Weekly Progress Report: Week 8

This week's objective was to dry all of the samples. The purpose of this procedure was to remove water from the washed biodiesel. Water in biodiesel degrades the fuel back into methanol and oil, which is bad for engine life.

Theoretically, the samples undergoing electrolysis wouldn't need to be dried, but they were anyway, to eliminate extraneous variables. Each sample was placed on a hot plate and heated to between 50-60 degrees C for around 45 minutes. This causes the water present to evaporate.

Figure 1: Biodiesel in the process of drying.

Figure 2: Biodiesel after drying

 After drying, the biodiesel appeared to clear up dramatically. This property will be formally tested in a "newspaper test" next week.

Figure 3: Hot plate and stirrer.