Water Heater biodiesel processor in action

Pictures taken during the first use of the processor.

Here is a short video of the addition of methoxide to the processor. The file is about 2Meg. In the video I open and close the methoxide valve a couple of times so you can see the change in the oil.

Here I am using a barrel pump to get the waste vegitable oil into the processor. The white masking tape marks on my site tube indicate 20 liter increments.

Now the oil has been heating in the processor for about an hour and the temperature gauge says it's about 130 degrees and ready to process.

Now I have attached a hose from the carboy full of methoxide, that I mixed while the oil was heating, to the methoxide inlet hose barb. The oil is circulating and I have drained any oil form the site tube.

This is a view of my vent hose going outside.

Here is a view of the oil circulating just before I open the methoxide valve.

Here is what the circulating oil looks like with methoxide flowing into the system.

The methoxide carboy draining, almost 3/4 empty.

After an hour of processing I opened the site tube valve to let some of the processing oil in, then closed the valve. I let the oil in the site tube site for about 15 minutes and then took this picture. Clearly the reaction has worked and the layer of glycerin by-product can be seen at the bottom of the site tube. Still, I let the processor continue for another 45 minutes.

This is about 30 minutes after stopping the circulating pump and then draining about 20 liters of glycerin by-product.

Here I have drained all the hoses so that the settling biodiesel is only in the water heater and up to the first valve coming out of the bottom.

Here is the glycerin by-product I drained out of the system. There is a liter or two of biodiesel in here that I will seperate out and wash.