deacidifying pyrolysis oil / extraction of naphthenic acid from synthetic oil

hello you all in this video we will be working with the previously made pyrolysis oil
to make the pyrolysis oil more usable we need to get rid of the acidic compounds that were formed during the pyrolysis process. Therefore we perform a simple extraction with sodium hydroxide and regenerate the naphthenic acids by reacting the sodium slats formed in the extraction with hydrochloric acid

[@HazelChem]

hello you all in this video we will be working with the previously made pyrolysis oil to make the pyrolysis oil more usable we need to get rid of the acidic compounds that were formed during the pyrolysis process. Therefore we perform a simple extraction with sodium hydroxide and regenerate the naphthenic acids by reacting the sodium slats formed in the extraction with hydrochloric acid so now lets dive straight into the fun. To get started we prepare a alkaline solution by dissolving 25 grams of sodium hydroxide in 250 milliliters distilled water it is important to use distilled water to avoid contamination with other ions furthermore the method I chose here is not the best … It is saver to add some water into the vessel before you add the hydroxide which will prevent the hydroxide from overheating when you fill up to 250 milliliter line the solution we are making is around 10 percent sodium hydroxide. I am working with this exact concentration because in several papers I read on the extraction of naphthenic acids all agreed on around 10 percent base concentration and some hinted that a higher concentration will lead to unwanted sideractions or the formation of a emulsion that will prevent the phase separation which will make it impossible to separate the organic from the water layer to perform the extraction we add 50 milliliters of the ten percent sodium hydroxide solution to 100 milliliters of the pyrolysis oil. This sample of oil I am using was stored for around 2 months to give the oil time to stabilize. This means that compounds like styrene and other reactive monomers had time to polymerize and yield a stable oil after we added the hydroxide solution I am adding a stir bar and closing of the top of the Erlenmeyer flask to prevent crude oil from splashing out during the vigorous stirring. You can´t smell it through your screen but the pyrolysis oil smells really bad …. Plus it is has a lot of aromatic hydrocarbons in it which make it toxic and carcinogenic …. So even if it smelled like roses you would not like to smell it and that’s why I am working in my fume hood so now back to our Erlenmeyer flask. As you can see the vigorous stirring forms a fine emulsion of the alkaline solution and the organic phase which is the oil. This allows us to react nearly all of organic acids in the oil and form their sodium salts which then dissolve into the water layer I continued the stirring for 30 minutes to hopefully react all of the acidic compounds in the oil after the reaction was done I stopped the stirring and prepared a separatory funnel to separate the water and the organic phase. But as usual something had to go wrong and I forgot to close the valve which lead to a spill out. When all the reaction mixture was transferred into the funnel some black carbon precipitate was left in the Erlenmeyer flask. So now we come to the second problem we encounter in this process. In the funnel an emulsions was formed which made it impossible to cleanly separate the layers. To overcome this I added more water and shook the mixture in the funnel. My guess is that this should work by reducing the concentration of base in the mixture thus reducing the emulsifying effect and yielding us two clean layers And it worked the reaction mixture separated into two clean layers with the top one being our mostly deacicified pyrolysis oil and the bottom one water with sodium hydroxide alkali salts of different organic compounds and some pollutants which dissolved into the water. But what would such a workup be without yes you guessed it another problem. Remember the carbon precipitate in the Erlenmeyer flask turns out that the whole mixture is full of fine carbon particulate that clocks the valve of the separatory funnel which left me with the most undesirable option…. separating by hand with a pipette. While I am pipetting of the water layer there are some things I want to discuss. I will redo this experiment because it is an important analysis step by determining the percentage of acidic compounds in the oil but the next time I will distill the oil first before performing the extraction. A distillation reduces the viscosity of the oil by separating the lower boiling fractions in the oil from the paraffin’s which make the oil that viscous. The other thing is that the carbon particulate is left in the distillation flask thus making it easier to work with the oil. The high boiling paraffin´s can then be dissolved in chloroform and their acidity can then be easily determined. So now back to our naphthenic acids. After the separation the water layer is filtered to get rid of the fine carbon particulate. I used a vacuum filtration but a simple gravity filtration works as well. I don’t know how all of this carbon gets into the oil but my guess is that unstable compounds formed in the pyrolysis brake down under the elimination of nitrogen water carbon dioxide and carbon. The carbon particles then sticks together to form bigger carbon lumps that make the oil this hard to work with. After the filtration the now cleaner filtrate is transferred into a beaker to perform the precipitation of the naphthenic acids. Interestingly the water layer is now pitch black which could be due to very small carbon particles that were not filtered out or the dissolved compounds give that color to water phase. Anyhow we want the free naphthenic acids therefore we add a stir bar to our filtered water layer. To regenerate the in water insoluble naphthenic acids we need to lower the ph into a highly acidic region where the sodium salts convert into the free carbonic acids. For this I am using concentrated hydrochloric acid because it has a low boiling point is easily washed away with water and has no oxidizing effect like sulfuric acid. When the acid is added you can see white clouds of naphthenic acid that form but are quickly dissolving back into the still alkaline solution. This happens because the hydrochloric acid first has to react all the hydroxide ions into water before it can react with the sodium naphthenate to regenerate the free organic acid and sodium chloride So you might have noticed that I am using my real voice for this video and I want to know what you my viewers think about this choice which one do you like better? The robotic voice or my one. Please leave a comment to tell me your opinion so I can go on with the way that you like the most. Secondly we are now nearly at 6 thousand subscriber and I wanted to thank you all for your support comments and interest in my work despite the long time between my videos. When you think no more naphthenic acid is crashing out you can check the ph using an indicator paper in my chase the red shows that the solution is now highly acidic just how it needs to be. An interesting fact about naphtanates is that the aluminum salts of naphthenic acids are used to produce napalm. Which I will explore in a future video just because it is too much fun to make your own real napalm. After the conversion into free carbonic acids is done the stirring is stopped and the naphthenic acid is filtered off. Again I am doing this with vacuum filtration but you can also use a simple gravity filtration. To get rid of any salts and hydrochloric acid the precipitate is washed several times with distilled water. After this the acids are dried on the pump for 3 minutes to get rid of as much water as possible It is important to note that the filtrate has to be disposed of properly because there are still traces of many pollutants in it that are harmful to microorganism fish and plants. The Canadian oil sand industries biggest waste output is such water that is polluted with traces of hydrocarbons aromatic compounds and naphtanates. Over the years there have been several studies linking this cocktail of pollutants to cancer and other illnesses in humans. This information is to underline the importance that such chemical waste isn’t just poured down the drain. I will repeat this process on a larger scale and work up the produced naphthenic acid analyze its properties and synthesize some aluminum nahptenate to make some napalm but for now that’s it The next video is already filmed and is about the further insulation of the pyrolysis reactor to make it more efficient so have fun and don’t kill your self

