Senior Project

Table of Contents Zachary Potter’s Senior Project Page 1 ……………………………Letter to the Panel Page 2……………………………. Personal Reflection Page 5………………………………… Process Paper Page 8………………………………Picture Portfolio

May 6th 2009 Zachary Potter 3425 Valley Glenn Lane Napa, CA 94558 Senior Project Panel New Technology High School 920 Yount Street Napa, CA 94559

To Whom It May Concern, For my Senior Project I chose to pursue the field I am interested in after high school—Environmental Science. I decided to brew a batch of biodiesel to fuel my truck. Biodiesel is a fuel that is derived from vegetable oil through the process of transesterification. This process essentially removes the fatty acids from the oil leaving ‘methyl ester’ commonly known as biodiesel. I am pleased to have taken Senior Project as an opportunity to explore the field I wish to pursue in college. As I don’t have a substantial background in chemistry or any other science, my first step was to learn more about the process of making biodiesel and the method of transesterficiation. Much to my surprise, there is a book that simplifies the process into steps that almost anyone can ascertain. My mentor guided me through the process offering his help when I came to a stumbling block. My mentor was a large part of my project as he provided me with much of the equipment and resources needed to complete my project. My mentor was very helpful in that he was able to keep the project simple enough to where we could understand it, but complicated enough to where it would stay interesting for us. Even though my final product is something different than what I had originally envisioned, I am still proud of the hard work and dedication I have had to my project. Making biodiesel is a large undertaking in its own right, and while I am an ambitious person, successfully restoring the truck to its original condition and painting the truck were not accomplished. My truck is something that I can enjoy every day when I drive because I will no longer feel regret when I step on the gas pedal. I plan to continue making biodiesel over the summer and far into the future. 1 | Page

I hope you enjoy learning about my Senior Project just as much as I enjoyed partaking in the journey. Regards,

Zachary Potter

Personal Reflection I began my senior project in the summer between junior and senior year under the impression that I had an exorbitant amount of work ahead of me. While my workload may not have been as jam-packed or as strenuous as I had first imagined, I came across many things that were not originally foreseen. My senior project process encompassed many things that seemed unrelated before the start of the project; but in the end I found my finished project was something I was proud of—I had engineered and made my own biodiesel. Finding a mentor was a fairly simple task. I have raised 4-H show sheep at Connolly Ranch for several years, and I knew the caretaker drove cars that ran on biodiesel he had made. I was relieved when I asked Michael Lauher to be my mentor and he agreed without hesitation. Michael has made biodiesel for about eight years in his own homemade “laboratory.” He agreed to walk me through the process of making my 2 | Page

own batch of biodiesel and to help me remedy some basic issues with the car I had purchased. Since we drive the same truck he was able to walk me through and solve some of the most commons problems the truck has. He also was able to show me some preventative measures I could take to ensure the longevity of the vehicle. Today, I have a car that I am confident in and able to drive. My mentor was a large part of my project as he was the brains of the operation. He walked me through the somewhat complicated process of transesterification, commonly known as the process of making biodiesel. Not only did Michael teach me the steps needed to complete the chemical process, but he taught me a bit of basic science to go along with it. I plan on pursuing Environmental Science in college and this appreciation allowed me to enjoy his analogy of biodiesel emissions. I asked him if biodiesel polluted as much as petro-diesel and his explanation went as follows. “If you measure the amount of pollutants that come out of a tailpipe burning biodiesel or petro-diesel, then yes they will pollute the same. But if you take into account the amount of carbon that is being reintroduced into the atmosphere through the burning of petro-diesel then no. Taking carbons that the earth has already ‘dealt’ with by covering them up with billions of years of sediment, and reintroducing them into the atmosphere by turning them into 3 | Page

fuel and burning them is the largest contributor to global warming. Biodiesel has a short carbon cycle, that is it comes from dead plants that the earth was meant to ‘deal’ with. The burning of these carbons is adding no more carbon to the atmosphere than what is already there.” I like this explanation because it puts the very complicated concept of global warming into terms that the average person can understand. This went right along with the instructions Michael and I used to create the biodiesel. I plan to use this approach when I study environmental science, as I think it is important to relate it back to the average person that doesn’t have a background in the field. The process or transesterification itself taught me a lot about the field of science I wish to pursue and about myself in general. I was able to fumble my way through a set of instructions that included some fairly complicated processes such as measuring a titration level and mixing a methoxide solution. Being able to complete these processes without much of a chemistry background gave me confidence in myself and proved that I would be able to succeed and enjoy my field of study. My journey through senior project was extremely educational and beneficial to me. I learned a lot not only about transesterification and biodiesel, but about my abilities and passions as well. I feel accomplished in that I was able to complete my project and have the ability to drive it around town. 4 | Page

