Tuesday, May 24, 2011

BUS DAY!

THE MOST EXCITING DAY EVER! Ok, we had to come down during 4th period for the BUS! We had to do role call and everything but then we got to run the bus!!! The fuel WORKED! It was amazing! If it wasn't for Miss Rioux, then we wouldn't even be working on this! She is amazing! We also had ice cream sundaes! It was so good! oh! Don't let me forget, we had to have a school lock down during it! it was so intense. Over all it was beyond amazing!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

clean up day:)

All we did today was cleaning up because we ran out of sodium hydroxide.  We split into groups to do specific things.  The first group was to pour two liters of oil into the soda bottles.  The second group was to dry the wet equipment and put away. Another group was to clean the dishes.  The last group was just to scrape the left over gunk off of the top of the fuel.  These groups were actually pretty productive during the period.  This is all we did during this period and when we were finished we could just hang out and talk but not go crazy!

Monday, May 16, 2011

thursday:(

I was not here thursday.  Can my group members tell me what happened that day? 

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Thursday and Friday:)

On Friday, we took it another step forward and separated the rest of the sludge from the fuel.  We did this by separating into groups and pouring our bottles fuel into the beakers with out adding the waste.  Some of our bottles actually had too much sludge in it, so we had to throw it away.  After putting the fuel into the beakers, we had to funnel it into clean bottles.  We also had to clean our 2L soda bottles with just water.  
What is a catalyst? A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without changing its properties

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

making FUEL day#1

Today was the day for starting the making of the fuel.  There were three groups, which were placed with different tasks.  The first group had the task of putting the 1L of oil into the 2L soda bottles.  They would measure out 2L of oil then pour into the bottles by using a beaker and a funnel.  There was a lot of oil that splashed onto the tables or fell onto the floor.  The second group was to measure and weigh the 12 grams of sodium hydroxide.  The third and last group was to measure 250mL of methanol.
The last thing that was done today was the mixing of the ingredients.  First the methanol was added to the sodium hydroxide together into a jar.  Then the top had to be screwed tight so that none of the methanol could get onto the skin of the scientist that was mixing it. Third the jar had to be shaken until the sodium hydroxide was completely dissolved.  The fourth thing that was done was adding the methanol concoction with the oil.  They had to turn it upside down six times to mix the ingredients together.  The last thing that was done to the bottles was to put them upside down in a beaker.  This method was actually very organized.  The coolest part of the this was when there was a chemical reaction while shaking the methanol and sodium hydroxide.  The two reacted by heating the jar.  The hardest part was shaking the two together because it took forever for the sodium hydroxide to dissolve.  Other than that, this lab was very fun!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Diesel Engine Labeled

A Diesel engine is a combustion engine that uses heat of the compression to starts the ignition that burns the fuel, then put in a chamber during the last stage of compression.  The  Exhaust Camshaft allows the burnt gases to escape. The Water Jacket allows the coolant flow for smooth run. The Intake Camshaft takes driving force from crankshaft through gear train or chain and operates the exhaust camshaft.  The Valves allows the whole engine to run smoothly.  The Connecting Rod changes the reciprocating motion of piston into rotary motion at crankshaft.  This way connecting rod transfers the power made from piston to crankshaft.  The Crank Shaft gets the motion from connecting rod and gives a rotary motion to the main shaft

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Second day of work!!

Today, we finished up filtering the rest of the oil.  We also split into four groups to get everything done.  The first team was to filter the rest of the oil.  We were supposed to heat the oil today, but we found out that the class room did not contain the amount of power that was needed to power the oil, which was one of the complications we ran into.  The second team was to remove the big container that used to hold the used oil from the classroom to the back of the school.  We are the eighth period, so we usually the supplies that were used through out the day.  Then the third group was used to clean the buckets and cheese clothes.  The last team, which I was in, was the team to label the soda bottles by tapping a label onto the soda bottles.  One problem, and the only problem was that we accidentally knocked one soda bottle over, which made a domino affect, and knocked the last row down.  Other then that, we got everything done.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

today in class!

Today in class we separated ourselves into two groups.  One team was for cleaning supplies and bukets and the other team was for cleaning the oil.  I was in the group where we cleaned supplies and buckets. The oil covered everything so we had to use the hose outside and spray everything off until the water ran clear.  The oil took forever because it seemed as if the oil wasn't leaving the bucket or the supplies would accidentally fall into the dirt or the dirty bucket while cleaning it.  The high pressured water hose would also spray us if we were too close. But over all, we got all the supplies and buckets cleaned in the end.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

hypothesisssss

Hypothesis
If the experiment uses a cheese cloth to run the oil through, then the food and particles will be separated from the used oil because the particles and food pieces would be caught in the cheese cloth.
Materials
cheese cloth
funnel
rubber bands
buckets
Procedure
First heat the oil until it is easy to use and it inst solid.  Next, take the cheese cloth and funnel, and put the cloth over the funnel.  Then, put the funnel over a bucket and pure the heated oil into the funnel.  The oil in the bucket should be cleaned and there shouldn't be any more food or particles in the oil.

Monday, May 2, 2011

research:)

So far my research is about how to clean the used cooking oil.  We could use a filter to clean the used cooking oil.  The filter that we could use is one that is made of a jar and a coffee jar.  There are other ways but thats the one that kind of stood out.  We wouldn't have to stop at that when cleaning the oil and I highly recommend that we try and find another way to clean the oil completely.  There are different ways to make an engine run such as, mix it with petroleum diesel fuel, or with a solvent, or with gasoline, use the oil just as it is usually called SVO fuel (straight vegetable oil) or PPO fuel (pure plant oil), or convert it to bio-diesel.