[@luisantoniogarces4227]

Well explained and keep ur own voice. Thanks

[@TheMiguelcastelo]

Keep your voice

[@marcofico1]

Could you next time also recristallyze them just to see how it looks when purified?

[@sushiquad]

you should pin this comment to the top!

[@MrApokalipse666]

You could have filtered the solution before seperating the layer, often solids encurage the formation of an emulsion. Sometimes it helps to add CaCl2 to the aqueous phase to make it more polar.

[@brunoesomonu7970]

Please keep ur voice thank God I thought you would never speak

[@ericlotze7724]

Another option is text on screen with no voice. Also some ai based TTS systems may exist that sound much better. Or just keep doing it like this video. Either way you're fine.

[@richardsmith3199]

keep your voice over, dont use the terrible robotic grammar ignoring voice

[@deep470]

Own voice is fine!

[@ericlotze7724]

Another option is text on screen with no voice. Also some ai based TTS systems may exist that sound much better. Or just keep doing it like this video. Either way you're fine

[@normhoback5545]

kinda late to the party, just found the channel. Please keep your voice.

[@piranha031091]

Great content! I prefer quality over quantity. ^^ (And I prefer your real voice over the robot one too!)

[@ryan._.6417]

Finally after 3 months . Its 3 am and your channel just popped in my mind.

[@Psychotoys]

If I had the intelligence I would be working with you on this. The world desperately needs this. Thank you.

[@BothHands1]

i'm so glad to finally see the continuation of this series! i definitely prefer your real voice, to be honest. i like your accent a lot too :)

[@HazelChem]

thx :D then it will be the real voice from now on mfg hazelChem

[@alfredmolison7134]

Your real voice is good. I like it and you explain things clearly.

[@hectorantillont2692]

Hello Sir very intersting your video... I have a question... how much ácid HCL do you add to the oil, and what concetration is the acid i have 37% HCL acid, is ok... ?

