WE DID IT!!!!!

Today after fourth period, everybody went outside and we were watching some men put our bio diesel into the bus. Right after the bus started, the crowd went wild! He was about to start driving it when a bank was robbed so we had to go into lockdown mode. My teacher told us that the bus did successfully make it around the parking lot and all the way to Alpharetta. This project was definitally a success!!

We Are Almost There

The color of the fuel has definitly changed colors. There is also and spongy layer of something in the oil so one of our classmates researched to see what it was. We still dont know for sure what it is but we will find out. We also needed a place to dump the sludge from the oil so we called georgia Tech to find out but they kept hanging up. I can tell that we are really close because of the color and how clean the oil is. WE CAN DO IT!!

Last Time Cleaning the Oil

         Right when we walked into the room, we got to work. The whole class got there bottler full of oil and divided into groups of two. Then one of the people would slowly let the bad part of the oil run out. When all of the sludge ran out of the oil, we cleaned off the bottle and let it sit overnight, The next day, we got the oil and poured the oil into beakers. There was still some sludge left in the bottles so we didn't pour that in the beakers. We made a lot of oil as a class and I'm very proud.

What We Did in Class Today

          Well at the the begining of class, me and some other students had to put 12 grams of sodium hydroxide into 16 little cups. After we finished doing that, the whole class poured the 12 grams of sodium hydroxide into a bottle with 250mL of methanol in it. We had to shake the bottle vigourosly for about 10 minutes so the sodium hydroxide would dissolve.
          After the sodium hydroxide had all dissolved we gave the bottle to Mrs. Rioux and she poured the bottle of methane and sodium hydroxide into the oil. We then had to gently shake the bottle with everything in it 6 times. The last thing we did was set the bottle upside down and then we were done.

How Energy Flows Through an Engine

When an engine burns fuel, it converts the energy stored in the fuel's chemical bonds into into heat. Different types of fuel have different amounts of energy, but in any given fuel there is a certain amount of energy.The first law of thermodynamics says that when all of the fuel's energy is released by burning in the engine's cylinders, it doesn't disappear. The total amount of energy stays the same.

Day 2 of Filtering Lab

    Today in science, we pretty much did the same exact thing as yesterday but it was more successful. Instead of using cheese cloth and a strainer, we just used a strainer. I don't know why but it worked much better and it didnt clog. I learned that the cheese cloth isnt really necesarry. I also learned that you should always let a teacher fix oil pumps because I had a liitle accident with that.

What We Did Today

In class today, we filtered the oil from the cafeteria. We put the strainer over a clean bucket with two cheese cloths over it. Then we poured in the oil and it got cleaned by the strainer and cheese cloth. The cheese cloth and strainer worked perfectly except it got clogged up once or twice. I learned that the only way to get the oil off your gloves is the blue dawn.

Hypothesis, Procedure, Materials

HYPOTHESIS
    If the oil is boiled correctly and for long enough, then the food chunks will fall off and you can just take those out of the pot with a spoon.
MATERIALS
    2 Pots
    Stove
    Strainer
PROCEDURES
    First you would put the oil on the stove and wait for it to start boiling. After it's done boiling, you pour the oil into the strainer and the oil would go into the second pot leaving the food chunks behind. You then take the pot with the clean oil in it and that's the cleaned oil.
   

Filtering Vegetable Oil

     First you have to let the vegetable oil cool down because it is very dangerous when its hot. Secondly, you line the strainer with the cheese cloth. The cheese cloth will catch the really small food particles that would normally slip through. This will make the oil as clean as possible. Then you slowly pour the oil into the strainer and the strainer will catch the food chunks, but let the clean oil go.

Bio Diesel Project Begins

     In this project, we are trying to make a bio diesel engine run off of the french fry oil from our cafeteria. If the fuel works, it will be put into one of our school buses and the bus will take a few laps around the parking lot.
    When I first heard that we were doing this project I was kind of mad and I thought that it was going to be really hard and a waste of my time. I now realize that it looks really cool and exciting.
     I have a couple of questions about this project. Do people actually use this kind of oil in their real cars? my other question is is this kind of fuel better for the enviorment than regular fuel from the gas station?