Hi to all of you, I haven’t posted anything for a few months so I thought I’d log in to say Hello hoping you’re all safe and well! I’ve been concentrating on standard oil lamps for a while, leaving my lanterns in the display cabinet. In particular I’m now trying to make my own biokerosene from vegetable oil through a combination of methoxide transesterification and pyrolysis. I’m getting closer but viscosity is still too high at room temperature to wick up by capillarity alone. Every weekend I change some parameters doing more experiments in the garden. Below is shot of a small lamp burning brightly from my ‘fippacene’ (fake kerosene, lol…). It works well as the wick is quite short. The challenge is to vaporise it in a pressure lantern without it clogging with soot. I need more aromatics in the mix…. Hopefully without giving myself cancer!…
Hallo ! Looks like you’ve been busy and judging by the brightness of that wick you’re having some success
Alex who ? - only kidding nice to 'see' you back and posting. My (limited) understanding is methanol is the best additive - but can take the costs up too high ?
Yes, first experiments are promising but very labour intensive. I’m exploring vacuum fractional distillation now as well as higher pyrolysis temperatures. The neighbours just love me….
Welcome back Alex. I thought you're cured from pressure lamp disease. Looks like you're catching something else. You're actually using your expertise in chemistry directly in the hobby. Why do want more aromatics in the mix? Don't they tend to be more sooty? I might be wrong. How about using biodiesel as the feedstock?
Just seen these replies 2 months on! No excuses…. Increasing the aromatic content gives you a considerable brighter flame for wick lamps, but agree it will soot up more and hence not ideal for vaporisers of pressure lamps. I haven’t made any progress since March as too busy with work and the rest. However I did scale up to 1L which I now use in my gravity fled student lamps.
Italy was great thanks. Went to see the parents after 3 years. I think I must have caught it on the way back as they crammed us all in a departure lounge in Milan, then got stuck on a coach from Gatwick for 4 hour. Full of coughing kids, who were not wearing any masks….3 days later I started feeling poorly and sure enough I was positive. One week on and I’m still coughing and still showing as positive on the LFT test….
Oh I’m sorry Alex.. I hope things start to ease on that front a few folks I know have had it more than once but nearly all teachers/healthcare folks take care and best wishes pb
