BioDieselNow - Renewable biodiesel fuel

I am trying to do some research into producing biodiesel from animal fats. My family has a small-med sized poulty farm and processing plant. There are hundreds to thousands of pounds of fat and greese from skin and left over parts weekly from the processing room weekly. I have been able to find out how to turn oil into biodiesel but how do I get the original oil out of this wasted skin and raw animal fat? It just seems like such a waste of energy being thrown away and with diesel about $5.00 per gallon now in the area it is just crazy not to try and use this waste product. Any ideas or companys that I could call to buy equipment for this type of production would be great.

Ask Tyson foods, they sell all thier rendered fat to Conoco.

Profitable or not? I kind of doubt it for a small operation that does not process thier product, uses excess heat/energy, tight management, and gov subsidies to render the fat out; and the buyer who uses further gov subsidies to process for a profit..

 One strandard method to get the fat out is run it thru an extruder similar to an oil seed or plastics extruder. This is, I think, for inedible grease. Goes something like this:

1 . grind skin & parts

2. heat to about than 190 

3. run thru extruder

4. separate the water & grease

There are other ways. Batch type. May be cheaper/scalable. 

Don't know how big or $ for this equip is:

http://www.keitheng.com/equipment.html

http://www.ancoeaglin.com/equip_rendering.html

http://www.atlas-stord.dk/page317.aspx

People have been rendering for 1000s of years. You may be able to build/adapt other equipment.

I'd guess that to make it work($ & time) heat recovery(heat exchangers?) is needed. Microwave heat maybe usable,  just a  thought

Good luck. 

 Thought about it a little. A microwave would work well. If you can't buy equip that is the size you need, build or buy a microwave one.

Microwaves can't travel thru those little air vent holes that are in a standard microwave. 

Basicly, as the ground(maybe unground) feeds are microwaved the fat melts & runs out of the oven thru little holes in the bottom. Any steam produced would go out the air vent, I'd have a vacuum.

Should do about 10+ lbs per kw ($0.12 for elec).

Maybe to test this, a microwave veg steamer would work - test time, amount, energy use, water content, etc. A a new small continuous centrifuge is about $300. 

Maybe a new or used industrial continuous microwave would work.

The cost for setting up a microwave system would very low. Therefore making what you want to do prosible without much dollar risk.   

Martin         

 Let us know what you decide to do. Thanks.

Martin 

 I did come across how to build your own continuous microwave from a consumer grade one. Very simple & cheap(few $100).

You could add as many as you need to do the job.

This won't work for what I currently need one for, but I saved the info in case you want it or for some yet unknown need of mine.

Martin 

We made some test batches of Biodiesel proudly called summer biodiesel out of chicken waste.

The fact is one can extract hardly 10-15% from chicken waste that is the legs and intestine which amounts to 300to 350gms per chicken.

The fat recovery is good provided if one culd process a min of 10Mts of waste.

Needless to say!

Its a simple procedure to add water and boil it till the fat is liberated in a closed vessel preferabley a steel one.

The ffa is well below3%.and the colour is gold to be sure that we get a good biodiesel.

However, the liquidation or the sale of residue is the main issue to bring down the cost of the fat.

Bhadrinath.