Phydeaux, If I neturalize the Ph, then decant off the water, fire up the still and boil off the excess water at 100Deg C, what would happen if I then cranked up the still above the boiling point of glycerol? I guess I'm still a little confused about the conversion to Methanol. I thought if you evaporated the glycerol, you just wind up with refined glycerne.........Remember I said my chemistry was 40 years old



FABMANDELUX.

 

What I have been describing is the purification of glycerol, thats what I thought you wanted. Sorry if I misunderstood your question.

It has to be the first step in conversion because you need to start with un contaminated glycerol.
Conversion to methanol is gonna be pretty complicated and may not be practical. Here is a paper on the subject, where it says "biomass" read glycerol.

http://www.refuelnet.de/content/refu...f/SOMFB_99.pdf

 

Read the report, and I see your point. Maybe in the future........Would it be possible to use the glycerol in a biodigester and produce Syngas?

I've worked out a system for burning Glycerol for process heat that works very well, and a system for pelletizing it for cattle feed. Just trying to find more uses for it. Refining glycerol into Glycerin I think will be a losing proposition because of falling refined glycerin prices.

Just trying to find options for my customers. Thanks for the help


FABMANDELUX.

 

Fab
Here are some more studies about the glycerol problem. It looks like USDOE, USDOT, and USDA are working on it because of the tremendous growth of the BD industry.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/pub...15=187596&pf=1

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/...sti_id=5181982

Of course if you want a little excitement in your life try this one
http://members.tripod.com/~booboolaroo/acb/188.html

There seem to be several potential routes I will keep looking

It seems they are moving in the direction of adding to rather than splitting Glycerol. That makes sense because carbon carbon covalent bonds are very stable a difficult to break.

 

I have been thinking about the Glycerol problem and just had a brainstorm.
Since you live in the Northwest there must be sawmills in your area that have tons of sawdust laying around.

Mixed with glycerol and pelletized it could be marketed for the pellet or corn burning stoves that are gaining popularity as the price of fuel oil sky rockets. I would bet you could even mix your Magnesol filter cake in with it.

You may have already explored this idea but I just thought of it so wanted to pass it on.

 

Been there, working on that! Only with one difference. I live in the desert side of Oregon, only the western 1/3 of the state is rainy and miserable We don't have a lot of trees on this side, It's all dry-land wheat here. We have millions of tons of wheat straw that must be removed every year. I received a $20,000 Grant to develop a system for pelletizing this waste straw with Glycerol as the binder. My new pellet mill should be here after the first of the year. The pellets can be used for heat, cattle-feed, and dry fertilizer. With the amount of straw here I'm looking for other ways to use the glycerol, in case we produce to many pellets!

FABMANDELUX.