[@science_and_anonymous]

Absolutely great video once again. I'll add this to my notification reminder so I see it early next time.

[@spirituallyinsane]

Your voice is wonderful. Keep using it for your videos!

[@sushiquad]

thanks for the videos! i like them better with your real voice haha. i am studying pyrolysis of plastic to fuel for my phd so it is helpful to see videos of it being done at a bench scale (i think this would be considered bench scale??) . I'll be using a micro-reactor, but im interested in seeing how this can be done at an industrial level.

[@NeonblueIndustries]

Real voice All the way man! Thanks for the great vidz!

[@derghiarrinde]

Your voice sounds amazing, soft and manly at the same time. I have no idea why you used robotic voice before, your voice is superior even to most youtubers.

[@notknownyet]

Wow Simply you are amazing... You are doing a great work, kind of your fan..... And yeah i won't die just yet ofc... 😂😂😁😁

[@danieldewindt3919]

Please don't be afraid to be you. Use your own voice. Awsome!

[@Stonehawk]

i prefer your natural voice :D it feels MUCH more personal!

[@Bizzybugproductions]

Your real voice is amazing 👏

[@Kenniii3]

Human voice always👍

[@BigGerman2023]

good to see some people use the good old stuff from former east germany 👍👍👍

[@TrueCrimeAdventures]

Great video your own voice is much better than the electronic one

[@sigmawarrior.fokeryou]

Your voice is great, just keep the videos coming

[@ross6160]

Your own voice mate, it makes it far easier to understand.

[@lalyanasimkin5398]

your natural voice is a lot more pleasant

[@johnblacksuperchemist2556]

COOL VIDEO...........I did not even know what naphthenic acids were before this video. ALSO your voice is a LOT better than the computer voice

[@boncambier1607]

Your narration is excellent!

[@HazelChem]

Glad you enjoyed it ^^ mfg hazelChem

[@hmsilvaantonio]

Keep up with using your own voice, good job!

[@tedfeats1719]

Excellent. Your voiced preferred. Subscribed.

[@ThePurpleRider]

Very nice. As much as I liked the Robo-Voice, yours is much easier to listen to.

[@coolkrass5079]

I really love you videos, they're extremely well explained and informative at the same time! I think you'd need a cyclone at the pyrolysis part in order to overcome the problem the carbon residue presented here. This way, you'd filter out the carbon black before it hits the destillation process which might make it a little easier. Btw, use your own voice it's more neutral than this robotic stuff. Greetings from Germany.

[@maelgrum]

You voice is good ! ))

[@MacShrike]

Your voice and accent are quite reassuring and relay your competence. Keep it please. About the carcenogenic gasses and wasteproducts; do you think this negates the benefit of recycling? And if so. How would you weigh it? Recycling plastics and reusing them as fuel is amazing, splendid and worthwhile, if and only IF the resulting toxidity from the byproducts do not outweigh the benefits. Could you explore this perhaps? Highest regards, Mac

[@antoniosanford4675]

1. Your voice is fine to use 2. This looks very similar to the way biodiesel is made from old grease.

[@ReidRed1]

Great stuff!

[@TheBegoing]

Your voice your accent compliments the work.

[@HazelChem]

Thank you! 😃

[@hoggif]

I have a habbit of putting a beaker below a separating funnel, always. If I forgot to check the valve it can save the day. More than often you need some container to drain liquids anyway, so why not do that always and before filling it.

[@dribrahimel-nahhal2477]

Great vid!

[@soroka6983]

Hello! Real voice rocks!

[@Psychotoys]

At what point of breaking down my plastics in to fuel can I find a buyer to refine it like you are doing?

[@clausrei]

I have evaporated some LDPE plastic inside an old paint tin serving as a pyrolysis reactor. I got four products as a result: Inside of the collection glass jar. 1.) transparent liquid, which smells terrible but doesn't burn. 2.) brown liquid, which smells terrible and burns very good with some black smoke. 3.) solid yellow stuff, swimming like a blob inside of the liquid, which burns also. Inside of the tin pyrolysis reactor. 4.) black oily stuff left inside of the tin. Very likely could be further reduced, but my camping stove run out of gas. What is it all?

[@heyyoubuddy6749]

Your voice is much better I am very interested in your work.

[@hobbitreet]

Your real voice is more authoritative and confident.

[@wesleycastner4860]

Great job

[@ffff1758]

Ja!! I was prety sure until now that you were a woman whn using the previous voice!!! Please keep your own one. And, as a chemical engineer myself, I must add: your videos are great!!! Keep on!!!

