Newbie from Texas: N DFW area. Lots of glycerine to share.

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vegoilrecycler

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I am brand new to this forum. I have a BUNCH of glycerine I made from biodiesel production. It's made from rapeseed oil such as canola (not tallow, animal fat) so the glycerine is viscous. I currently have 25 gallons ready to go and I'm processing another 30 gallons as we speak. It already has some leftover KOH lye in it from the biodiesel production.

I have a couple of reasons for posting on this forum today.

ONE: I'd like to give glycerine away.
TWO: I'd like to learn how to make some usable soap out of it.

Its my understanding that this kind of glycerine is not conducive to making bar soap because it is so viscous. But that could be an untrue assumption.

So, if any of you are in the DFW area and don't mind driving to Little Elm, I would love to share this glycerine with you. I could even meet you somewhere like Plano or The Colony.
 
Welcome.

I don't think you'll find many takers for the glycerin, since handmade soaps contain the glycerin that occurs naturally during the soapmaking process. I don't see a need for adding more.
 
I can't wait to try making soap from glycerin! I've contacted a co-op here in VA that is funneling me their leavings.

Wish I could take advantage of your offer. My parents live not to far from you - Trophy Club. But I'm in Virginia.

If you search there is a thread about making soap from biodiesel glycerin here somewhere.
 
:!: :!: Some important info from here:

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycerin.html

Soap

The crude glycerine by-product from homemade biodiesel makes a powerful degreaser.

Remove the residual methanol first.

Letting the by-product stand in an open container for a few weeks will NOT evaporate the methanol as it's often said it will, or not much anyway.

Boil it off -- NOT over an open flame, do it in the open, don't inhale any fumes, or (better) use a simple condenser to recover the methanol for re-use.

The disadvantage of raw by-product is that it contains most of the lye catalyst used in the processing, which makes it very caustic, it can burn the skin if you don't use gloves.

Saponifying the by-product makes an even better cleaner, and it won't burn your skin -- in fact it's kind to the skin because of the high glycerine content. Glycerine is a natural product of the soapmaking process. Glycerine moisturizes the skin, but commercial soap manufacturers remove the glycerine for use in lotions and creams, which are more profitable. Handcrafted soap retains the glycerine, and hence the boom in do-it-yourself craft soapmaking, and the high prices of handmade soaps.

Saponified glycerine by-product is a great cleaner, we use it for all cleaning jobs, whether to clean old machine parts filthy with dirt and grease, or as an effective and economical dishwasher, laundry soap, or an excellent hand-cleaner. It cuts through oil, grease and dirt like a knife, and it doesn't take much of it.

There are various recipes for making by-product "soap", but they're rather vague and imprecise. Basically, remove the methanol first, then mix extra lye with water, add it to the heated by-product and mix for 10 or 15 minutes while maintaining the temperature. Then you have to cure it for a couple of weeks.

:!: The difficulty with by-product soap is in calculating how much extra lye to use. It depends how much you used in the first place.

The results also depend on which catalyst you used: sodium hydroxide (NaOH) will give a solid bar soap, potassium hydroxide (KOH) makes liquid soap. We prefer KOH as a catalyst and seldom use NaOH, and we have no experience of making bar-soap from the by-product. We'd rather have a liquid cleaner anyway.

:!: You have to stay with the catalyst you started with -- if you used NaOH in the biodiesel process you can't then use KOH to make soap from the by-product, it has to be NaOH, and vice versa: if you started with KOH, make soap with KOH.

Use the soapmaking resources listed below to find a good general method to tell you how to go about heating, mixing and curing.

We use 100 ml of water per litre of by-product, which works well with KOH to make liquid cleaner. That should be okay for NaOH bar soap too, or try using less water.

The lye quantity is more critical. It depends on the titration of the oil you used. Common recommendations are that if you used say 5-7 grams of NaOH per litre of oil in the biodiesel process, then you need another 30 to 40 grams of NaOH to saponify the by-product. We think it should be more precise than that -- we've found if you don't use enough lye the soap tends to leave an oily film, and if you use too much it's too harsh.

Here are some starting figures you could try, apply them proportionally according to the titration of your oil.

If your oil titrated at 1 ml 0.1% NaOH solution try using 22 grams of NaOH; if the titration was 2.5 ml 0.1% NaOH solution, try 30 grams of NaOH. Make a few tests first with small quantities, varying the amount of lye by 2 grams on either side until you get the best result.

For KOH, multiply by 1.52 for 92% pure KOH, by 1.56 for 90% pure KOH, or by 1.65 for 85% pure KOH.

If you separate the glycerine by-product from the impurities (see Separating glycerine/FFAs), you'll be left with about 80-90% pure glycerine. You can add it to plain liquid soap to make a high-glycerine shower-soap or shampoo. It doesn't need much -- try 10 to 20cc per 500cc of liquid soap, and add some essential oils for fragrance.
 
So, it looks like you have to know some very important info about the process you sourced the glycerine from...
 
Re: Newbie from Texas: N DFW area. Lots of glycerine to sha

vegoilrecycler said:
I am brand new to this forum. I have a BUNCH of glycerine I made from biodiesel production. It's made from rapeseed oil such as canola (not tallow, animal fat) so the glycerine is viscous. I currently have 25 gallons ready to go and I'm processing another 30 gallons as we speak. It already has some leftover KOH lye in it from the biodiesel production.

I have a couple of reasons for posting on this forum today.

ONE: I'd like to give glycerine away.
TWO: I'd like to learn how to make some usable soap out of it.

Its my understanding that this kind of glycerine is not conducive to making bar soap because it is so viscous. But that could be an untrue assumption.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but making any assumptions where soapmaking is concerned is a bad idea that can lead to people getting hurt! Sorry, again not trying to be rude, but we're working with highly caustic chemicals!

In the few mins of research I did, I found information to corroborate that assumption, plus a lot of other info someone needs before launching into a soapmaking experiment with this glycerin.

Have you cleaned up the glycerin? Is there still methanol in it? How much left-over KOH is in it? As a soapmaker, I need to know that so I can accurately measure the amount of KOH to add for the soapmaking process, or I could end up with a lye-heavy soap that burns the skin.

I know you biodiesel producers are scrambling to unload huge amounts of glycerine by-product. If you're going to be a supplier of soapmaking ingredients, even free ingredients, you should know EXACTLY what you're supplying.

Sorry, I'm off the soap box now. I'm just really concerned, because you're not giving us some essential information.
 

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