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.

Diesel Engine

This is a diagram of a diesel engine. Some parts of the engine are labeled with letters. Below the picture, you will find out what these parts are and what they do for the engine.

E- Exhaust Camshaft

S- Spark Plug

I- Intake Camshaft

V- Valves

P- Piston

R- Connection Rod

C- Crank Shaft

W- Water jackets for cooling flow

The exhaust camshaft is used to operate the poppet valves in the engine. It controls the flow of the fuel intake and the flow of the exhaust. The spark plug is responsible for igniting the fuel so that it is burned and turned into energy to make the car move. The intake camshaft controls the amount of energy flow into the engine. The valves in the engine are used to open and close the intake and and exhaust ports in the main engine. The piston's purpose is to change the volume enclosed by the cylinder or to exert a force on a fluid inside the cylinder. Connection rods in the engine connect the pistons to the crank or crankshaft. Crankshafts make the pistons move. Finally, the water jackets cool down the engine as the cool water moves through the pipes right next to the engine parts.

Events that occured in Class Today 5/5/11

5/5/11
Today was day 2 of filtering the used vegetable oil. It went a lot smoother than day 1. We came up with more efficient ways to clean the oil. Ms. Roiux found some better hot plates that heated up faster and were hotter. We heated the filtered vegetable oil in pots instead of beakers to heat up larger amounts. Those two factors were a big help to our class. The only bad thing was that some of the outlets were not working and we didn't find that out until later on. I don't think we need to change anything for tomorrow though. Hopefully, more of the outlets will be working tomorrow so we can heat all of the oil and get it finished with. I think that we will get all of the filtered vegetable oil heated and we will be ready to make biodiesel with it.

What happened in Class Today 5/4/11

5/4/11
Today in class, we started our process for cleaning the used vegetable oil. As a class, we came up with a procedure for cleaning it. We all decided that we should first filter the oil through paint filters and then we would heat the oil to 120 degrees Celsius. After we heated the oil, we would repeat the whole process two or three more times. So, we separated into two groups, one to filter the oil and another to heat the oil. The filtering process went very quickly and the task was accomplished very efficiently. The filtering team was able to filter three buckets of vegetable oil in about 10 to 15 minutes.

Next, the vegetable oil was given to the heating team which I was in. We turned on the hot plates and started scooping the filtered vegetable oil into beakers. When all of the beakers were filled, we placed them onto the waiting hot plates. Unfortunately, the oil did not heat up to 120 degrees Celsius before the bell rang. We are going to continue tomorrow.

The things I thought that worked very well were the filtering method and the use of the hot plates. Some things that didn't work out so well were the slippery tongs and beakers because some of them were dropped. I would suggest maybe wiping the beakers and tongs down before we use them to pick up the beakers and hold stuff in them. Maybe we could get a bigger holding container in which to heat the vegetable oil so we can have larger quantities. Also, if we could have a larger heat source to heat the oil. When we filtered the  oil, instead of using Styrofoam cups to scoop the oil, maybe we could use a large ladle or some device with a handle. I would suggest that because the process would be a lot cleaner and faster because the gloves people are wearing wouldn't get a whole lot of oil on them in comparison to the Styrofoam cups. We could also use that for transferring the filtered oil to the beakers.

I learned today that vegetable oil boils at 120 degrees Celsius. Also, that it will take a very long time to reach that temperature because of the density and make up of the substance. Even though we had some problems and difficulties today, I believe that today was very successful. We will learn from our mistakes and perfect them.

Hypothesis, Materials and Procedures

The following lists my hypothesis, materials and procedures I found for cleaning vegetable oil. My hypothesis is based off of all of my research on biodiesel and all of the materials and procedures were found from  http://www.ehow.com/how_5948902_purify-waste-vegetable-oil.html. This is a very good source on cleaning used vegetable oil.

Hypothesis: If the used vegetable oil (WVO) is first filtered, heated and left to settle then the WVO will be purified and ready to be made into biodiesel as a clean substance.

