Real Experiments!

Although biodiesel processing requires complex chemical reactions and equipment, it is still viewed as a simple procedure, and there are many websites and books that can tell you step-by-step, how to produce biodiesel in your own home. Since many processors salvage and recycle parts, and collect waste vegetable oil, every batch of biodiesel produced is different, and there are many discrepancies amongst the many procedures out there.
I believe this contributes to the skepticism and hesitation when it comes to using biodiesel. Biodiesel is different from regular diesel, and therefore, some care must be taken to help your engine run properly. Likewise, B100 must meet ASTM standards to ensure that it is suitable to run in diesel engines.
This summer, the goal of Biodiesel@MIT is to refine our process in a few specific ways. Firstly, starting this week, we are experimenting to determine the optimal amount of potassium hydroxide (KOH) to add to methanol to produce methoxide. You can take a look at our procedure here. We have taken a very precise and scientific approach to our processing, and we are excited to implement our results, which should be available next week!
Second, we want to increase the efficiency of our process by improving our methanol recovery system. The group's advisor, chemical engineering professor Bill Green, who has kindly offered our group some fume hood space this week to perfom our aforementioned experiments, has also offered us advice for operating our methanol recovery unit. He has suggested adding a condenser and a needle valve between the methanol collection tank and the vacuum pump, instead of bleeding out air to maintain a pressure between 15 and 18mmHG. Given that this is much harder than it sounds (especially when you're as vertically challenged as I am), this will help us improve our operation. To speed up the methanol stripping process, he also suggested bubbling air through the biodiesel, instead of stirring, since getting the dissolved methanol into contact with the air-liquid interface helps it evaporate. This can also be applied to performing methanol recovery on the glycerol we produce, therefore reducing our waste twofold; we will be able to reuse the condensed and collected methanol to make methoxide, and without methanol, and after it's been neutralized, the glycerol will not be considered a hazardous wasteand will have other uses, such as composting, burning it as a fuel, or making soap!
Finally, our third goal is to increase participation in Biodiesel@MIT. There are a lot of opportunities, from producing biodiesel hands-on, to using html to update the website with upcoming events and news, to working to create a business model for using biodiesel on campus. Help us promote sustainability on campus and get involved today. If you are interested in learning more about biodiesel, email us at biodiesel-active@mit.edu.
Stay tuned for upcoming events and results and pictures from this week's experiments!