Biodiesel Homebrewing Class and Biodiesel Equipment Build Class
Central, SC (near Clemson)
November 18- biodiesel homebrewing chemistry basics
November 19- biodiesel equipment building
$60 per class, no one turned away for lack of funds
www.girlmark.com/tour10-4 each day,
225 Broad street, Central SC 29630 - meeting hall of Scout Troop 278
Learn to make your own high-quality biodiesel fuel from waste restaurant fryer oil, and build the equipment to do so at home
Any diesel engine will run on biodiesel, and the homemade version can be produced to the highest quality specifications. It currently costs about $1 a gallon to make your own biodiesel (one of our ingredients is at an all-time high, usually the cost is lower).
Maria 'Mark' Alovert from
www.localb100.com and
www.biodieselcommunity.org is coming to upstate South Carolina to teach two biodiesel classes- a one-day biodiesel homebrewing/chemistry class on November 18, and a one-day equipment intensive on November 19th which allows you to build equipment to take home (optional). You can attend one or both classes. Both classes are hands-on and will cover a lot of theory on biodiesel chemistry, quality control, materials compatibility, and equipment design. You can attend the equipment class whether you're building equipment to take home, or simply coming to watch and help the others.
In the homebrew class, we'll cover the basic process, the chemistry of quality control and testing, discuss ethanol-based biodiesel (our workshop host, Kurt Nolte, works with it regularly), and give you some hands-on time to practice the techniques. If you stay for the second day's equipment class, there'll be optional lab time on that day also to continue your Saturday experiments if you wish. If you have already experimented with making biodiesel, we'll cover a lot of troubleshooting and problem-repairing techniques.
In the equipment class, we'll build processors, wash tanks, methanol recovery condensors, and wash bubblers, and we will discuss heat exchangers, methanol recovery, safety (from an equipment perspective), materials compatibility, pumps, secondary containment, larger system suggestions, and more safety.
The processors/reactors that we're building are a variation on the open-source processor from
www.biodieselcommunity.org/appleseedprocessor and the wash tank is similar to this one
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/standpipewashtank/ . You can build a system to take home if you purchase the parts and bring an electric water heater to use as the reactor tank, and/or a 55-gallon closed-head barrel to use as a wash tank..
To buy equipment parts for this class, email me at
[email protected] by mid-day on Friday the 17th and tell me that you want parts (you'll also need to bring the tanks yourself), and we'll work out the payment (either Paypal or "settling up at the door" depending on how many people I have to pick up parts for)- they're about $250 for processor parts and $45 for wash tank parts, and you also need to acquire an electric water heater (and also a barrel if you're building a wash tank in the class). Methanol recovery condensor parts are $45 for a 4' long copper tube-in-shell heat exchanger that we'll solder up in the class.
For more info, email me at
[email protected], or see
www.girlmark.com/tour. You can also just show up on the day of the class and register 'at the door'.