7 Things to know before making your Shopping list for Biodiesel manufacturing

Before you head down to local market to get the raw materials for making biodiesels, there are a few essential things you must know. Knowing them can save you unnecessary spending while ensuring that you shop everything that is necessary for making homemade biodiesel. You might get confused with the overwhelming number of choices available when it comes to selecting a raw material for biodiesel production. Don’t get confused, but rather go through the following guidelines before you select on the raw materials required for your project:

 

    1. During any kind of biodiesel production weather homemade or professional, the alcohol is added to displace the Glycerin so that it is released as a waste product. Bear in mind that alcohol used can be Ethanol or methanol, although methanol is preferred over ethanol. Addition of Lye triggers the chemical reaction for glycerin release.
    2. Methanol is available in the market under a lot many names, some of which are wood alcohol, colonial spirits, Columbian spirits, methyl Hydrate, hydroxymethane, stove fuel, wood naphtha, methylol, pyroxilic spirit, carbonol, wood spirits, methyl hydroxide and monohydroxymethane. Fact remains that all of them are just fancy nicknames of the same product commonly known as methanol.
    3. Some names are used to identify both methanol and ethanol. One such name is methylcarbinol. Since ethanol is harder to work with, when it comes to manufacturing homemade biodiesel, double check the ingredients to make sure it is methanol that you are buying and not ethanol.
    4. Soap making is very similar to manufacturing homemade biodiesel. When it comes to biodiesel fuel, you must convert the glycerin into biodiesel fuel. This is accomplished by the usage of lye just as in the production of soap, where lye converts the fat to soap. When it comes to selecting lye, you have couple of choices such as potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide (also known as caustic soda). Caustic soda is easily available at any grocery store and is usually cheaper than its substitute.
    5. The lye is perhaps the most dangerous of all the chemicals which are used in the production of homemade biodiesel. You must keep lye away from the reach of children and pets and it must not be kept near any sort of eatables. Further, you must protect yourself from its splashes when it is mixed with other chemicals used in the production of biodiesel. In order to do this you must shop for protective gear in terms of aprons, gloves and eye protection.
    6. Caustic soda, when used as lye, easily reacts with Zinc, tin and aluminum, so the final biodiesel must not be stored into a container which is made of any of these metals. You can shop for a cast Iron container in order to store the final usable biodiesel fuel.
    7. In case you want to use potassium hydroxide as lye, then you must remember that it will be used 1.4 times as that of caustic soda. Both the chemicals are usually available at craft stores and other chemical suppliers. Also, chemicals which are used for titration such as isopropyl alcohol are easily available at any drug or chemical store.

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