methanol recovery from biodiesel glycerine - solar powered

[renewablejohn]

Ivan

have you any stats on how quick thermal oil will heat up on a standard panel I am probably looking at a range from 150C to 260C. Really do need to do some calculations prior to installing 3000 square metres.

[Ivan]

Depends on time of year. The highest output I've seen from a 20tube 47mm panel is 2kW of heat, but this is in direct midday summer sun. If you fill a tube with oil, you can chart how quickly it heats up. I've done it with glycerine, which probably has similar heat capacity in February. It went from less than 10C to 80C in about an hour.

[Chug]

Graham did a demo of his GL meth recovery at my bio buddies bash last summer and not only did Graham impress all who saw it he very kindly left the de-methed biodiesel as a contribution towards my costs for getting the w/end together, I left the BD sitting for a week or so and when I got back to it all the soap was in a thick clump at the bottom of the drums and the BD was easily poured off leaving the soap behind, I decanted it into a bottle and used it to clean my hands for the next few weeks.

peace n grease
Chug

[Twenty4Seven]

Graham did a demo of his GL meth recovery at my bio buddies bash last summer..... I decanted it into a bottle and used it to clean my hands for the next few weeks.

peace n grease
Chug

You used biogod Laming's finest bio to wash your hands?  sacre bleu!!!!! shame on you

Nick

[Chug]

No Nick

not the BD just the soap

peace n grease
Chug

[renewablejohn]

Ivan

do you envisage any problems with the tubes in the range 260C to 300C I suppose the only way to tell is to put a demo set in and record the results.

[Ivan]

I think you'll need the sunniest days to achieve this. I haven't much experience with anything other than water, which of course boils at 100C and has a high heat capacity. The glycerine is fairly similar to thermal oil in physical properties, I suspect, but I've only been playing around with it for a few months, so haven't got a great deal of data/experience. I suspect the glass tubes will be fine though, as long as you don't suddenly cool them. You will get some drop off in efficiency if you operate at very high temperatures.

I'm sure it would be well worth some experimentation.

[Twenty4Seven]

Someone on the infopop biodiesel forum posted this link to the Watercone....

http://www.watercone.com/product.html

It's a variation of the old survivalist technique for making potable water from salt or contaminated water using a sheet of plastic to condense the water. Looks like it might make a cheap and cheerful still for getting methanol out of biodiesel by product......

Nick