girl mark
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It's an electric water heater, and it's insulated, so there's not much to worry about heat-wise.
There are two reasons for heating:
1. when we say it takes an hour or two of mixing (usually by running a circulating pump) to make biodiesel, that's based on the ingredients being up to 130F. If you wanted to work at room temperature you'd have to mix for about 12 hours or something similarly long to achieve the same chemical reaction (it's one of those 'laws of physics' sorts of things, nothing we can do process-wise can change that timing). Also, a lot of the grease we get is just that, grease- kind of gloppy. Heating makes it really liquid. That makes it easier to get it to mix with the methanol- which makes it more likely that you'll get the two (oil and methanol) to react . If you've got gloppy room-temperature sludge trying to mix with methanol (oil and methanol dont' dissolve in each other too well) then what's likely to happen in the reactor is little pockets of oil and little pockets of methanol that aren't touching each other enough to react all the oil. So you get that under-reacted stuff that some newer vehicles seem to be sensitive to. That's what we usually mean when we refer to biodiesel 'quality'- how much is it 'biodiesel' rather than oil, or how 'converted' it is.
2. getting water out- a lot of oil comes with lots of water in it. You can cherry-pick and just take on restaurants whose oil doesn't get any water cooked into it , but it's not always possible for everyone's location. Water is in there from the cooking process and from starches, breading, etc, holding it into the oil in such a way that it won't settle out on it's own. If you heat it, though, you can actually get it to settle or boil away. The process is to either boil it to 220F (not recommended since your water heater thermostat won't allow this unless you do bad things and bypass it, which is somewhat dangerous if you forget you've left it on) or to do the 'heat and let settle' method- filter the oil (we usually don't filter much unless we're trying to dewater this way) warm it up to 140F, leave it in an insulated vessel (ie the water heater processor) for 24 hours, then drain off the stuff at the bottom which contains water. There's a little more to it than I just described but you have to be able to warm it up. It works OK in unheated spaces.
Making biodiesel in your garage- you won't have fumes if you set up the processor so that it 'vents' to the outdoors via a tube or some pipe. The vent is needed only so that you can fill or empty it and give the 'make-up air' somewhere to go (ie if you tried to drain it without an open hole at the top you'd form a vacuum in the tank eventually). The vent lets out a very small amount of methanol vapor (you close it after you've added all the ingredients and re-open it again only when you're draining).
Methanol's bad stuff but it's about like handling gasoline- exactly the same flammability, toxicity, and other 'icities' and precautions (and regulations). Don't smoke around an open tank of it, dont' make an open tank of it, don't drink it, get it on your skin, or any of the other things you wouldn't do to a can of gasoline.
Methoxide- what's made when you react methanol with some lye- is basically the same as methanol- there's a LOT of misinformation on the internet that says that methoxide is more dangerous than methanol itself, but ti's not quite true (if you had dried 'methoxide' powder that would be true cause it's flammable, but the version we make is very dilute and the problem is still just the methanol).
Lye which we handle is Red Devil brand drain opener- be careful, it'll burn your skin if you get it on you, but otherwise it's a common household product.
For very small batches (for experiments) you can make 1-liter at a time without any equipment- some instructions are here:
http://www.localb100.com/cbt/makingasmallbatch/
or you can see an illustrated version by downloading a free copy of "energy Self-sufficiency Newsletter" from April, which is here:
http://rebelwolf.com/essn/ESSN-Apr2005.pdf
my big illustrated article is on page 19-24 of the pdf.
working in a very cold garage is fine, it'll just take longer to heat the oil. Use an extra water heater blanket thingie to insulate it more.
Mark
There are two reasons for heating:
1. when we say it takes an hour or two of mixing (usually by running a circulating pump) to make biodiesel, that's based on the ingredients being up to 130F. If you wanted to work at room temperature you'd have to mix for about 12 hours or something similarly long to achieve the same chemical reaction (it's one of those 'laws of physics' sorts of things, nothing we can do process-wise can change that timing). Also, a lot of the grease we get is just that, grease- kind of gloppy. Heating makes it really liquid. That makes it easier to get it to mix with the methanol- which makes it more likely that you'll get the two (oil and methanol) to react . If you've got gloppy room-temperature sludge trying to mix with methanol (oil and methanol dont' dissolve in each other too well) then what's likely to happen in the reactor is little pockets of oil and little pockets of methanol that aren't touching each other enough to react all the oil. So you get that under-reacted stuff that some newer vehicles seem to be sensitive to. That's what we usually mean when we refer to biodiesel 'quality'- how much is it 'biodiesel' rather than oil, or how 'converted' it is.
2. getting water out- a lot of oil comes with lots of water in it. You can cherry-pick and just take on restaurants whose oil doesn't get any water cooked into it , but it's not always possible for everyone's location. Water is in there from the cooking process and from starches, breading, etc, holding it into the oil in such a way that it won't settle out on it's own. If you heat it, though, you can actually get it to settle or boil away. The process is to either boil it to 220F (not recommended since your water heater thermostat won't allow this unless you do bad things and bypass it, which is somewhat dangerous if you forget you've left it on) or to do the 'heat and let settle' method- filter the oil (we usually don't filter much unless we're trying to dewater this way) warm it up to 140F, leave it in an insulated vessel (ie the water heater processor) for 24 hours, then drain off the stuff at the bottom which contains water. There's a little more to it than I just described but you have to be able to warm it up. It works OK in unheated spaces.
Making biodiesel in your garage- you won't have fumes if you set up the processor so that it 'vents' to the outdoors via a tube or some pipe. The vent is needed only so that you can fill or empty it and give the 'make-up air' somewhere to go (ie if you tried to drain it without an open hole at the top you'd form a vacuum in the tank eventually). The vent lets out a very small amount of methanol vapor (you close it after you've added all the ingredients and re-open it again only when you're draining).
Methanol's bad stuff but it's about like handling gasoline- exactly the same flammability, toxicity, and other 'icities' and precautions (and regulations). Don't smoke around an open tank of it, dont' make an open tank of it, don't drink it, get it on your skin, or any of the other things you wouldn't do to a can of gasoline.
Methoxide- what's made when you react methanol with some lye- is basically the same as methanol- there's a LOT of misinformation on the internet that says that methoxide is more dangerous than methanol itself, but ti's not quite true (if you had dried 'methoxide' powder that would be true cause it's flammable, but the version we make is very dilute and the problem is still just the methanol).
Lye which we handle is Red Devil brand drain opener- be careful, it'll burn your skin if you get it on you, but otherwise it's a common household product.
For very small batches (for experiments) you can make 1-liter at a time without any equipment- some instructions are here:
http://www.localb100.com/cbt/makingasmallbatch/
or you can see an illustrated version by downloading a free copy of "energy Self-sufficiency Newsletter" from April, which is here:
http://rebelwolf.com/essn/ESSN-Apr2005.pdf
my big illustrated article is on page 19-24 of the pdf.
working in a very cold garage is fine, it'll just take longer to heat the oil. Use an extra water heater blanket thingie to insulate it more.
Mark
, but have you considered the history of the mad scientist 
that you have just told it to? when he blows up his "compound", his wife will come looking for you :draw he's proven that he's dangerous with water. 