[@HazelChem]

nice to hear such positive feedback from someone who is working in the chemical industry mfg hazelChem

[@dempa3]

Very interesting! Do you know if it is possible to DIY hydrotreated vegetable oil (hvo) as a diesel substitute? Maybe waste vegetable oil from restaurants could be used, abd if we could reduce the viscosity by hydrotreatinc it, it could be easier to use as a fuel in diesel engines. Additionally, did I understand correctly that one could use wood for pyrolisis, instead of plastic?

[@Antonio-qm3bi]

Precisamente, el metanol se llamó alcohol de madera, ya que se obtenía por pirólisis de la misma

[@ianmalcolm4731]

Great accent Hazel! Keep your voice

[@moisty254]

I'm waiting for the post explosion fallout video where you have no eyebrows. Oh and your voice is great, keep up the good work 👍

[@Abdelrahman-Eltaweel.1st]

الاستاذ.الفاضل.شكرا.لك.على.إخلاصك.فى.معلوماتك.ووفرة.علمك.ونرجوا.إنشاء.الله.المزيد. عندى.مفاعل.حرارى.للكاوتش.وأريد.طريقه.أكثر.صناعيه.تجاريه.للتخلص.من.الكربون.والشوائب.ليتسنى.لى.بيعه.نقيا.رائق.وصاف.وشكر.

[@burtmcgurt3584]

Your voice is WAAAAY better!

[@peraz968]

Real voice is always Real! And thats a good thing! Robotic voice is not very realistic and thats sometimes innoing. So, my voice goes to you and your real voice! Ps. You have good and interesting videos! Thanks for those!

[@slavetool9066]

Your voice is best

[@larscw74]

I generally check out when hearing the robot voice but as the subject of the video is interesting I kept watching.

[@mspringett]

I personally like your own voice as opposed to the robotic voice.

[@ThundermanDeadEndScribes]

Humans voice are always easier to listen to because you can naturally emphasize.

[@nikikrastev5606]

Congrats for the great video! Would you please share what would be a "proper disposal" of the precipitation? What do you do with the water after filtering out the precipitation?

[@HazelChem]

thx for the positive feedback :D the best thing is to "kill it with fire" XD no but seriously just burn it in a fire that is already very hot. mfg hazelChem

[@richardmcdonald7565]

@@HazelChem so it can go directly into the air?? I don't think SO !! We need other better alternatives, if this is going to work... and not further screw up the planet.

[@Antonio-qm3bi]

@@richardmcdonald7565 Burning it will produce the safer Carbon dioxide, mate...

[@damianblandi4294]

hey is there a single book where i can learn all this? or is a cunjuction of books? Love the vids, keep it up.

[@HazelChem]

well i do not think so but i recommend sci-hub.tw this is a tool which allows you to read most of the science articles that would be otherwise behind a paywall :D and thanks for the positive feedback mfg hazelChem

[@ocayaro]

Good narration compared to previous videos. Your own voice ❤

[@HazelChem]

Thanks a lot. I started knowing really little about how to make videos it is good hearing that there is a improvement over time. mfg hazelChem

[@Zod32]

agreed

[@SimiliaSC]

Hey Man, Good on you,,, i have really loved your videos so far,,, i was looking to build a pyro-still for wood and i ended un in your channel,, Bravo!... This process you are doing in this video, looks like what im after.. to be more precise, i would like to use the light fraction oils from wood pyro's in order to get phenols from them... could you give me any suggestions? or do you have any video about it? in the process i would like to use the least amount of external chemicals,,, i have a book that talks about it, but there are too many ways he is describing, also, the processes mentioned in that book are for very large mass of material, and i will be working with probably 2/3kg of wood,,,, Thanks a lot Brother,, keep it up!

[@HazelChem]

thx for the postitve feeback. You can run wood through the same process and fractionally distill the product this should yield phenoles. This is how they did it historically. I hope this helps you mfg hazelChem

[@hjdorn]

I used to dislike the robotic voice, but now it makes me think of fun chemistry.

[@wallacesh954rr]

use your regular voice. it matches well doing science explanations

[@AnonYmous-yi4zy]

Great videos! Your own voice is really nice!! Way better than the synthesizer voice!!

[@HazelChem]

Glad you think so! from now on all videos will be with my real voice mfg hazelChem

[@akamjo1]

Hello Why don't you use diethanolamine?

