Biodiesel Making Equipment varies but it all does the same thing: mixes the chemicals together safely and effectively.

There is a variety of biodiesel making equipment on the market. In home biodiesel manufacturing everyone uses a similar process, the age old and tried process of transesterfication and the equipment to do this does not vary a lot.

Making biodiesel is simple, making good biodiesel is a little harder. The most important thing is to make biodiesel safely and in this respect biodiesel plant design is critical.

Here is a typical biodiesel plant design. This layout is typical of batch plants from 100 to 5 000 liters a day. It is typical of an appleseed biodiesel processor which is a very popular processor made from a water heater or geyser.

Let's look at each component of the plant in detail.

• Waste vegetable oil tank is where the oil is put into the process
• Methoxide is the methoxide mixing tank where the catalyst and methanol are mixed before use
• The Reactor is the biodiesel processor/biodiesel reactor
• The washtank is used for washing biodiesel - it can also be a dry wash column
• The correct pump is important
• The valves and piping will depend on your budget but should be the correct type to be safe. Use cast iron, steel or stainless steel for your pipes. Use stainless steel or nickel plated ball valves for the valves.
• A biodiesel filter can be fitted after valve 14.

Biodiesel plant construction is not rocket science, generally it is just a case of connecting some piping, pumps and tanks together. Read the Safety Guidelines and bear them in mind when constructing your plant. There are some good designs available, probably the best site for a design that you can make yourself is http://www.biodieselcommunity.org

A good biodiesel centrifuge can speed up production considerably. There are commercial biodiesel plants that use centrifuges to speed up separation of the glycerin, biodiesel and methanol. There are also plants that use centrifuges to separate biodiesel and wash water. A good commercial centrifuge is an expensive item but it can dramatically speed up production. They are probably out of the price band of home producers.

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