Industrial Titration (3 Dec)

     There are plenty of industries that use titration, but I decided to pick the one that seems to be slightly futuristic because biodiesel is a relatively new technology! You may say to yourself "wait a minute Ethan! How exactly does the biodiesel industry use titration?" Well hold on to your pants! You are about to find out. So basically the waste vegetable oil that biodiesel facilities get is chock-full of fatty acids, which would be good if you were making soap(but that's a different story).
 
     Vocab: Ester-"Esters are chemical compounds consisting of a carbonyl adjacent to an ether linkage.[1] They are derived by reacting an (acid and a alchol).   ⁽¹⁾

Space-filling model of Ethyl Stearate, or Stearic Acid Ethyl Ester, an example of an Ethyl Ester produced from Soybean or Canola Oil and Ethanol.

 "To make biodiesel fuel efficiently from used vegetable oils and animal fats we have to avoid one major problem: soap formation. Soap is formed during base-catalyzed transesterification (using lye) when sodium ions combine with free fatty acids present in used (and some virgin) vegetable oils and animal fats. The soaps diminish the yield because they bond the methyl esters to water. The bonded esters get washed out at the washing stage but make water separation more difficult and increase water consumption. This process takes care of the free fatty acids." (2).

     So in English, you need to neutralize the fatty acids or they will bond to the methanol which is important making and being a part of the fuel. Now that is settled you ask "Where does titration come into play?" Your answer is: You have to get a sample of waste vegetable oil, and determine how acidic it is, once you know that you can add the salt to the right ratio in a large amount of the oil!
      The chemical equation is a little difficult to do, because the salt (usually KOH, NaOH, or CH3NO) gets processed out eventually. However this explains it fairly well.

     Vocab-Transesterification is the chemical process which replaces one type of alcohol for another in an ester. An ester is made by combining an alcohol with an acid.(3)


"The chemical formula for biodiesel transesterification is: C3H5(RCOOH)3 + 3CH3OH <-> 3RCOCH3O + C3H5(OH)3
The biodiesel transesterification process is slightly reversible making it difficult to get 100% conversion. To push the reaction to it most complete status we use LeCh�telier's Principle and offset the reactants to drive the reaction in a more favorable direction. The formula above calls for 3 moles of methanol for every mole of vegetable oil, but we double that to six moles of methanol to take advantage of LeCh�telier's Principle. After we convert from moles to volume we end up with 1 part methanol to 5 parts vegetable oil.(3)"

Links consulted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titration#Particular_uses
http://transesterification.info/
http://www.make-biodiesel.org/Biodiesel-Recipes/single-stage-base-recipes.html
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_aleksnew.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhpeXuRYJWg