Written by Rickdatech

Many of us are familiar with making biodiesel in a two liter Dr Pepper Bottle. Craiggy from New Zealand has made two videos showing how he makes biodiesel. It is surprisingly similar to the Dr. Pepper method. In my opinion, I feel the heating method used in the video is unsafe and other methods would be better. I like the down to earth method of filming he uses in the videos.

Written by Rickdatech

Joe_M is a regular on the infopop forum and owner of Rilla BioFuels LLC. He makes his biodiesel in a 55 gallon drum with some rather unique plumbing. His design is effective and inexpensive. The basic concept is to use the 2" bung of a drum for both the suction and return lines of the pump mixing system.

His design is centered around a special bushing that goes in the 2" bung of a drum. This bushing lets you screw two pipes into it on either side. One pipe reaches to the bottom of the drum and connected to the suction side of the pump. The other is the return and is connected to the output of the pump. The whole system can be moved from drum to drum letting you make multiple batches in multiple drums with one set of processor plumbing.

Written by Rickdatech

The traditional Appleseed Biodiesel Processor will trap a few liters of liquid in the bottom of the processor. Most people don't find this to be a problem, but some have decided to reduce the liquid trapped in the processor by turning it upside down. Water heaters have a domed shaped (convex) top and a shape similar to a wine bottle (concave) on the bottom.

In reality, the glycerin left behind in the processor will help, in a small way, the next batch to be of a higher quality by absorbing water and increasing the methanol's solubility in WVO. That is unless your WVO has not been sufficiently settled to remove the trash. Once the reaction is over and the settling process has begun, the trash from the WVO will settle to the bottom of the glycerin in that region that does not drain properly, building up with each successive batch. This trash cakes up on the heating element causing heating elements to burn out prematurely, after only a few batches. There are a lot of solutions to this problem, including the Apple Turnover.

Written by Rickdatech

Springboard Biodiesel offers a line of semi automated stainless steel processors targeting the small biodiesel producer. They offer their processors in 40, 50 and 100 gallon capacities with a variety of options. Processing time is typically 48 hours. Although the Company reports that it is possible to reduce processing time to 12 hours.

The BioPro^TM design has been with us for several years and has become a popular mature product. It is a semi-automated processor, meaning it does everything unattended except for loading the chemicals and oil, and draining the glycerin. It even has a pump to pump the finished Biodiesel out of it with. You don't need to babysit this one like you do DIY processors.

Written by Rickdatech

Joe Street designed his water heater based processors and posted his plans for them on his web site Non-profit Fuel Cooperative using the creative commons copyleft. The pdf processor plans and the edited text in this article are from his web site.

His design concept was to produce a small scale farm type biodiesel reactor which by nature of its design and construction affords the ability to get consistently reliable quality results when used in conjunction with proper procedures and good quality chemicals to convert bio-oil feed stocks of reasonable quality into methyl ester fuel suitable for use in diesel internal combustion engines and oil burner type heating equipment.

As a general overview, this is a vacuum type reactor. He chose the vacuum approach because it has several significant advantages over other types of reactors. He doesn't like the idea of pressurizing a plastic container which contains methoxide to force it into the reactor.