May 17th, 2011

Today in class we did the usual routine, putting on our aprons, goggles, and gloves. For me, I had to take out my "Oil" because it mainly consististed of that ugly yellow animal fat layer, so I just had to dump it all out. Meanwhile, we did the same thing we did sometime last week, and that was to get the sodium hydroxide tabs and put them in room temperature tap water. We did the same thing, including measurements, and poured them from a petri dish into the little jar of water. I expected and got the same result as last time. When you shake the jar, the little pellet like things dissolved, and the jar felt hot, creating a chemical reaction. That's pretty much all that we did today.

May 13th, 2011.

NOTE: ABSENT ON MAY 12th, 2011!

May 13th, 2011:
Today our class took our 2 liter bottles, and we removed all of the animal fat(s). The fat layer was all in a yellow cloud like shape that just looked discusting!! Mine had so much, it look like it took a chunk of at least 1/3 of the liter! After we had done that, there was pure fuel for us to remove. We tipped the bottle again, and poured the fuel into beakers.

May 11th, 2011

     Today when we went to class, we immediately put on our safety gear, consisting of goggles, gloves, and an apron. As soon as we put them on, it was like a snap when we got to work. Out of our 14 people in the classroom, Miss Rioux assigned different people different tasks while we were all participating in today's lab. My group had to get the petri dishes (14 of them), and measure them using sodium hydroxide until it was exactly at 12 grams using the Triple Beam Balance Scale. After we measured 14 petri dishes of sodium hydroxide, we had to put them 250 mL of methanol.

     We put the sodium hydroxide pellets carefully into the methanol. Then we closed the container of the mixture and shook it until all of the pellets created a foggy water. After that, we had to get our two litter bottles and poured oil halfway so we still had 1 liter. Then, we put the "foggy water" into our oil, and that created a white layer. Next, we had to flip the bottle over about 4 times, and then we just placed it faced down on top of a beaker. We have to wait about 12-24 hours before we can do anything else.

How does a Bio-Diesel Engine Work?

 

Obviously, the first thing that you have to do is to pump the biodiesel in. Second, the fuel will expand and a crank shaft will now spin. Next, a piston will be moved up and down because of the Connecting Rod.

 The coolant will help so then it doesn't overheat the engine. As the camshaft rotates, it triggers lobes that release the fuel so then the engine can run!

Cinco de Mayo Oil Project Day 2!

Today we started our day with putting on our lab equipment such as goggles, aprons, and gloves. We had filtered almost an entire 5 gallon bucket of the oil, and we started to work on the last two that we had leftover from yesterday. We used and stretched out a cheese cloth to cover the surface of one of the 5 gallon tubs, and filtered that through another tub. We repeated this process 2 times, for 2 buckets. When we finished cleaning out the buckets, a couple of people went outside to clean them out. It took lots of teamwork to help bring the buckets outside, and back inside, and this went on for about 20 minutes. When we came back inside, we were almost finished, but we had to clean up. We washed the cheese cloth, washed our hands from the oil that could get in from our gloves, put our gloves away, took off our aprons, and also went the goggles. That was the conclusion of Day 2, and I'm looking foward to more!

Lab, Day 1 - May 4, 2011

Today, on May 4th, 2011, in my 6th Period Science class, we started our first day with the used cooking oil. It was one of those one time experiences when you don't get to do this project every year, and I'd say this one was worth it. The first thing that we had to do was to get the funnel, and cut a cheese cloth so that we can trap as many food particles that were in the oil. We did that by putting the cloth on the wide side of the funnel, and securely taped it with duct tape. After that, we opened up the lids of the 5 gallon buckets of pre-used oil. We used a cup to scoop it out and placed it in beakers by pouring it through the cheese cloth and funnel that we made so that the food particles would be removed. After that, we had to put the beakers of hot plates that were supposely have our oil get hot enough to reach 100 degrees Celsius. As the beakers were on the hot plates, we began to reconize small bits of food because the cheese cloth didn't catch anything. We just let them sit there. After observing the beakers for some time, we had to clean up. We took off our goggles, gloves, and aprons and washed out the funnel. The funnel still had the cheese cloth on it, so we had to take it off by taking off the tape, threw the unnessessary things away, and cleaned the funnel with a mere tab of dish soap. That was the end of Day 1, and but we still have to do about 2 more buckets by Friday!

Oil Cleaning Hypothesis & Materials

Hypothesis: If the oil is drained through a net and funnel, then it will remove the solid food particles.

Materials & How to Filter Oil - http://www.ehow.com/how_2330455_filter-cooking-oil.html
1) You want the oil to cool, because when oil is hot, then it can cause a harsh burn!
2) Use a strainer and a cheese cloth and pour in the oil.
3) Connect the strainer to a container that is large enough to hold your deposited oil(s).
4) Lastly, pour the oil through the strainer so that it will pick up any food particles that you can/may have.

Oil Cleaning Method & Summary

Oil Cleaning Method: The first thing to clean the oil is to pour it through an oil filter. Second, you want to heat the oil until it gets to 100 degrees, and place it on a heating unit, preferably on a stove. Third, get some Methanol and put it into a pump that is made from nylon or else you can have the risk of it being destroyed and making a fire. Fourth, you have to get some lye and mix it with the Methanol. Methanol combined with Lye will create sodium methoxide that you will have to put into a coffee can. Fifth, you have to clean the bucket and pour in the oil. After this, put only half of the sodium methoxide mix that you created earlier. After you wait two minutes, you can now add the remained sodium methoxide. Now that you've done this, use a paint mixing drill to mix them up for 30 minutes. Now that you're finished, leave the finished product alone for 12 hours. Finally, you're biodiesel can be used as an alternative fuel.


Key Point Summary:
The main purpose of this lab project is for us to learn the process of creating a friendly bio diesel fuel that can be used as an alternative for regular diesel. We are also learning how to clean oil, and how that can be used for the bio diesel. This project also teaches you the processes that you must take, experimenting, testing out class-made samples, and most importantly, how this diesel is different than the other producers that produce it everyday. With the resources that we have in our hands, our objective is to get a school bus to operate with the bio diesel we made! The project will include, extracting food particles from the used cooking oil, how to mix the mixture to make sure if it's too much, or too little...etc.

Move that Bus!

Mr. Ham from our local Fulton County Transportation came in to talk to my science class and assigned us a project. Our project was to make a bio-friendly diesel that can get a school bus to move! He told us that he would have 5 weeks to complete this task. We started almost immediately, with looking us websites that explain how to clean the oil, how you can make it, and it's getting very intresting. When I first heard that we had to do this project I was appalled, not only with how hard it could get, but I never had such a project! I'm looking forward to have this project a success!!