Biodiesel using E85

[Shannow]

Have been searching around for references on using E85 as an ingredient for biodiesel with no success.

Methanol is pretty hard to obtain in Oz (thanks to drug labs), I've successfully used ethanol when I could get proper, dry ethanol, and the ethanol in E85 by nature MUST be dry.

So I picked up a gallon of E85 yesterday, put 200 odd ml in the bottom of an 800ml glass container, threw in some caustic soda (too much as it turns out), and some vegetable oil (cheapest home brand mixed oil).

On shaking, it went through a "milk shake" looking phase for a couple of seconds, before becoming homogenous.

An hour later, separation was evident.

Overnight, it's clearly a success, proper separation, and a greater "yield" than I've gotten before, which is obviously due to the 15% unleaded that is in the E85.

 

[Reg# 43897]

Cool. No E85 'round these parts...

John.

 

[Shannow]

None in my town either.

We took the children to a neighbouring town and I sought the E85 out.

 

[JHZR2]

I suspect that the volatility may go up unless you have a good way to separate the gasoline.

 

[Shannow]

Certainly yes...

Just another "wonder if this will work" moment for me, rather than a plan for an outcome.

If I was burning used oil etc., it could be a part of a plan in viscosity correction. THey run 15 or so percent unleaded to get the viscosity down.

 

[Jetronic]

what would be the end result difference of using ethanol vs methanol for the transesterification?

I have a fair bit of ethanol here, which is 95% pure (the rest will be mainly methanol to make it undrinkable), but it won't be dry, so I haven't tried to make biodiesel yet.

 

[Shannow]

I've made a few gallons using anhydrous ethanol, and it works a treat.

Wet ethanol makes soap, glugginess, and something that ends up thrown out...and commercial methylated spirits is wet...I've never managed to dry it (zeolyte and molecular seive) enough to work.

That's why I was interested in E85, if it's still solved, it's dry.

 

[Jetronic]

would (pure) ethanol vs methanol have an influence on the cetane number or energy content of the resulting biodiesel? how about viscosity?

no E85 here either