HOW WE MAKE BIODIESEL

[Music] the original diesel engine named after inventor Rudolph diesel actually ran on vegetable oil changes in the design of diesel engines over the years required a different fuel with more energy output and less jelling in Colder Weather than vegetable oil hence petroleum based diesel gained popularity over oil the number one environmental concern about diesel fuel is it emits harmful pollutants into the air biodiesel is a replacement fuel for diesel engines made out of animal fats or vegetable oil the advantages of biodiesel are that it's not derived from fossil fuels but can be made from local crops it lowers greenhouse gas emissions and the production and sale of biodiesel generates a domestic fuel economy the University of Idaho is one of the pioneers of biodiesel research having over 30 years of experience working with biodiesel fuel at the University of Idaho biodiesel education program Farm scale production facility we make biodiesel from a variety of feed stock most of the time we either make biodiesel from waste vegetable oil gathered from the sedexo kitchens at the University or we extract the oil ourselves with our seed oil prep [Music] let's take a moment to examine our standard recipe for making biodiesel this is production specialist Joe Thompson your biodiesel Chef for the day to make biodiesel you remove the impurities of the fatter oil and change its viscosity so that it can burn in a normal diesel engine without mucking up the fuel lines you do that through a chemical reaction called transesterification trans esterification is the biodiesel making process and is simply a reaction of the vegetable oil and alcohol using a catalyst to speed the reaction the process is relatively simple add a certain amount of alcohol to your Catalyst combine the mixture with your feed stock then heat and agitate for a short period of time the result is a layer of biodiesel and a layer of Glycerin remove the Glycerin by draining it off the bottom and then use a wash process to remove contaminants the co-product glycerin has a lot of other uses like making soap but that's another topic our method of making biodiesel is a two reaction process meaning we perform these steps Twice first we want to make sure our feed stock is suitable for making quality biodiesel that means we want fats or oils with a lowf free fatty acid content of the feed stock oil waste oil can be high in free fatty acids while freshly pressed canola oil for for instance is very low in FFA content and makes an ideal feed stock for biodiesel the more FFA in the biodiesel the more Catalyst you must use and the more soap you'll have to clean out of your finished biodiesel second we create a mixture of methanol with a catalyst like sodium methylate the Catalyst can burn the skin and methanol Vapors are harmful to breathe and flammable so the use of either requires safety precautions we only add 80% of the alcohol Catalyst mixture for the first reaction heat the entire mixture and agitate we're using a heat regulation unit with a thermocouple and are agitating the mix with a paint paddle on a heavyduty drill stand after an hour we let the product sit for about 30 minutes the heavier glycerin settles to the bottom we drain off as much of the glycerin as we can add the remaining 20% Catalyst mixture and heat and agitate again once the second reaction is finished and the glycerin has settled we drain off the glycerin co-product the remaining liquid is biodiesel however it still has some excess methanol Catalyst and other impurities mixed in there are several wash methods but we prefer to use a dryw wash method filtering the biodiesel through ion exchange beads the finished biodiesel is a highquality fuel ready to use in any diesel engine visit our website at w www. biodel education.org for more information we're on Facebook and Twitter too [Music]

Channel: Biodiesel Education

Views: 114,037

Keywords: Biodiesel, biofuels, university of idaho, Biofuel (Organization Sector), how to make biodiesel, biodiesel production, biodiesel plant, biodiesel use, biofuel production, biodiesel rection, biodiesel recipe, biodiesel reactor, uidaho, www.biodieseleducation.org, biodiesel education, biodiesel education program

Id: CrjkRcJRzNM

Length: 4min 41sec (281 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 18 2013