Salt and Baking soda 1

2005-12-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

filter with baking soda

ForrestGump
ok for those who care. some of you know i have been working with changing the ph level in WVO for 2 weeks now, well what i found out is. just by adding Baking soda it clears the fat out of WVO. I made a 30 gallon batch of it monday. and today it looks great so i am going to filter it and start running it in my truck. so far i believe this is going to work so i designed a filter system that i hope to have made this weekend to start adding baking soda and filtering. By the way i have been lucky so far, No veggie fire with my heating element, but i know me it will happen cause i get busy when heating and filtering. so what i have come up with this . For $15.00 add a mercury float switch to my heating elements, so when the veggie get low but not yet to the element it will shut off the electric to the heating element.

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scmadm
Forrest,

A few questions:

1. How much baking soda did you mix with the 30 gallons?

2. You said, "remove the fat" but or course all VO is pure fat. Did you mean hydrogenated oil or animal fat/lard?

3. So, if I collect what right now I term as crappy oil, and I add the baking soda it will turn what percentage of what I treat into clear VO?

With all your experiments you may not be a "mad" scientist.....but you sure seem to be a "disgruntled" one, at the least. ;-) Keep up the good work!

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ForrestGump
Quote:

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Originally posted by: scmadm
Forrest,

A few questions:

1. How much baking soda did you mix with the 30 gallons?

2. You said, "remove the fat" but or course all VO is pure fat. Did you mean hydrogenated oil or animal fat/lard?

3. So, if I collect what right now I term as crappy oil, and I add the baking soda it will turn what percentage of what I treat into clear VO?

With all your experiments you may not be a "mad" scientist.....but you sure seem to be a "disgruntled" one, at the least. ;-) Keep up the good work!

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in 30 gallons of nasty (fatty) WVO i added 2 small boxxes of baking soda.
i dont know take a jar of your worst veegie, add 2 tablespoons of baking soda and shake very well, heat in microwave for 30 seconds and watch it clear up..(It is unreal) try it..
with my veggie i lost about 10% at the bottom.

With all your experiments you may not be a "mad" scientist.....but you sure seem to be a "disgruntled" one, at the least. ;-) Keep up the good work!
WHY do you say That??????

even if you add baking soda and let sit at room temp (70) for 1 or 2 weeks you can see the diff. as far as fat i don,t know. someone in here on my ph post told me it was fat. all i can tell you is the nasty veggie clears up to good veggie and you can see the brown stuff down at the bottom ontop of what looks like the baking soda.

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swimgym
ForresGump, being known in my family also as a "nutty professor" I must follow-up with you on the SALT question.

1) Did you drop this as a filtering additive?

2) Has adding the baking soda right off the bat made your overall filtering time for a batch LESS?

I think, IMHO, that the real benefit we may derive from this process is a shortened overall filtering time (OFT). Instead of spending weeks letting a batch settle, then filtering, heating, etc., I am very much hoping that the salt/baking soda combination will decrease that time to just a couple of days or so.

Please respond when you can with whatever facts you have gathered at this point. We nutty professors have to stick together!
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ForrestGump
yes this is cutting settleing time down to 24 hours. all i have done so far is, i put a small bag of watersoftner salt in the bottoms of all my 55 gallon drums. (salt dewaters). then i added 2 boxxes of baking soda to 30 gallons of veggie mixxed with paint mixer on a drill heated to 100 degrees for 24 hours , let sit for 3 days got home and the nasty veggie now looks clean and dewatered(almost new). i will pump and filter ( 2-5 mic whole house filters) it today and see how much junk is on the bottom. on my new system i hope to heat filter and pump everything within 24 hours. if you mix and settle at room temp 70 degrees it takes alittle longer looks like around 72 hours.

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swimgym
I located a site for a company that makes testing strips for restaurant frying oil. You have to order from a distributor, but they got neat stuff:

http://www.filtercorp.com/our_products.asp?p=26

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KDGolf

FG,
I've been following your posts on your purification techniques with sodium bicarb and salt and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed.

I haven't had time to do any tests myself but I planned on mimicking what we use in the lab to clean organic reactions (I'm a chemist). Your technique comes pretty darn close to exactly what I was going to try on a small scale. I haven't had time to do anything myself due to recently moving, remodeling, and baby all in the last 6 mos. so I'm glad to see that someone is trying these.

