Mixing Methoxide & Oil to Make Biodiesel

"CRAYDON BLAIR: My name is Craydon Blair from Utah Biodiesel Supply, and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to show you how to mix methoxide into oil to make biodiesel. This is the "funnest" part of making biodiesel because this is where we're going to see the reaction happen. Remember, we've got 500 milliliters of oil on a heated surface and we've got 100 milliliters of methanol with some lye in it. And it's been real important that this lye be completely dissolved and we've let that dissolve. So, here comes the fun. We have the heated oil and I'm just going to start pouring this in. You're going to see the color of this stuff change almost immediately. I'm just going to start stirring it up and you're going to stir it for about 10 to 20 minutes. Notice that we've gone to a cloudy color. That means that the reaction's occurring. Now, we're changing to a different color, it's going a little bit darker. We're going to keep continuing darker, then you'll see different--it's kind of cool because you'll see different shades as it happens. Also, it's really important to know that I've turned the heat off before I put this in there. The chemical reaction between the oil and the methoxide is actually going to generate heat in it of itself. I don't want too much heat. Boy, this thing just turned into a beautiful color. But once we've got the methoxide in here and we've began to stir it, if you don't have a stirrer like this, you can take a little spoon and stir in there, just make sure you don't use it for anything else ever again, you're going to want to throw that away. But then, as you've noticed, we've changed color. We've almost now to a dark apple cider color so it's just really working well. And once it's all mixed, again, 10 to 20 minutes, then we'll watch it separate. And that's how you mix methoxide into oil."