Looking for BioPro 190 Testimonial

I've done some searching for some BioPro 190 testimonials and have not come up with too much luck other than salespeople. Does anybody here have one or used one? I'm quite aware of the price so I'd like to save that debate for some other time. Any other info or input would be greatly appreciated.

There's a few folks using the BioPro over on the Infopop forums.
Look here: http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/cfrm/f/498605551

From what I can tell it seems like a fairly small set-up that it pretty well self-contained. It is automated yet it has a manual option that would let you customize its functions to suit you. Sorry, I'm trying to keep my thread from falling into page 2 abyss. Anyone?

Look up Stormin Norman on infopop forums. I have seen his in action and it works great.

bird lives said:

I've done some searching for some BioPro 190 testimonials and have not come up with too much luck other than salespeople. Does anybody here have one or used one? I'm quite aware of the price so I'd like to save that debate for some other time. Any other info or input would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

I hope you got a good source of oil before you remotely think of a processor. When I say that, you need oil with low titration numbers.

I think the word "processor" is used a bit too freely with biodiesel and makes people think that it just make bio on a whim. Take VO, mix in methoxide and magically you make bio.

Im sorry, its not that simple. I am unsure if you have done your research but if not, please do. It will save you a lot of money and will prevent you from making 25 gallons of glop. Don't ask how I know that....

T'sTDI said:

I hope you got a good source of oil before you remotely think of a processor. When I say that, you need oil with low titration numbers.

I think the word "processor" is used a bit too freely with biodiesel and makes people think that it just make bio on a whim. Take VO, mix in methoxide and magically you make bio.

Im sorry, its not that simple. I am unsure if you have done your research but if not, please do. It will save you a lot of money and will prevent you from making 25 gallons of glop. Don't ask how I know that....

Click to expand...

I'm flattered by your concern, but just because I am asking about processors does not make me completely ignorant. I do have a good source of oil and I certainly don't jump into things without doing tons of research. I like doing things on a small scale hands-on type way first so that I can study techniques, observe problems that could and do arise, and find if its something I enjoy doing. I've learned alot and I really enjoy making biodiesel. I like the idea of the bio-pro due to its neatness not because of its automation. If you have an opinion on this then I'd love to hear it. I'm going to a bio seminar on saturday to learn more so that I can start remotely thinking of a processor. Until then I'll just unremotely think of one.

Not to mention that the BioPro190 uses an acid/base method, so it can handle higher titration numbers without much of a problem.

From what it says on murphys machines the thing can make bio-d out of nearly any veg oil even with high tiration numbers because it also uses sulfuric acid.
That is probably why the poster is asking for testimonials. Its one thing when te MFG makes a claim its something else when a user says that it works exactly as promised. After all why drop several thousands of dollars on a product if it will not deliver as expected.
I keep considering a bio-pro myself because of how nice they are and how inclusive of a machine it is but with a payoff in the several thousands of gallons its a very very long ROI time that i am not sure would be worth it especially if i consider that in that time it might break down or need replacement parts and increase the ROI time even more. If i was going to do all this bio-d production to heat the home also it might be more worthwhile but i am switching the house over to a pellet fueled boiler. I might still consider it if i find out there are many people willing to buy bio-d in the area and or share the cost with me of buying one.

bird lives said:

I'm flattered by your concern, but just because I am asking about processors does not make me completely ignorant. I do have a good source of oil and I certainly don't jump into things without doing tons of research. I like doing things on a small scale hands-on type way first so that I can study techniques, observe problems that could and do arise, and find if its something I enjoy doing. I've learned alot and I really enjoy making biodiesel. I like the idea of the bio-pro due to its neatness not because of its automation. If you have an opinion on this then I'd love to hear it. I'm going to a bio seminar on saturday to learn more so that I can start remotely thinking of a processor. Until then I'll just unremotely think of one.

Click to expand...

I was by no means insulting your intelligence if you took that wrong, I was stating my opinion on the matter because about a year ago I was that person thinking you could take any veggie oil and make bio out of it... what a pipe dream that was. I sure wish I did a bit more research on titrations....the importance is so critical.

I have learned a lot over the year and can now successfully make it on a smaller scale. We take the cubies that restaurants get there new VO in and convert our bio in them.

I just know if I had someone telling me that a year ago, we would have saved 600 bucks for a processor. However, we use that now to heat our oil and filter it for WVO so it all worked out in the end.

Bird,
PM sent

T'sTDI said:

I was by no means insulting your intelligence if you took that wrong, I was stating my opinion on the matter because about a year ago I was that person thinking you could take any veggie oil and make bio out of it... what a pipe dream that was. I sure wish I did a bit more research on titrations....the importance is so critical.

I have learned a lot over the year and can now successfully make it on a smaller scale. We take the cubies that restaurants get there new VO in and convert our bio in them.

I just know if I had someone telling me that a year ago, we would have saved 600 bucks for a processor. However, we use that now to heat our oil and filter it for WVO so it all worked out in the end.

Click to expand...

No worries. I'm sure you meant no harm. I assumed that you had stood at the bio crossroads yourself once. When I get involved in something I tend to ask many questions so that I can try to learn as much as I can from other people's success' and failures. I have seen some peoples systems and some of them seem like they take up too much room and are too messy. Now I know its not easy to be super clean with 50 gallons of WVO, but the cleaner the system the more viable it would be for us. I appreciate the feedback. I'll let you know how the seminar is. They have a bio-pro and some other systems and plenty of supplies. I'm quite excited. Thanks

How do you mix the VO in the cubies? Sounds interesting.

bird lives said:

How do you mix the VO in the cubies? Sounds interesting.