5 | Page

Process Paper Methyl Ester through Transesterification—AKA Biodiesel From the get-go I knew that my senior project was going to be a fairly large undertaking. My plan was to make bio-diesel and run a motor vehicle off of it. In the end I met my goal, but the journey to completion was more difficult than I had speculated. I technically began my project in the late spring of junior year after I purchased the truck I intended to fuel—a 1979 VW Caddy. My truck cost $300.00 and gets about 56 mpg; and when you’re paying about a dollar a gallon for fuel…Well let’s just say this entire project has been relatively cheap—cheap enough I recommend that everyone tries it. Now there seems to be a lot of confusion when it comes to “running a car on bio-diesel” or “converting a car to run on bio-diesel.” This is one of the first things my mentor Michael Lauher explained to me. He pointed me to a page out of the Biodiesel Home-brewer’s Guide that we studied, and had me read it. It follows, “[there’s] No such thing as ‘converting a car to biodiesel.’ To use biodiesel, all you need to do is make of buy the fuel, and you can immediately use it in any ordinary diesel engine with no modifications. This fuel is made by chemically altering vegetable oil into its ‘methyl ester’ form —a clean burning, renewable diesel.” SVO or Solid Vegetable Oil on the other hand requires “fuel system modifications. Oil is filtered and used ‘straight’ 6 | Page

without making biodiesel out of it. The oil becomes useable via onboard heating and usually a diesel startup and flush.” The latter seemed to require a great deal more work and was a bit more mechanical than the actual process of chemically making biodiesel. Plus I would like to go to college to become an environmental scientist, and I figured that the chemistry might help me some. With a more specific goal in mind, I began the process of making my biodiesel. Of course this process didn’t start immediately with all the materials I needed. I had to acquire oil, for starters, and many of the other materials my mentor provided with a shared cost. With vegetable oil being the crux of my project I went on a search. Luckily I didn’t have to search far because the restaurant across the street from my school was able to provide me with the oil I needed at no charge. I picked up 25 gallons of grease trap oil and hauled it to Connolly Ranch where my project would take place. It sat for a couple of weeks while my mentor and I worked out a date to meet which was actually beneficial because it gave the oil time to separate so we could skim off the better quality oil from each five gallon container. Do you know the difference between low and high quality oil? Neither did I, but I soon found out. Oil that is chunky, burnt, or rancid basically cannot be used in the making of biodiesel. Chunks or particles that are obviously not oil will damage the engine if they are not filtered out. Burnt oil has more carbons in it which requires more lye to cause a reaction, which basically means a higher cost of supplies. And rancid oil cannot be used because the Free Fatty 7 | Page

Acids, an integral part of the chemical reaction, in the oil are no longer viable. With all of this in mind we looked at our oil containers. It was clear which oil had come from the top of the grease barrel, and which had come from the bottom. Each bucket had separated into layers much in the way Italian dressing separates if it is left alone. Our goal was to suck off the top few layers of oil before we got to the obviously unfavorable chunky, dirty, smelly oil. We succeeded and filled our reaction chamber up with about twenty five gallons of fryer oil. Keep in mind that this is a home brewing setup we are working with, so the reaction chamber is actually a used water heater that has been modified to heat the oil up to the desired temperature of 120o F. While the oil was heating up, I did a titration to figure out the amount of catalyst (lye) we would have to use in order to make the reaction happen. I took a 1ml sample of the oil and added 10ml of isopropyl alcohol to it. I then created a Ph indicator solution which consisted of 1 part turmeric to 5 parts isopropyl alcohol. I added about 5 drops of the indicator solution to my oil and isopropyl, and then I began to add the lye solution. The lye solution consisted of 1 gram of lye to 1 liter of water. I began adding the lye solution to the others by the milliliter. Each milliliter added represented an extra gram of lye that would half to be added, per liter, to my oil. I knew when I had added enough of the lye solution when I swirled the beaker around, and it remained pink for about 30 seconds. The oil I had just titrated needed an extra 3 ml. of the lye solution which meant 3 extra grams of lye I had to add to the oil. 8 | Page

To separate the methyl ester from the free fatty acids, 5 grams of lye is needed as a base, and then the titration result amount is added to the base. In my case, I used 8 grams of lye per liter of oil which translated to about 757 grams of lye. Another key ingredient in this chemical reaction is the methanol. Methanol is a byproduct of natural gas, and is commonly used is ‘gas powered’ remote control cars. My mentor picked some up from Napa Valley Petroleum, and it cost about $7.00 a gallon. 250 ml. of methanol per liter of oil is needed to complete the chemical reaction called transesterification; and in my 25 gallon batch we used about 5.5 gallons of methanol. After measuring out all of our ingredients, we began mixing. We first added the lye and methanol together until the lye was dissolved. While we were shaking the containers filled with our lye and methanol, they began to heat up. This process of heating and mixing produced a new chemical called methoxide. This new chemical is extremely caustic and should not come in contact with any part of your body. We got the containers all shook up, and we slowly began to add them to our preheated oil. If the methoxide is poured in to fast is can cause a violent boil, so we were sure to pour it slowly to avoid serious burns. After all of the methoxide was added we turned the circulation pump on for the next two hours. After all of the ingredients are mixed together it becomes a waiting game. Two hours later I returned and unplugged the pump, then we waited another twenty four hours until returning to drain off 9 | Page

the glycerin. Glycerin is essentially a mixture of the methanol, the free fatty acids, and any other random elements that were present in the oil. Glycerin is completely biodegradable, and is even safe for livestock consumption. We drained off roughly five and a half gallons of glycerin, and alas we had out biodiesel—methyl ester.

Picture Portfolio

10 | Page

11 | Page

12 | Page

13 | Page

14 | Page

15 | Page

16 | Page

17 | Page

18 | Page

19 | Page

20 | Page

21 | Page

22 | Page

23 | Page