Bio-Diesel Reactor for WVO Conversion

Here is a 30 gallon bio diesel reactor I made with waste vegetable oil (WVO) pickup lines and waste and finished product outlet lines. The reactor consisted of a centrifugal pump which allowed pumping of the filtered WVO through an inline heater and into the tank. The heater was built using regular steel pipe and a hot water tank heater core with a thermostatic relay mounted to the outside of the heater. Once the WVO was in the tank, methanol and potassium hydroxide were added and the centrifugal pump circulated and allowed heating of the mixture.

After the mixture was adequately reacted, the circulation and heating was stopped to let the mixture settle. The mixture now consisted of bio diesel, leftover methanol, potassium hydroxide and glycerine. Once sufficiently settled, the glycerine was drained off and water was added to the mixture then agitated to allow the water to absorb the remaining methanol and potassium hydroxide. After washing the dirty wash water was drained and the washing process was repeated two more times. The resulting product was pure bio diesel ready to power any diesel engine with no modifications required.

I used the bio diesel in my 2001 Volkswagen Golf TDI for about 5 months when diesel prices were above $4.00/gal. The cost to make a gallon of bio diesel during this time was about $2.50/gal.