WFU Biofuels

Wake Forest students, faculty, staff and associates making and testing vegetable-oil based fuels.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Blog about splog (aka soap log)

We are starting to stock pile glycerine-MeOH waste at our site. So I thought I'd try something cheap and easy. I have been turning my compost heap a lot as of late and noticed how freaking hot it was inside. I thought maybe I could heat the glycerin-MeOH waste and collect the MeOH. So I poured 15 gallons of waste into a drum and connected it via hose to a 5 gallon vented carboy. I thought the MeOH may come off too rapidly and just blow past the carboy or worse yet blow the hoses off and spray my yard with caustic glycerin. Well ........ 3 days latter, nothing!!! The drum is hot the carboy is cool but no MeOH. I found it kind of funny that you could OD on the the MeOH vapors when the glycerin is warm but you can't collect 1 mL when it's 70C. I'm just going to cover the compost with a tarp to generate more heat and leave it for a few more days. Maybe I'll collect some MeOH or have a huge log of glycerin soap in the drum. Imagine taking a bath with a 2 ft x 1 ft cylinder of soap.

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