS EXTREMELY POISONOUS and DANGEROUS to handle.
Add methoxide slowly to the preheated, recirculating oil and let agitate for at least two hours after all the methoxide has been added. Stop the recirc pump and let the glycerol settle for 6-8 hours then drain off the dark glycerol layer (the glycerol is dark and the biodiesel will be much clearer and lighter in color) which will approximately equal the four gallons of methoxide plus the titration number in percentage of the 20 gallons (2.5% of 20 gallons). The total glycerol will be approximately four and a half gallons. The remaining is the unwashed biodiesel.
From there, one can water or dry wash the fuel to remove remnant soap and methanol. I use water washing.
The glycerol is soap? How interesting. What do you do with 4 or five gallons of soaf every fillup?
No, glycerine is byproduct. You get it whether you make soap or biodiesel. If you use water (or lye only) fat makes soap + glycerine, but if you use methoxide (which is lye + alcohol) then you get biodiesel + glycerine, but no soap. Soap is an incidental byproduct of biodiesel manufacture, when your grease is very wet, or has free fatty acids. Some biodiesel preps use sulfuric acid in the first step, which reduces the yield of soap and increases the yield of biodiesel, at the expense of using an additional step, and the hassle of dealing with sulfuric acid which is pretty nasty. But then you can use really rank grease and still get good biodiesel.
So...what do you do with the glycerine?
The glycerol is about 3/4 "soap" and 1/4 reclaimable methanol. I distill the methanol (for reuse) from the glycerin and give the de-methed soap by-product to shade-tree mechanic shops as degreasers, to the restaurants I get my raw oil from as soaps and degreasers, and I make bar and liquid soaps for my personal use once in a while, giving some of it away if my friends and family ask.
Also, the wastewater treatment plant uses some of the de-methed excess as a stimulant(?) food for the digesters, don't know exactly their use but they take it.
The de-methed glycerol makes good soap, works well as a leather conditioner provided no methanol remains, is a great degreaser, parts cleaner, auto wash, tire cleaner, pressure washer solution, weed killer, animal feed sticker, and several other uses ie. dust control for unpaved surfaces, and as a nutrient source for compost bins/piles. You know those little sponge things they sell to "polish" shoes? Glycerin on/in a sponge? This will do the same thing for free.
The uses are as varied as the need, but the biggest problem is matching the need with the by-product, but since it's "free" and I live in a rural agricultural setting, it's not too difficult to get rid of the bulk of it - properly.
Which washing method do you use?
huh. clever.
The “soap” takes a bit more work than just draining from the biodiesel, but the glycerin can be used in any stage after being de-methed (don't want to be exposed to the methanol). As stated, methanol removal is prime but also water, heat, and additional lye is needed for proper saponification.
One other thing - the liquid glycerin soap will clean glass better than anything I've ever found.
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