Materials:  The following materials are for cleaning 15 Liters of used vegetable oil. Here are the materials:

• 15 Liters of used vegetable oil
• Oil or paint filter
• 5 empty gallon jugs
• Stove of some sort
• Steel pot
• Sodium Hydroxide or Lye
• 2.6 Liters of methanol or HEET
• Coffee can
• 5 gallon plastic mixing bucket

 Procedures: These are the following procedures to clean the used vegetable oil:

• Gather all your waste vegetable oil and pour it through an oil filter.

• Get 15 liters of the oil into a 5 gallon jug. Heat the oil to 100 degrees by placing the jugs in a steel pot and heat with a camp stove. If you have more than that, repeat these steps. Don't try to increase the amount of oil you're processing at one time.

•  Buy methanol. Make sure that the pump to transfer it is made of nylon; otherwise, the alcohol will destroy the pump and maybe even cause a fire.

• Mix the lye and the methanol in a coffee can. The result will be sodium methoxide.

• Clean the bucket, and pour in the oil. Pour half of the mix of sodium methoxide into the bucket. Wait two minutes and then add the rest of the sodium methoxide.

• Stir the mix with a drill for mixing paint. Do this for 30 minutes. Place a lid on the bucket and let it rest for 12 hours. Open the lid, stir a bit more and then reclose it and allow the bucket to rest for a few days.

• Filter the biodiesel again with a restaurant filter bag. The biodiesel is ready to be used as fuel.

Biodiesel Research

Explain the Sites:

1. 3 Sites explaining how to make biodiesel
2. 2 Sites how to purify used vegetable oil
3. 2 Sites on how a diesel engine works

How to make Biodiesel

http://www.ehow.com/video_2281139_make-small-batch-biodiesel.html

This guy is from Utah Biodiesel Supply on behalf of expert village. He has a series of videos that will explain how to make biodiesel in a small batch. There are different videos for every step for making biodiesel. He also explains the process for making it and what ingredients he exactly used. In the list of videos, there is one on making biodiesel in a large batch. You can also google Utah Biodiesel Supply for other information on biodiesel.

http://journeytoforever.org/

This website explains how you can make biodiesel the quickest and easiest way. They are a non profit organization that goes around the country teaching people about biodiesel. There is a guy in this website named Mike Pelly who will explain the steps to make biodiesel. He will also tell you how to clean it and wash it right. The website also explains how it works in a diesel engine and why sometimes you will have to modify the engine.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2046024_make-biodiesel.html

This link is to the EHOW website. In the web page, there are procedures telling you on how to make biodiesel fuel. It will give you ingredients and step by step procedures for producing the fuel. it also gives you steps for filtering the used vegetable oil. 

How to Purify Vegetable oil

http://www.ehow.com/how_5948902_purify-waste-vegetable-oil.html

This web page will show you the steps in how to purify used vegetable oil. It will give you procedures and ingredients you will need.

http://usedwastevegetableoil.com/how-to-filter-waste-vegetable-oil.cfm

This is a great website for purifying used vegetable oil. There are separate tabs in the website that tell you how to purify it in different methods. The page is very detailed and explains everything you need to know. There are also videos on how to do it.

How a Diesel Engine Works 

http://www.howstuffworks.com/diesel.htm

In this website there is an article and video describing the diesel engine. The video will give you tons of info on how the certain parts of the engine work together. There are more links at the top of the web page to describe more in depth how it works.

http://www.dieselpowermag.com/tech/general/0610dp_how_diesel_engine_works/index.html

This is another website on how a diesel engine works. The website is dedicated to diesel power and engines so you can get a lot of info in the web page. It compares the diesel engine to a regular gas engine.

Introduction to Biodiesel Project

On Monday, April 25, 2011, Ms. Rioux assigned us a project that would stretch our brains to the limit. Mr. Ham from the Fulton County School Bus Commission came to us and said, "I am depending on you students to move a bus from the parking lot on biodiesel fuel". So, our assignment is to make biodiesel fuel that can power a school bus. In my opinion, this is going to be a challenging yet awesome project. The catch is, our teacher cannot guide us through the experiment! We are going to have to research everything on our own, come up with a way to make biodiesel and be able to make sure it works. I cannot wait to get this project underway and power a school bus.