[@anthonysilva5015]

Much prefer hearing your voice. My location:Arkansas USA

[@LilKing420s]

Definitely use your own voice. Far more genuine and your accent speaking english is nice on the ears. Thanks for sharing!

[@HazelChem]

So nice of you thanks! I will stick to using my own voice mfg hazelChem

[@LilKing420s]

@@HazelChem You're welcome... thank YOU for taking the time to share your knowledge and experiences with the rest of us!

[@JavierAguilar-e3c]

Hi friend; I like your videos Could you explain to us how to eliminate those bad odors from the oil? And could you explain Catalytic Pyrolysis with Zeolite ZSM5 step by step? Please thank you very much

[@abdulqaderfayyadh9694]

well done mate

[@abdulqaderfayyadh9694]

you dont mention about ratio hcl

[@CaliforniaCarpenter7]

I prefer your voice, dude. Do you have a video of turning pyrolysis oil to useable diesel?

[@ADHDgonewild7]

You’re own voice is much better

[@anthonyalise8254]

your natural voice is preferred

[@ryanalo6891]

Great voice

[@bhartley1024]

Your real voice is much easier to listen to than the text-to-speech voice

[@high-speed-owen8831]

Your voice is fine , be yourself! That’s Always better then a robot ahaha

[@coachgeo]

so what do you think your final base % ended up being after adding additional water

[@Southghost5997]

Your voice is better than AI

[@JR-rk5dr]

you got a nice narration voice

[@RAIDFIX]

Your own voice. Natural voice has timbre and tonal variation, unlike a monotone robotic voice.

[@chrisstanford3652]

Real voice🤗🤗

[@yeboi2217]

You can narrate the work yourself... its cool

[@terjegjerstad9692]

Best with your voice. Robotic is enoying 😉

[@NicolasMartinez-pr8mz]

Yess your voice is better!

[@mihirbendre5049]

How do I start doing pyrolysis as a high schooler? Where did u get access to research papers? How did you find out and start experimenting pyrolysis? Can we use electric heating for pyrolysis, so no CO2 produced?

[@HazelChem]

yes you can heat electrically. mfg hazelCehm

[@johnnyli97]

Only sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid?

[@corymilbury1459]

Real voice!

[@justinbeloy5829]

real voice.

[@utkarshshukla2246]

Your voice is good

[@blaertgaaro5821]

Sehr interessanter Kanal. Ist das nur dein Hobby? oder bist du Chemiker, Verfahrenstechniker,.... ?

[@HazelChem]

Reines Hobby :D

[@blaertgaaro5821]

@@HazelChem definitv nen cooles hobby, weiter so!

[@lawfulremedies1838]

I like the voice. But there are occasion where you can have a narrator and it works too. I'd say mix it up.

[@HannesSchwarzberger]

I made my pyrolysis only to 320 degree Celsius with selected products without PVC = my product is Yello clean diesel/kerosene with some of Paraffin - I will use it only to cook or heat water

[@charlesflaco7976]

Don't they use the same for waste vegetable oil?

[@jrespinoyahoocom]

Your voice is better!,

[@piotriii2519]

sir, you need to know , you should'nt use directly NaOh on pyrolysis oil. It makes organics reactions,i think you receive some high molecular alcohols or esters. You should first make separations of pirolysis oil and make dilution. Check how to research acid number. Good luck

[@high-speed-owen8831]

Are you from Canada ?

[@Gnefitisis]

If you wanted to break the emulsion easily, why not just add brine water? Works for me!

[@mobeen360]

You have a beautiful voice why wasting it. Also last sentance of the video was vary good you can make it a slogan of your channel. When your channel will grow you can also merchandise this sentence. Hehehe a kind advice.😅😁

[@gengl671]

Real voice

[@wetry5530]

i have unit that recycle used engine oil to base oil but the product is low flash point around 70 and sometimes less

[@ahsimiksnabac6576]

I think you should use both voices, you could do a sort of conversation between the 2 voices.

[@AfroAttack]

What is the point of so carefully making up that solution to a precise concentration when NaOH cannot be weighed accurately without a glovebox

[@HazelChem]

you are right do to its high hygroscopic potential. But trying as best as possible was my intention here mfg hazelChem

[@frankbeans289]

Human voice is better than that robot voice. Your voice sounds great to me!

[@tonydiesel3444]

What about sulfuric acid and t e a