How to Make a Small Batch of Biodiesel

"CRAYDON BLAIR: My name is Craydon Blair from Utah Biodiesel Supply, and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to talk a little bit about how we make biodiesel in a small batch. First thing we're going to talk about or use is you need five hundred milliliters of new vegetable oil. This can be canola. It can be vegetable oil. It can be soy bean. It can be anything. It just needs to be new. We're going to use canola oil today. We're also going to need 100 milliliters of methanol, and we're also going to need about 4 to 5 grams of lye. I'm choosing to use potassium hydroxide so I'm going to take my grams a little on the high side. Okay, how we're going to make it is we're going to heat up our oil to 130 degrees. I have this little stirrer here and it's kind of warm. And the first thing we need to do is if I'm getting ready to play with methanol, you want your safety goggles on, your gloves on, and your coat on. So I'm gonna, first of all, I've taken 500 milliliters of oil. I've poured it into this and I've put in this and I've allowed this to heat up. My next step is I'm going to put 100 milliliters of methanol in this tube. There are markings on the front here. I don't know if you can see it there. We're almost there. Okay, we're there so get 100 milliliters. Then we're going to put our lye in here. This is premeasured lye. I used a little tiny scale to do it, then we're going to allow it to shake up and move and dissolve. And if you'll look real close, this thing is actually starting mix up. Once this is mixed together, we're going to allow this to dissolve. This will take a little bit of time, and then we'll put it into here. So, this are the basic things you need to do to get ready to make your biodiesel, 100 milliliters of methanol, 4 to 5 grams of this, 500 milliliters of oil, heat it up, and prepare it to get ready. In a moment, this will be dissolved and we'll show you how to make the biodiesel. So stay tuned."