21 May 2005
"Velasca Kennedy House 1878"
West Berkeley: 5th Street
23 May 2005
My dad's house has a new yard
23 May 2005
My dad's house has a new yard
Actually, it's not his house anymore
23 May 2005
My dad's house has a new yard
Escrow closes very soon
23 May 2005
My grandma's piano is a Ludwig. I don't know anything about this manufacturer
23 May 2005
My grandma's piano is a Ludwig. I don't know anything about this manufacturer
23 May 2005
I thought I recognized this artist, but I do not.
24 May 2005
Xena at home
26 May 2005
My grandma's piano is now in my living room.
29 May 2005
Dinner at the Lagoys'
29 May 2005
Dinner at the Lagoys'
50 May 2005
Weird building on Alameda de los Pulgas
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Mitch pours used fry oil into his reactor
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Mitch screws a thermometer into the top of his reactor. We've dragged it out into the sun to heat it up
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Jamilla and I in safety goggles (oh my god, I look just like my mom but with lighter hair)
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Mitch the mad scientist opens a bottle of rubbing alcohol to use in the titration
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
10 ml of rubbing alcohol plus three drops of indicator solution, plus as many drops of lye as it takes to reach a ph of 8
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Titrating
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Once you reach a ph of 8, add 1 ml of the oil you want to convert and as many ml of lye as it takes to again reach 8. The lye is a base and neutralizes the fatty acids in the oil
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Mitch gathers a mL of oil to use in the titration. Once he knows how many milligrams of lye per milliliter of oil, he can multiply up to know how many grams of lye to use for his 15 L of oil. Add that to a base amount of lye per L to do the biodiesel reaction. At the end, the reaction happens and the fatty acids are neutralized.
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Mitch measures out the methanol to use in the reaction. Methanol is a catalyst and he will be able to recover some of it for re-use in the next batch.
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Jamilla's adorable daughter wanders around during a safe part of the process.
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Jamilla look proudly at his adorable daughter.
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
What a cute kid
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
Description starts at lower left and goes clockwise. The thingee with the terminals is the output from Mitch's solar thingee on the roof. He got a solar thingee to use while brewing to make his process as green as possible. Next it Mitch. At the top right is a plastic jug filled with a mixture of methane and lye. It is sitting on top of a still. The big black can is the reactor and the red thing is a pump.
The solar array drives the pump, which is attached to two pipes coming out the reactor. It acts as a mixer. One of the pipes that the pump attaches to has a small pipe sticking out of it. The lye/methanol mixture runs through a small plastic hose into that pipe. So the agitates the vegetable oil wile the methyloxide mixes slowly in. A small aquarium motor (also solar and not pictured) attaches to the other small hose coming out of the clear plastic jug, providing air pressure to push the methlyoxide into the reactor. On the top of the reactor, there is another little pipe sticking up. It goes into the still, into the circular copper tubing. At the bottom of the still is a little collection jar and the hose out of that goes into a vacuum pump. This sucks gaseous methane out of the reactor for possible reuse.
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
The reactor runs.
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
The reactor runs.
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
methane/lye drains out of the jug, into the reactor
30 May 2005
Brewing Biodiesel
On the left: a jug from a few days ago that has already separated and been siphoned off once (the black stuff on the bottom is more glycerol).
On the right: the new batch of fuel, starting to separate.
30 May 2005
When grocery stores try too hard: Anthropomorphic trapeze tortillas
