Making the Clean Fuel: Biodiesel Equipment List
May 6, 2008 – 5:18 pmTo use biodiesel as fuel, you need the right equipment to turn plant oils or animal fats into biodiesel. Because of its environment-friendly nature and its usefulness, people are starting to shift to this fuel for use in their homes or their cars.
A simple set of equipment can be used to produce small amounts of biodiesel. These materials can be bought individually from retailers.
The process of purifying animal fats or oils to make biodiesel is called transesterification. Plant oils are the easiest to make biodiesel. You can use plant oils from corn, rapeseed, palm, sunflower, peanut, soybean or canola.
A small amount of biodiesel can be made in a backyard or garage. Be very careful when making biodiesel at home. The chemicals you will use could be dangerous and even fatal.
Here are some tools you need to produce biodiesel at home:
A dry, sealed storage container for the fuel. You can use steel tanks or drums.
A heater to heat the mixture
A reactor vessel where the chemicals are mixed together
Funnels, graduated beakers and scales to accurately weigh the substances
A dropper or syringe
A pH indicator for the catalyst, such as a litmus paper, a chemical indicator solution or a electronic pH indicator.
A stirrer
Water to wash the biodiesel after the transesterification process.
For larger quantities of biodiesel, a different set of equipment is used. Complete sets of this equipment can be easily purchased over the Internet. Some of these tools are as follows:
A mechanical mixer, which can use pumps or propellers to mix the substances.
Hydronic, electric or flame heat to heat the mixture.
Electric, hydronic or flame heat.
A mechanical mixer.
The great thing about the popularity of biodiesel is that almost everything you need to manufacture or use them is available on the web. A person interested in making the fuel can find a lot of resources online, like instruction manuals. There are even personal guides or experts that companies can send to interested people to build their own biodiesel farms. The production of this renewable fuel is becoming a clean and green business that people are finding very profitable.
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