Diary of a Mad Scientist

Once upon a time, in a biodiesel group that could be just any biodiesel group and is not me…

-Someone had a methoxide mixer

-Someone’s methoxide mixer used a pump to mix methanol and lye

-Someone’s methoxide mixer was a cone-bottom tank that mixed from bottom to top, which I think leads to the following scenario quite often:

-Someone’s methoxide mixer in the cone-bottom tank that mixed with a pump from bottom to top clogged horribly

-Someone’s methoxide mixer in the cone-bottom tank that mixed with a pump from bottom to top clogged horribly like bottom-to-top methoxide mixers based on cone-bottom plastic tanks tend to do

-Someone’s methoxide mixer in the cone-bottom tank that mixed with a pump from bottom to top clogged horribly, like bottom-to-top methoxide mixers based on cone-bottom plastic tanks tend to do- even though people tend to try to insert ‘baskets’ into the cone-bottom plastic tanks thinking that they’ll somehow stay put and keep the KOH from clumping up

-Someone’s methoxide mixer in the cone-bottom tank that mixed with a pump from bottom to top clogged horribly, like bottom-to-top methoxide mixers based on cone-bottom plastic tanks tend to do- even though people tend to try to insert ‘baskets’ into the cone-bottom plastic tanks thinking that they’ll somehow stay put and keep the KOH from clumping up. This theory doesn’t tend to work because with plastic cone-bottom tanks most connections other than the top lid and bottom plumbing just aren’t very secure and very few things can be modified about their configuration

-Said someone Who Shall Not Be Named had a very large, solid clog in what I assume is the bottom of their methoxide mixer based on a cone-bottom tank et al

- Someone Who Shall Not Be Named has this happen relatively regularly. I once saw a certain member of the Someone Who Shall Not Be Named group, sitting amongst clogged methoxide mixer plumbing parts with his arm up the mixer up to his elbow. I thought of large-animal veterinary procedures involving the nasty end of the animal. They make gloves for that, you know.

-This year’s iteration of ‘how to unclog the methoxide mixer crystalline rock of poison’ scenario apparently included sulfuric acid. That Someone had around from years past, in case they ever got around to doing acid-base biodiesel.

-Someone Who Shall Not Be Named apparently used GALLONS of sulfuric acid, of the 95% concentration, to unclog their KOH-carbonated KOH rock.

Terrifying. I’m so glad no one lost an eye, or a face.

Sulfuric acid is one of the nastiest, scariest dangerous chemicals we work with. It’s essential in acid-catalyzed esterification- other acids and other catalysts can be used, with drawbacks- so H2SO4 it is. I’m madly in love with acid-catalyzed esterification. I actually got jealous of Greg one day a few months ago when he started messing around with it. Tom used to say at one point that in our relationship, biodiesel was ‘the other woman’ that he took a second seat to- and I did in fact leave that relationship due partially to the call of ‘the other woman’. With Greg, it was more of a feeling like he’d touched my Other Woman. It was pretty funny.

Anyway, I do worry, greatly, about all the people who are messing around with sulfuric acid because of my proselytizing.

I do think that the worst problem we’ll experience in homebrew ing isn’t someone burning themselves, but that someone will get KOH in their eyes and will be blinded. That’s one of the things I lay in bed worrying aobut.

Sulfuric acid is probably the second worst hazard- second only because fewer people are using it. I’m worried that we teach people some really rudimentary chemistry, and some of them are going to take the relatively simple and relatively safe procedures of transesterification and apply them to things involving sulfuric acid, HCl, or other concentrated acids. Acid-base reactions can cause quite a bit of heat, splashing, fumes, etc- and I don’t think people are quite prepared for it.

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