Dry or Wet Wash?

[WildTaz]

Does anyone have any experience with drywashing BIO? I'm considering a Purolite dry wash system and I was wondering how well it works compaird to water washing

[tubular031]

I built a tiny test bed for some purolite our of a whole house filter. I was able to put 1 lb in there. 1lb = 0.3 gal per hour MAX flow. All i can say is WOW! no more water for me! this stuff is bad @$$!!!!
My test with dry washing - Topic Powered by eve community

I am going to build the keg setup like this in the coming weeks
Simple Amberlite Setup - Topic Powered by eve community

check out legaleagles setup here
Dry Washing with The New B100-WH Biodiesel Reactor he is a cool guy. I bought his soap book and have talked with him a few times.

The issue with dry washing is that there is a big startup cost (depending on what you use for columns and how much flow you want) and you will have to replace the resin at some point and that will also cost you money. where as water is really cheap and easy to get. Say you want to be able to do 3 gal an hour of flow. You would need 10 lbs of resin (about $12 a pound) and you need to have a lead/lag setup (so 2 filters) that is 20 lbs of resin. then whatever column cost. so more flow=more resin and = more cost! For me, its taking 2 weeks, 15+ washes and 200+ gal of my crappy water to get a batch clean. I do 25 gal batches, so 2 weeks to make 25 gal..... 0.3 gal an hour is an upgrade for me!

I also found out something cool yesterday. well it was already known, just not to me

Ever heard of the GL method?
GL's Eco-System state diagram

When I drain off my glycerin i always end up with some bio in there (flat tank) and i usually drain a little off also just to try to get all the glycerin off. I pour this into a barrel for it to settle out and then take the bio from the top.


After sitting for maybe a month I noticed that the bio was VERY clear and thought it must be clean being so clear... So i gave it the shake up test and WOW it was maybe 1 or 2 washes from clean! I did not demeth it so the first few weeks with the meth in there were probably not effective in settling and also it was sitting on top of glycerin with meth in it so it was probably less effective.

The moral of the story, demeth the bio and let it settle for as LONG as you can! I am going to be setting up 4 settling barrels with 25 is gal in each. fill them all up and then start rotating them. If I use one a week, that would mean they would settle for 1 month before I wash them. that should cut my washing down to very little till I can get the dry washing going. O and the other thing that helped a bunch for me is the 5% prewash.

[Sciulli]

Dry Washing it a pretty good way to go however you must buy the resin to wash. If you were trying to turn out large quanities of biodiesel and had large sum of oil, then i may look at that route. However I find it hard enough to get oil to fuel my truck for the summer months let alone getting a massive surplus. Water washing it also cheaper.

[WildTaz]

Thanks for the info guys, I think I'll probably go the dry wash route. In addition to my truck, It looks like I'll be producing form my brothers plumbing trucks as well. That's four total. Fortunately, One of the local farmers takes all the oil and food scrap from all of Rutgers campuses. I'm told I can get as much as 200 gal a week, but I haven't talked to him myself. That + the 2 resturants I already collect from should do it.

[tubular031]

Good luck man. 200 gal a weeks is a sweet deal. Finding oil is the hardest part now a days.

[mako314]

dry washing with magnisol is another option. take your bio stir in the magnisol let it act then filter down to 1 or 2 microns all done it adds about and extra 2 hours for a 40 or 50 gallon batch. the only problem with this is the cost. it's great for large producers but a little pricey for the small scale home brewer.

[Pahrump]

I like dry washing, I have 2 towers and about 20lbs or Purolite...was not cheap to get started but its pretty much hands free now.

[tubular031]

Originally Posted by Pahrump

I like dry washing, I have 2 towers and about 20lbs or Purolite...was not cheap to get started but its pretty much hands free now.

Are you using 20 pounds per tower? or 10 per tower? What are the towers made from? I am trying to get up and running on dry washing and need to get something bigger then the little slow filter housings I have.

How long do you let it settle before running your bio through the resin?

Do you demeth first?

[Pahrump]

10lbs per tower, the towers are made out of 20gallon propane tanks....that are upside down, some cutting and welding required...lol

We let it sit 24-30 hours, then drain off the glycerin...from there it goes into the towers...but first thru a 5 micron filter sock, I forget all the math, but between the sock, and the resin the flow rates are exactly right, a guy from one of the bio forums helped me here.

And no I do not de meth first, some say this shortens the life of the resin, and so on...but hell its not THAT expensive, and it sure is fast and hand free the way we are doing it right now.