Making biodiesel fuel may seem like a challenge but the process is quite simple. Here, we provide you with general step by steps on how to make biodiesel in your own home. These steps include the preparation of tools and materials.
The first step is to know what raw material you are going to use. Although there are various type of oil that you can use, the steps to creation for each one is similar. The following steps are necessary to complete your task:
- Collecting your raw material oil. You can choose your raw material based on how easy you get them and the price.
- Filtration and purification of inbound waste oil. You should remove the dirt and other non oil material especially when you are dealing with waste vegetable oil. Purification often has to be done to remove water. This process is necessary since water causes tryglycerides to hydrolize and produces salt of fatty acid instead of ester itself when undergoing transesterification.
- Titration and Neutralization of free fatty acid. The titration process determines sample oil. Some sample oil is titrated with base solution until neutral so the concentration is can be determined and the amount of base that will be added to the raw waste vegetable oil may be calculated.
- Transesterification process. Calculated quantity of base, usually we use sodium hydroxide (NaOH), which is added slowly to the alcohol solution and stirred. Triglyceride inside the oil should be converted into methyl ester with help of alcohol such as methanol so Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) is produced. For transesterification process, we need warm temperature solution and 5-8 hours stirring process.
- Finishing process. Transesterification process gives us two layer solution as a result. The lower layer is the waste product containing glycerine and other products. Meanwhile, top layer with lower density is the main product which is biodiesel with alcohol traces. After lower and top layer are separated from each other with a decantation process, you should eliminate alcohol traces with distillation or extraction with water. After this final process, you have made your own biodiesel.
The results, including the conversion percentage will vary each time. Many factors determine how much conversion you get such as temperature, quality of oil etc. These steps are easy in a laboratory scale, whereas a higher scale operation will require different tools and machinary. But generally, the steps are quite simple.