I'm coming to Michigan to teach
a couple of biodiesel homebrewing classes in Saginaw, at SVSU-
Hands-on basics class:
August 16-17, 10-4
Come learn everything you need to know to make quality biodiesel from restaurant oil, wash it , test it for quality, and build a processor for one of the students to take home.
approximate syllabus:
Thursday:
10-noon- lecture: general biofuels introduction, SVO conversions and
diesel blending (ie DSE, etc) discussions, cold weather issues,
emissions, discussion of early biofuels research that has gotten us
where we are today with biodiesel, explanation of biodiesel chemistry
and the basic process
noon-12:30 demonstration of the basic process
12:30-1:15 lunch
1:15-4 : students practice titration and make 1-liter batches, and we'll
discuss the full-size processor I'm bringing on the trailer outside and
how it works.
During the basic practice you'll practice oil water content testing,
blank titration, titration with a burette as well as cheaper equipment,
phenol red and turmeric titrations, really nasty oil as well as normal
oil, 5% glycerine remix prewash and two-stage process, along with
intentionally making mistakes for Sunday's class.
If we get through the basic 1-liter batches quickly enough, I"ll start
the next day's topics and demonstrations on Saturday afternoon.
Friday:
10-12:30 lecture and demo: washing, biodiesel equipment, quality control
and quality testing discussion and demonstration, and a more detailed
discussion of quality problems that can affect vehicles
12:30-1:15 lunch
1:15-2:15 -students do 'open lab' practice- you can perform
quality tests, wash your test batches from the day before, make more
test batches with different oil and different variables if you wish, do
ethanol-based biodiesel, attempt to fix some of the 'mistakes' we'll
intentionally make (ie emulsion and 'glop'), and more . You can also
start on your processor if you wish to instead. Intermittent lecturing
will take place during the lab, on topics such as ethanol-based
biodiesel and alternative lab techniques
2:15-4 plumbing/techniques demo and processor building (and continuation
of open lab, with help available for either lab or processor building- you can
can filter back and forth between activities).
Advanced class:
Saturday-Sunday, August 18-19, 9-5 each day
some of the material covered in the last Advanced Topics class:
quality
control in great detail, analysis of real-world problems with offspec
biodiesel, acid-base biodiesel process, advanced topics in
dewatering, testing for soap,methanol recovery and equipment design,
testing recovered methanol for purity, waterless washing with
Amberlite and Magnesol, larger-scale equipment design (for co-ops or
small farms), treating wash water and glycerine for disposal, testing
wash water and glycerine, real-world test results related to
biodegradability, in-depth disposal/sidestreams discussion, setting up good experiments,
burning
glycerine safely for energy, hydronic applications for biodiesel and
wash water heating, more advanced discussion of safety and disaster
prevention scenarios for larger-scale processor systems, discussion
of regulatory topics for non-commercial producers larger than
homebrew, solar heating options, very through
discussion/demonstration of several different options in washing,
including drawbacks and advantages, greywater systems for wash water
recycling