Click to expand...

We could never accomplish bio on a larger scale. We started using gallon milk jugs at 6 of them at a time lol. After we saw that we could do this with good success we graduated to the cubies that VO comes in.

We use our processor that was suppose to process bio to just heat the oil up. We mix the methoxide seperate in orange juice containers Once the oil is up to temp we have a ball valve thats suppose to drain the bio but instead drains the heated VO. We use a funnel and drain it in to the cubie at a maximum of 3 gallons. We pour in the methoxide and shake it to mix it up.

To compensate for the expansion of a chemical reaction, we have a hole drilled in top of the lid and we use a garage rag on top to hold the pressure and relieve the pressure.

We have used this method with much sucess. It works very well. It suits our needs just fine because our source is not very large. We usually only get about 3 gallons of oil that useful for biodiesel a week with the exception of finding lucky one time sources here or there.

We have graduated to burning WVO though, we have a great source of that. A good 20 gallons a week. Too bad it can't be used for bio.

I have been driving on Bio that is made in a Bio Pro 380 for about 2500 miles. Not my BioPro, but I talked to the guy at great length about it and now just buy BioD from him. I haven't had any problems with it, but I can tell from seeing his set-up that it is far from a stand-alone unit. He's got pumps, barrels, totes and jugs all over the place. Some of it is probably him getting his operation up to speed, but it looks like a royal PITA. I also met with a distributor when I was thinking about buying the 190, but seeing his set-up quickly made me realize you need a lot of room for all the extras and I rent. Doesn't look like a "part-time" gig to me.

If you can, go check one out in person that is up and running. A distributor might able to get you in touch with someone near you. Good Luck!

We have graduated to burning WVO though, we have a great source of that. A good 20 gallons a week. Too bad it can't be used for bio.

Click to expand...

Why can't you use your WVO for bio? Really high titration numbers?

McBrew said:

Why can't you use your WVO for bio? Really high titration numbers?

Click to expand...

The titrations are a good 17 if not more, which really killed our spirits on biodiesel when we found that was our problem. We had a smaller source that titrated at a 6, granted not the best but its what we got to work with and it produces good results.

We even tried to "force" the reaction by using enough chemical to compensate for the higher titration numbers. Still didn't work.

I have heard of sulfuric acid being used to lower the titration numbers and I had mentioned that. I really have a problem using that to get the values down in a fuel that we are going to use down the road. I mean sulfuric acid in a fuel doesn't sound good....even though it probably would come out during the washing process.

It would make more sense to find a better source and to this day we haven't found that.

Bio can be a pain in the butt....I think thats why we went the WVO route.

Sulfuric acid might sound bad, but remember that your oil is acidic already! The sulfuric acid reacts chemically with the acids in the oil... it does not stay in the fuel. Just like how biodiesel doesn' have any methanol or lye in it when the reaction is complete. They are "used up" and anything left over is washed out.

Some people using highly acidic WVO have had good luck neutralizing it using baking soda or other things. Sorry, I don't know as much about that side of it... but I bet you can find a lot over at the infopop board.

McBrew said:

Sulfuric acid might sound bad, but remember that your oil is acidic already! The sulfuric acid reacts chemically with the acids in the oil... it does not stay in the fuel. Just like how biodiesel doesn' have any methanol or lye in it when the reaction is complete. They are "used up" and anything left over is washed out.

Some people using highly acidic WVO have had good luck neutralizing it using baking soda or other things. Sorry, I don't know as much about that side of it... but I bet you can find a lot over at the infopop board.

Click to expand...

You seem very knowledgable on the subject. Do you yourself use sulfuric acid to neutralize acids in your oil or do you just have a huge supply of really great oil?

I'm thinking about going down the sulfuric acid route, it makes sense now that you said that. It would be "used up."

If we can get the stuff to convert, we have about 150 gallons of oil that we could convert to bio.

Another question, how cost effective is "acid esterfication" I think the word is. How much sulfuric acid would you use for a titration at 17 for 15 gallons for example. I guess my question is do you need a huge amount of sulfuric acid added to every batch or is it a reasonable amount. (Remembering the whole point of biodiesel is avoiding high fuel costs)

I need to do some research....

T, read up on Fischer esterification/ acid/base reacting.

Reacting oil with really high titration numbers with methanol/sulfuric acid converts only the free fatty acids to biodiesel. You then have to react the oil a second time by base-catalyzed esterification to convert the remainder (WVO still) to methyl ester biodiesel.

No acid remains in the end product. However, the acid-catalyzed Fischer esterification does produce water as a byproduct, which needs to be dealt with and/or mitigated using dehydrating agents or steps. Otherwise it 'poisons' the FFA-->bioD conversion reaction.

A reaction scheme like:

acid1
acid2
(decant oil from acid1 into another vessel for acid2 Rx)
base1

may work for you.

It isn't as hard as it sounds, especially on your small scale.

bird lives,

Apologies for the tangent. Does the biopro do multi-stage Rx?

Nick said:

bird lives,

Apologies for the tangent. Does the biopro do multi-stage Rx?

Click to expand...

Oh, no need to apologize. I'm here to learn and any relevant topic will do. I actually got caught up in the "so let me get this straight $5 fuel" thread. It's sorta like catching yourself watching the Jerry Springer show. I told them to put their seatbelts on. I'm going to a seminar run by the Biofuel Clinic near Geneseo, NY tomorrow.