When you say remove the methanol, do you mean from the biodiesel? I've heard of recovering the excess methanol from the glycerin, but I don't see how that would affect the amount of Magnesol needed if the glycerin has already been drained. If it's removed from the fuel itself, is that done by distillation or is there a different process? Also, is Magnesol safe to just throw away? Can it be burned on a good fire? If not, how do you get rid of the waste magnesol?

 

ok yea we mix the bio in our tank then after dun mixing we let it sit for about 3 hours and drain the gylcerin that dropped out...then we pump it into a 55gal drum and i'm guessin we would dump around 3lbs of magnesol in stir it and mix and let it sit overnight and pump the biodiesel out untill we get down to the magnesol and other garbage that dropped..correct??

 

You don't have to remove the methanol but removing it does two things.
1) with the methanol removed the magnesol is non-toxic, I burn it in a hot outdoor fire.
2) Without extracting the methanol from the bio you need to add 2% per pound, without methanol you can drop to 1% per pound, so it cuts your cost in half plus you recover your methanol for reuse.

 

Three hours isnt very long to let it settle. One thing you want to make sure is that you settle out all the glycerol when using Magnesol.
I let mine settle over night at least 12 hours. I know that the Fuel Meister say's less but thats not long enough. I don't want to get into what I think about their system!!

 

How exactly would I remove the methanol from the bio?

 

Yes, from the bio. Just removing the glycerol is not enough. The Magnesol is for removing all the "crud" left over from conversion. Water, Free Fatty Acids, catalyst, methanol, and glycerol. Think of the Magnesol as a sponge that removes everything BUT the biodiesel. Soap will not stay suspended in bio without methanol present. By recovering the Methanol first, any soap present will either settle out, or can be removed through filtration. With Methanol recovery, and soap removal you need less Magnesol.


There are several ways to recover the methanol. Most people just distill it out. Just reheat the bio to about 145-150 deg F and run the vapor through a condenser. I use a completely different system that I've been working on for several years that I don't wish to publish on a public forum at this time. There is another Member of this forum that is using my new system, but hasn't achieved as good a yield as I have with it, so I want to do some more work on the system.

 

Could I run some water through it to remove the methanol? We make about 150 gallons in a batch, so would 50 gallons of water or so remove most the methanol or distilling the way to go?

 

what if i put the magnesol in my processor that has a an electrical pump..for example after i would let the gylcerin drop could i just put the 5.75lbs of magnesol in through the top of the lid and just let it circulate for about 45 minutes?? then just let it sit over night?? but would it get hard and clumpy over night, where i couldnt drain it through a 1inch ball valve?? like after letting it circulate for just say an hour and i went out the next day what would the magnesol be, like a thick substance?? or clumpy?? like would it be drainable is my question?

 

The idea is to avoid adding ANY water to the bio. To add water to the bio would defeat the purpose of using Magnesol.




You never want to pump-mix Magnesol. Pump mixing causes the Magnesol to "shear" in the pump, making it very difficult to remove from the bio. Magnesol is a very fine powder. When in the presence of water, FFA's, Etc, it "swells up" with the attached particles. Pumping shears the swelled up particles making it a bear to filter out. Once the Magnesol has done it's job it turns into a jelly like mass that will not drain, nor can you pump it!

 

ok thank you

 

Any Methanol recovered by distillation is free money because you can re use it, Why pour money down the drain.

 

I am using Purolite PD 206, it is an ion exchange resin and you pump it thru columns or gravity feed it thru tubes. No having to mix and then strain anything, a bit more expensive but less work in the long run. You can buy the plans for the tube design from desmoparts.com, that is what I did until I get the large columns up and running. The salesman from Purolite informed me that you can filter up to 200 gals per pound of pd206 but most of what I read says that 100 gals is more like it. The only draw back of the small tubes is that you have to regulate the flow thru the tubes at 1/4 gallon per pound of pd206 per HOUR, so if you use the 4 inch tubes then you can only filter 1 gal/hr. The tubes are easy to make and the fuel is very clean and dry. You can flush the pd206 with methanol to get more life out of it and it can be regenerated if sent back to the manufacturer. No need to water wash as I think it is a waste of water and time.

 

After it settles I pump it off the top of the settled magnesol to another drum through 1 micron filter bags.
I then circulate it for one or two hours through the sock filters. (just to try to catch as much gunk before it goes through my can filters)
Then I pump it through a 10 micron, 2 micron and the final 1 micron absolute can filters. These filters are set up in a row on the same line then it goes into my storage drum where I pump it into my truck.

 

Don,
Hows the pump working?

 

Pump is working just fine Bryan! Trouble is, it has me spoiled, now I need to find another one!