Acetone to aid reaction !

[1958steveflying]

Admin addition ... There is now a wiki page to collate test results from this process see ...

http://www.biopowered.co.uk/wiki/Acetone_as_an_aid_to_transesterification




Saturday I made a 180 litre batch that had been glyc washed and venturi dried to 65c.
At 65c I added 30 litres Meth with 750g KoH and 1 litre Acetone.
My first 90/10 showed 45% unreacted and after a further 30 minutes reacting the next 90/10 showed 15% unreacted.
I settled for 30 minutes and dropped the glyc.
over the next hour I added 50g with 1 litre meth to mix then 50g then 60g to get a clear pass.

So 180 litres reacted to clear pass with 910g of KoH with 33 litres methanol and 1 litre Acetone.

After demeth I settled over night and dropped 3 litres glyc giving a total of 25 litres of glyc dropped.

The glyc dropped from stage 1 had only a tiny amount of bio in the following day whereas it would normally have about 2 inches in the cubie, so had dropped quickly and split well.

[nathanrobo]

What a result Steve

That's a base of just 5 (ish).  Sounds like a very clean process too!  It'll be interesting to see how much further Lye can be decreased / Acetone increased.

I'll also be interesting to see if processing temps can be lowered and by how much.

[1958steveflying]

Yes Nathan it looks good so far, next batch I shall add 2 litres Acetone, with regard to processing temperature as I followed on to dewatering it seemed daft to wait and let it cool.

At the moment its 50c and about to get pumped across and fuged as no further glyc has dropped since this morning.

[1958steveflying]

Fuge took out traces of glyc. will have to let it cool and settle and check tomorrow.

[Head Womble]

Some good results there Steve.

I wonder if keeping reaction temps down will have a positive influence on HMPE formation.

[photoman290]

in the paper on using acetone, at 25% they reacted at 25c with no agitation.

[nathanrobo]

It's all very exciting... guess I need to think about building a new processor or getting mine back for a bit!  Need to experiment too!

[1958steveflying]

in the paper on using acetone, at 25% they reacted at 25c with no agitation.

Yes will slowly work towards that, as I'm not recovering the Acetone for future use at the moment I shall work up on the Acetone and down on the chem's and temp. While working towards an Acetone recovery
 Regarding the temp at the moment I am dewatering prior to reaction so it does not make sense not to use it.

I am thinking out loud here but if I can water test my recovered Methanol and Acetone and it is clear then I can re-use it. As my glyc is reduced I am thinking I have produced less water and therefore less soap/glyc ! due to using Acetone !

[1958steveflying]

It's all very exciting... guess I need to think about building a new processor or getting mine back for a bit!  Need to experiment too!

Without re reading it, were they not using a paddle for agitation ?

[photoman290]

in one of the papers they are using a paddle. in the green chemistry paper, the one jules linked to they are just mixing the acetone KOH and meth with the oil at 25c and leaving for 10 minutes than draining the glys off.

[1958steveflying]

in one of the papers they are using a paddle. in the green chemistry paper, the one jules linked to they are just mixing the acetone KOH and meth with the oil at 25c and leaving for 10 minutes than draining the glys off.

Thanks I felt certain I had read use of a paddle, thought I was going mad.

I cant wait for when someone gets to just mix the the 3 components together wait for 10 mins drop glyc and the bio will be fully reacted to happen. That will be a wow moment.

We are looking at bulk purchase of Acetone this week. I will be getting a batch of oil dried ready this week too !

Working out how much KoH is the hurdle isn't it ? or has someone come across that value ?

[nathanrobo]

[/quote]

Working out how much KoH is the hurdle isn't it ? or has someone come across that value ?
[/quote]

Steve was  the lye calculation per litre of converted in the first stage match that used for unconverted in the 2nd stage?

Would be a good idea to graph the figures... We might expect to see a proportional decrease as you increase the acetone percentage. If our experience matches the research, it would taper off at 25%??

[1958steveflying]

Working out how much KoH is the hurdle isn't it ? or has someone come across that value ?
[/quote]

Steve was  the lye calculation per litre of converted in the first stage match that used for unconverted in the 2nd stage?

Would be a good idea to graph the figures... We might expect to see a proportional decrease as you increase the acetone percentage. If our experience matches the research, it would taper off at 25%??
[/quote]

The KoH hurdle I was referring to is the amount needed for the 25c 25% Acetone reaction.   I have since read that to be 0.5wt%   If someone can translate that to plain English I for one would appreciate it. lol.

"calculation per litre of converted in the first stage match that used for unconverted in the 2nd stage"      Not exactly, if my batch was 180 litres then the first stage worked out at 4.9g per litre and the second 5.9g per litre.

However I found exactly the same using ASM

[nathanrobo]

I'll read that research paper, see what I can glean!

[Carrington]

High Steve
0.5wt% if I got it right would be
100L oil x 79g per litre =79kg

79x .5% = 395 g

Think that's right just doing it in the van , will have to read more to see if this is the calc you want

Paul