The only difference is that we use saturated solutions (of bicarb and salt) instead of just dumping in solid. Then shake the mixture vigorously, let the mixture settle into two layers, then separate the layers. Have you tried doing this or just using solid? It seems like it would clean the oil a little better since the water-soluble crap would all gather into the water layer and separate out, also vigorous mixing would allow complete exposure of the oil to the "wash" solution.

Also, sometimes using a final saturated salt solution as a wash will help remove water because the salt solution is so polar that the water wants to be in that layer instead of in the oil. But it sounds like you're heating the oil with a lot of salt anyway, so it may have the same effect.

I hope to make some time soon to try this but I'm in the middle of lots of home remodeling. When I do I'll be sure to post the results. Also, I might be able to test the water content of the oil so I have to look into that. If I'm able to do the test then I'll test pre- and post-purification and see how much water is removed (and how much is really in it to begin with). Not sure how long until I can do this (weeks, months?) but I'll post the results as soon as I do.
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scmadm
"With all your experiments you may not be a "mad" scientist.....but you sure seem to be a "disgruntled" one, at the least. ;-) Keep up the good work!
WHY do you say That??????"

Forest,

I called you a "disgruntled" scientist because in order to be a "mad" scientist you have to be trying to take over the world. Sooooo....you are somewhere less than "mad". I thought EVERYBODY got my humor. Oh well...I guess nobody can be "on" all the time.

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cranetruck
grease monkey
Joined: Sep 2005 Oct 07, 2005 13:16

Here is some interesting reading about what may happen to the oil before we get it;
http://www.dallasgrp.com/products/1001ex.asp

It's about Magnesol, used to extend the life of the oil and clean it.

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ForrestGump
great reading thanks

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81SD
This may work well to clean up the WVO for biodiesel production. I may have to give this a shot... Thanks for the idea.
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ForrestGump
update. i found out the longer the baking soda sits in the wvo the cleaner the wvo getts. so now what i do with baking soda is the same as i do with the salt, I just keep adding more. In the 55 gal. drum i add 2 30lbs bag of softner salt, and 2- 12lbs (from sams club @ $5.00 each) bags of baking soda. then add 50 gallons of wvo. mix well for 1 hour and heat to 150 degrees. let sit for 24 hours and drain water and nasty WVO 1/2 gallon from the bottom. and start pumping great veggie 6 inches from the bottom. then i add more salt and baking soda if need... and stir it all up and start over. i do not pump or drain the baking soda. i just add more to it like the salt. it seems to work better..

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cranetruck

Maybe this is how biodiesel was invented...:-)

I just add methoxide to the oil, stir and let sit for a few days and end up with clear low viscocity oil on top (biodiesel).

Just kidding, keep up the good work.

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chriskoym
FG,

Please forgive me for being dumb. I know that the salt will not "stick" to the grease. Is this the case with the soda? Is there even a .00000000000000000001% chacne that this could mess up your motor?

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ForrestGump
i don't know for sure but i am on my 3rd week of veggie doing this ?? miles and so far so good. i believe the filter gets any baking soda out of the grease. it doesnt seem to mix with the grease just like salt. it all falls to the bottom and takes the fat with it..the longer the baking soda sits in the veggie the cleaner it gets. try this with a jar at home. any wvo add 2 or 3 tablespoons and shake very well then let it sit and watch it. to spped this prosses up pu it in the microwave for 45 seconds and watch. then let sit and watch the baking soda fall to the bottom with other junk..

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ForrestGump
Quote:

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Originally posted by: cranetruck
Maybe this is how biodiesel was invented...:-)

I just add methoxide to the oil, stir and let sit for a few days and end up with clear low viscocity oil on top (biodiesel).

Just kidding, keep up the good work.

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my great grandma made bio-diesel. she just didnt know it. when she made lie soap she made bio and through it away...

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Todd T
Baking soda is slightly alkaline... maybe 11.5 pH, about the same as many hair shampoos. I don't think you will have any reaction issues. As for being a powder and fear of it passing through a filter and hurting the motor, baking soda is softer than steel.

