Biodiesel seminar

[Phatburner]

Hi All;

Ok to answer some questions posted in the general discussion section, I have taught a course last summer detailing how to build my biodiesel reactor design. It is an open source project that I have done due to my wanting to make a personal difference to the environment and move toward a more sustainable type of lifestyle. The course last time ran from Friday night to Sunday afternoon and I had 15 people attend and we built two 90 litre systems simultaneously from scratch. This involved welding the frame and soldering the coper parts as well as all the assembly of the various sub assemblies. I had intended to dedicate an entire separate course to the subject of the process which I didn't want to feel compelled to rush through. In retrospect if I had pre-assembled the frame and drier sections assembly would have gone much faster and I could have covered the single stage reaction process. This time I will use Everdale's completed reactors as the demo platform for teaching the process and we will start a process on the Friday night and visit the demo system periodically through the course in between stages of building the system we are constructing in the course. I think this will work well as the biodiesel process is one that inherently has stages of close supervision punctuated by longer periods for settling in the various stages of the process.
For you guys I can't do it exactly that way because we would not have a completed system there to use as a demo. However given an extra day or two we can complete a system and then move on to running it.
What I would propose is to have someone go through the bill of materials (BOM) which can be downloaded from my website along with the construction manual here: http://www.nonprofitfuel.ca/90%20Liter% ... manual.pdf
If we could arrange to have all the parts delivered to the location where I will do the training and I'll put together a thorough list of tools that we'll need ( I can bring some of mine I guess) and there are a bunch of ancilliary things that are needed for running a process like some glassware and containers. I can bring my titration kit along but the chemicals will not fly well so they would need to be shipped to the site as well. I will provide specs on what to obtain although I don't have source adresses for the west. These things are all solvable given some time and head scratching. As far as timing goes, because I am such a lover of the outdoors and I don't get to come out west as often as I'd like, I think I would like to pick a time when the weather starts to get a little nicer so that I can do some outdoor stuff after the course is done, maybe mid to late April??

This is exciting and I am glad to see the interest and be able to share my expertise. I am learning more all the time still as you can go farther into things than just making fuel. There are some advanced topics like what to do with the waste streams, how to use ethanol rather than methanol, which is just one more step in disconnecting from the chemical and petroleum industries. I have discovered a way to use part of the waste as another fuel to give a performance boost to diesel engines with some rather easy vehicle mods as well so my knowledge is growing all the time. I would stick to the basics as far as detailed information goes in this seminar but would cover some of these advanced ideas to think about for down the road once you get rolling and comfortable with the basics.

Well this post is getting longish at this point so I'll cut it off and turn it back to the list for discussion.

Cheers
Joe

[Kuan]

any more word on when/where/if we are going to do this?

[BCDelica]

Hi Joe,

Got an update last week that a biodiesel reactor made to your plans has been working top notch since last summer! The nasty mill worker (he'll read this :lol:) whom has been using it for a year couldn't be happier.

I had a lot of fun taking part in the building.

A big thanks to you for sharing such great information!

Kevin

[Adam]

I'm guessing the seminar is long over, but let me know if it hasn't happened yet. I'd be interested in attending.