Making biodiesel – video

Posted by Krzysztof Lis on March 29, 2008

Here’s another interesting video on making biodiesel. One image is said to be worth thousand words, so I guess the value of moving images with spoken comments is worth a thousand articles. As you’ll see in the video, making biodiesel is simple and doesn’t require any special devices… You’ll se a step-by-step guide to making biodiesel and all the equipment and feedstock needed to produce this fuel.

Here’s a simplified list of what this guy does for each batch of biodiesel fuel.

1. Gets his used cooking fat.
2. Pours it through a cloth to filter the food left-overs.
3. Pumps the oil to the biodiesel processor.
4. Heats the oil to about 130°F (55°C).
5. Prepares methoxide by mixing methanol and lye (sodium hydroxide).
6. Adds the methoxide to the cooking oil, circulates it in the biodiesel processor for about 2 hours using the pump.
7. Lets the mixture to settle.
8. Removes the glycerine from the bottom of the processor.
9. Pumps the biodiesel to the washing tank filled with some warm water. Water is supposed to remove any soap or glycerine that remained in the biodiesel.
10. When the water and biodiesel are in one tank uses aquarium bubbler to mix the water with biodiesel. After some time he pours the water out of the tank, if it’s clean, the process is done. If not, it needs to be repeated (water is shown in this white tank, the white substance filling most of the tank is the dirty water, the darker thin layer above is some biodiesel).
11. Warms the biodiesel to 140°F (60°C) to make it more clear.

I told you making biodiesel is easy!

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