In technical terms, one measure of material hardness is the Moh scale, named for some German partical hardness guru. Most bearing metals are about 6, sand is 6.9, diamonds are 10. Baking soda is 3.5.... much softer than the metal.

Baking soda is considered water soluble. However, water can only take a certain amount. For what we are talking about, I doubt we will ever get near the saturation point. It would be like tablespoons of powder to a cup of water... that kind of loading.

I used to use baking soda in industrial cleaning. We injected into a high pressure spray for a 'water soluble blasting' cleaning process. I'm eager to hear about the baking soda as a neutralizer for the fatty acids... I still have about 1000 pounds of the stuff!

Todd T

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cranetruck
Baking soda may make the fuel more abrasive and cause some problems over the long haul (years). I think thats one problem with residual lye in biodiesel. Filtering to 1 or 2 microns should help.

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scmadm
The baking powder shouldn't be a problem as far as abrasivness. It settles to the bottom and any left suspended is removed by filtering. Any anount left after that, especially if you filter to 5 microns or less will not have any effect on the engine/IP/injectors.

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STARRHUNTER
hey forrest'

whats the latest on the baking soda and salt treatment?
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ForrestGump
star there you are i was wondering about you.. i have updates on it...

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ForrestGump
how is the WVO3 working and all your trucks.. the baking soda is working great. i use it and salt all the time now.

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STARRHUNTER
hey forrest,

wvo3 is doing well, was going to give it a good test run before posting results, so far we've run about 120 gals. and is doing a fine job. wheather cooled off a bit down to 40s a night and found cold oil is really slow to process.
i've got about 1000 miles on the truck w/ the blend and is doing great, i did wind up putting the FASS fuel system on in fear of the stock lift pump failing and killing thevp44.

i think i'm going to put salt in my pick up tanks as to start the dewatering process on the road, should mix well.
i'm picking up w/ 80 gal tanks what do you think of adding baking soda to the p/u tanks and how much? my only concern on the soda part is how to get the crud out , may have to put a 2' drain on instead of the 3/4'' thats existing.

got some other ideas going on pumping a prefiltering,will let you know what we come up w/.

doug
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ForrestGump

you can ask swimgym about the baking soda and salt..... nut what i found it is. use the baking soda just like you do the salt. put salt and baking soda togeather on the bottom. i fill the bottom with 1- 40lb bag of salt and 24 lbs of baking soda. i do not drain them off. leave them in and add to them when need. they both keep working the longer they set in the WVO. the baking soda works Best if you can heat wvo to atleats 100 degrees. if this is done you can start filtering in 24 hours. but again as long as the wvo is sitting in the baking soda it keep cleaning the wvo..

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David Lindley's Hair
Mr Gump

You say you drain off the water and crud, but don't drain off the settled soda and salt. Since I assume it's all on the bottom, how do you drain one and leave the other?
Also, you say you put in a sack of salt - is the salt really still in a sack of some kind when you put it in, or is it just loose crystals dumped in the mix?

Thanks!
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ForrestGump
Quote:

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Originally posted by: David Lindley's Hair
Mr Gump

You say you drain off the water and crud, but don't drain off the settled soda and salt. Since I assume it's all on the bottom, how do you drain one and leave the other?
Also, you say you put in a sack of salt - is the salt really still in a sack of some kind when you put it in, or is it just loose crystals dumped in the mix?

Thanks!

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some of the baking soda and salt drain out. 40 or 50 pound bag of rock salt (water softner salt) i even have a block of salt in the bottom of my drums. but what i mean is add salt add baking soda add wvo, heat to 100 degrees, let sit for 24 hours, drain water from bottom or just pump from the top. the bottom 4 inches of wvo will clog your filter big time. as far as the salt and baking soda you just keep adding more as you need to..

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tony from West Oz
Can someone please explain what "Water Softener Salt" is?
I thought that salt would increase the overall hardness of water.
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ForrestGump
water softner salt is just salt tablets sold at most gas stations, lumger co., grocery stores and almost anywhere you look. you will see 40 lbs. bags (yellow, blue or white) setting outside. you add these bags of salt to a water softner. You can use the salt for cooking (table salt) but that would take alot and cost way to much..

