WE MOVED THE BUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today, Tuesday, May 24, 2011, we inserted the fuel into the bus and it started! We first had to drain all of the diesel fuel out of the bus that came to the school. After that, we were able to pour the biodiesel into the bus. I got pour some of the biodiesel into the bus. When all of the fuel was in, the Fulton County worker started the bus. For a moment it just made a sputtering sound but then it revved up and started. It was really amazing. This was a really awesome project Ms. Rioux gave us  and it was so fun. I hope we do something like this in highschool. Thank you Ms. Rioux.

Today in Class 5/19/11

Today we cleaned our fuel out of the beakers. When the fuel separated over night, a type of film floated to the top. So, we removed the film before we placed it back into our bottles. The rest of class, we spent preparing more sodium hydroxide and cleaning up the room. We are so close now to our deadline and we are basically finished.

Finishing our Second Batch of Biodiesel 5/18/11

We finished our second batch of biodiesel today. We poured the fuel from our bottles into the 500ml beakers slowly to get the most fuel and the least amount of waste. We are going to let the fuel sit in the beakers over night and not put them back into our bottles. We are now storing the biodiesel in yellow gas cans. Yellow is for biodiesel, Red is for gasoline and Blue is for Diesel.

Removing Glycerin Again 5/17/11

Today we removed the glycerin out of our second batch of biodiesel. We again squeezed it out into another "sludge bucket". the mixture again is going to settle over night.

New Batch of Biodiesel on Monday 5/16/11

We are going to make another batch of biodiesel. We have to make another because when we made the biodiesel, we had a very small amount of fuel while we had a very large amount of waste. Therefore, we need another batch. So, we started the whole process over again. We measured the oil, sodium hydroxide and mixed the substances. We are going to leave the mixture to settle out again tonight.

Removing Glycerin on Thursday and Friday

Thursday- Today we removed the glycerin from our bottles. When we got to school on Thursday, we saw that our fuel had separated. The substance at the bottom of the bottle was glycerin and the top was our biodiesel fuel. We took our bottles to a "sludge bucket" and squeezed the glycerin out of the bottle. Remember that our fuel had been separated up side down. Removing the glycerin was really disgusting and it smelled really bad. Once all of the glycerin was out, we quickly put our caps back on and we were done for that day. We would let our bottles sit out again over night.

Friday- After letting our bottles sit out again for another night, we poured our fuel into 500ml beakers. We poured the fuel from our bottles into the beakers very slowly so that we would not get any left over glycerin into the beakers. Once that was finished, we washed our bottles out and poured the fuel back into the bottles. That was our finished product. It was ready to be put in a bus.

Events that Occurred in Class Today

Today was a very busy but productive day. We split up into three teams to do three separate tasks. The first team was in charge of measuring out 1L of used vegetable oil into our 2 liter soda bottles. The second team was working on measuring out 12 grams of sodium hydroxide into peachtree dishes. The last team was in charge of shaking mason jars filled with 250ml of methanol and the 12 grams of sodium hydroxide. The three teams kind sort of worked as an "assembly line". After the sodium hydroxide was measured out, it was mixed with the methanol and given to the shaking team. They would shake the mason jars until every last pellet of sodium hydroxide was dissolved. Meanwhile, another group was measuring out 1L of vegetable oil into 2 liter soda bottles. After the sodium hydroxide was dissolved and the vegetable oil was measured out, Ms. Rioux combined the two in the bottle. We were ordered to flip the bottle upside down 8 times so that the two substances would combine. Then we placed out bottles into beakers with the cap facing down. Over night, we would let the mixture settle and separate.

We got a lot done today and we are moving along very smoothly. We are going to be finished with this project in no time.