Put-Put Boats!

We get to put our biodiesel to use! Our next lab was to design a boat with a motor that uses biodiesel. We were supplied with the motor and we used our own biodiesel that we had made previously, so all we had to do was design the boat. We decided to use a half-in-half carton as our boat and the poked holed in the bottom for the motor to go through and then sealed the extra holes with duct tape. After fixing a few leaks our boat worked pretty well! If we got one of the 3 fastest times in our class we would get extra credit! Unfortunately that didn't happen but our boat made it down the track so we got full points!

Biodiesel Lab

Last week we got to make biodiesel! It was a pretty easy lab, we took excess fryer oil from Chick-Fil
-A and measured 135mL of it into an erlenmeyer flask, then we added 32mL of KOH to the flask. Then we took a the flask and added it to the hot water bath, and let it heat for 20 minutes while keeping the temperature between 45-55 degrees celsius. Once it had heated we took it out of the hot water bath and poured it into a plastic cup to sit overnight. The next day we filtered out the KOH to be left with just the Biodiesel.

Pouring in the KOH

Hot water bath!

Viscosity Test!

What is Biodiesel?

How to Make Biodiesel

How Biodiesel is used

Pros and Cons of Biodiesel

Diesel Fuel

Biodiesel Video

When we came back from spring break, we began our new unit, Biodiesel, and our first project was to make a video about the benefits of biodiesel and submit it to the American Lung Association for a contest. The first place winners get $1200! We haven't gotten the results yet but hopefully they like our video!


BIODIESEL VIDEO!!!