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ForrestGump
ok i did a search on other forums about baking soda. it turns out people are having good sucuss with it. even washing there Bio-diesel with it. how come nobody here is posting what they have done and how well it works..on most of the other forums they talk about me and my test with it. but nobody here is posting????

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TROU
HY F.G. i tried the B.S thing ...the most exciting results ive had in 12 months of experimenting with...flocculants..i still use swimming pool clarifyer...with great results..spritz and sturrrr....TROU

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ForrestGump

Quote:

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Originally posted by: TROU
HY F.G. i tried the B.S thing ...the most exciting results ive had in 12 months of experimenting with...flocculants..i still use swimming pool clarifyer...with great results..spritz and sturrrr....TROU

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thank you very much for your reply. i needed that

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Todd T
Forrest,

Are you doing any circulation to get the WVO (added last) to interact with the salt or baking soda? As I see it, we are asking for the water soluble powders to dissolve into the water trapped in the WVO.

The baking soda will be neutralizing some of the FFA's in the oil. I don't know if there will be any appreciable change in the specific gravity.

The salt will dissolve in any water present and increase the specific gravity of the water.

One thing about the salt, it will cause corrosion on the stainless steel. Chlorides kill stainless whether it be from using HCl (Muriatic acid) or NaCl or even bleach. Shouldn't be a problem with poly or steel drums but if anyone is fortunate enough to have any stainless steel equipment, be advised.

Todd
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erikk
Ok I have a few questions
I am new to this thing but very interested.
Is the baking soda thing for getting the fats out of wvo prior to making bio diesel or could it be usefull for prefiltering a veggi powered car. I dont want to over kill in my filtering but I am looking for a usefull way to speed up the process and save my filter bags. Also, it was mentioned that adding baking soda would "help clarify" the wvo, did you mean that litterally as in will it make dirty non transparent wvo see through, or did you mean it will help the solids drop to the bottom. My 84 300 runs on straight wvo and it is my understanding that fats arent a bad thing. Is that true. I guess I dont want to go through an unneeded step if I dont have to. This forum has been so helpfull. I am new to this so please bring me up to speed.
Erik
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erikk
one other thing
On and off the subject. I am curently doing the mason jar w BS and salt experiment and am getting a layered affect (as expeced. The very bottom layer which is very thin seems to be chunky only visable when I look through the bottom of the jar. The next layer, layer 2 is larger and I think water maybe, seems to be less viscus. The next, layer 3 is gravyish and looks alot like the foam that has collected on the top of my sample. The top foam layer (on the very top of the jar, I am guessing by the taste (yes the taste) is baking soda, and I am seeing things fall from that layer to the bottom layers. I also noticed that when the sample is warm and I agitate it a bit by rotating the jar or moving the sample it shakes things loos from the top to the bottom, is that good or is that baking soda. Sory if this is confusing. My basic question I guess is- what are the layers and in what order. Im so new to this and want to get a better understanding as to what is happening. Thanks again
PS dont eat to much of the top layer or it will give you gas that smells like onion rings smothered in soy sauce
Erik
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ForrestGump
to funny.. glad i am not the only one that tasted this stuff. i have been waiting for batteryboy to taste it..lol still not sure on what the layers are. but fat is not bad for you car. you just have to heat it more so it won't clog. if you get the fat out (clean veggie) it is better for your car and at lowwer ouside temps. or switch over time.. maybe even mix with 10 gas and run all year?. bottom line... the cleaner the WVO is the better. i am not trying to make bio-diesel just cleaner and cheeper way to filter... and yes if you just filter the good stuff off the top. your filters will last ALOT longer..

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erikk
Great thanks for the info

A few more questions though. Will even the dirtiest wvo clarify? Does the baking soda stay at the top? Where does the salt go? and after using the baking soda salt thing do you think I can go straight to my 10 to 5 double filtering bag into my clean wvo drum or should I run it through a courser bag 1st. What the hell do you do w all that crap that acumualtes anyways??? And lastly. I have heard that is is best to stay away from the darker wvo but have also heard that it is only dark because the fryer heated it up nice and hot. If the dark stuff is propperly filtered will it work just as well as the clearer stuff. If this baking soda thing pans out then it wont seem to matter aas much if its dark since I am cutting my filtering labor in half.....RIGHT??????
I will be asking questions till I am fit to answer a few.
Best regards
Erik
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ForrestGump
you jsut have to try it with diff. wvo. from what i found the salt drops to the bottom and pulls the water with it. the baking soda falls to the bottom and fulls the fat with it. and yes i use any and all wvo dark or light..

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erikk
Im a little confused now. But I have so little experiance at this that I dont know which way is up. I have 2 batches of raw wvo in mason jars. One untreated and one w a mixture of baking soda and salt. The immediate reaction is for particles to both shot to the bottom and rise to the top on the BS and salt batch while the untreated batch stays stagnant. by the way I have heated noth oils for a minute or so.

But after a few hours they both look evenly seperated w an equal layer at the bottom but the batch that i treated has a scummy dry layer of baking soda at the top and the untreated doesnt. I have noticed that the batch treated w BS and salt has more defined layers at the bottom.
It has only been a day. Will that dry scumy layer at the top drop down to the bottom or is that just a bi product?
If anyone can give me a hand here I would love it. Oh also is it normal for the treated batch to froth so much or am I perhaps heating it to hot.
Help
Erik
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erikk
PS
does anyone know how to do a reliable water test besides putting it on the pan. I would love to test the treated batch vs the untreated to see the water seperation difference
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ForrestGump
if you have foam ontop. you heated it to much. it doesnt need that much heat..

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OfficerFriendly
heya guys....I made up a small batch in a mason jar...seemed to work out ok, gonna run a few tests on it before I actually incorporate it into my routine. I don't plan on tasting it though, for one...im sure it is rather nasty...for two, I seem to recall my H.S. chemistry teacher telling us to never taste or smell anything we work with....just me though...BTW, my son was born on tuesday morning at 0209 hours....looking forward to having the little guy get into greasing with me :)

-Dan

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k7leetha
I got some of my nasty WVO and tried this trick. From what I could see the heat from the microwave is what clarified the WVO. The crap on the bottom was just baking soda that didn't dissolve fully. If you heat "fat" enough, it will liquify and clear up. From the post it looks like everyone has had success. Am I the only one that found that just heating it in the microwave produces the same result as adding the baking soda???

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ForrestGump
NOT TRUE AT ALL....ok get 2 jars of the same nasty sruff. put baking soda in 1 shake and let sit for 1 week. then look at them both and see the diff.
also take 2 jars agian of the nasty stuff. add baking soda to 1. put both in micro and heat then let sit for 24 hours...
you are kind of right about the heat melt fat thing. but what happens when you let it sit and get cold???? it get thick and turns cloudy again. not with baking soda
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k7leetha

Never did let it sit and get cold again. ;)

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ForrestGump
put it in the fridg (both) and see what happens

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batteryboy
grease master
Joined: Jun 2004 Nov 05, 2005 06:38

Mr. Forrest,

May I pose a simple question from my simple mind??
After mixing up all this NaCL & NaC2 what do u do with the shit when ur finished so ur not polluting the gnd water or whatever??

Batteryboy

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ForrestGump

BB, like i posted before, so far it isnt as much shit as you would think.. in 300 gallons of filtering wvo this way i only have maybe 5 to 10 gallons of this stuff. i have a 55 gallon drum that i use to put my junk wvo in. when it is full i take it to a friends farm and we burn it on a burn pile he has. as far as this stuff not sure how well it is going to burn. (maybe good maybe not) i believe all it is is FAT. when you feel it it feels and looks like fat. fat should burn. as far as the baking soda that shouldnt hurt anything...

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ForrestGump
a month ago both of these started out the same. Nasty wvo. i added 2 tablespoons of Baking soda. (No heat) and let sit for 1 month room temp. (puter room)
the one on the left looks the same as when i started. the one on the right has alot of baking soda and alittle fat on the bottom. but the stuff on top looks almost as clean as gas.. and when put in the frig. the left gells quick. (1/2 an hour) while the one on the right (baking soda) didn't gel until after 1 hour. don't know the temp. i didn't check cause i thought i didn'y need to know that info. What i found out is for less then 4 cents per gallon you can have good clean veggie. oh and save on filters.....

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