Treating Emulsions with Heat

Heat can be used to successfully break emulsions. It is one of the key elements to quick and easy biodiesel production. It can also be used during transesterification and washing to speed things up and obtain purer results.

Heating up or adding hot water to and emulsified batch before leaving it to settle will help it break faster. Other methods are capable of breaking the mixture much more quickly but they do have a downfall... they add other ingredients that some are concerned don't come back out easily with washing (such as acid and salt).

As with most methods of breaking the 'chicken soup', there are no recipes set in stone... every biodiesel home brewer has a slightly different product. But here's one you can start with: add 5 gallons of very hot water for every 20 gallons of 'chicken soup', and stir gently with a paddle, then let it settle. If it doesn't break, move on to one of the other methods.

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