gnitseretni - 9-5-2007 at 08:20
Does anyone know if PVC can withstand the chemicals involved in making biodiesel? Reason for asking is i thought a 2 foot long 12" PVC tube with two
end caps (bottom cap glued on) would make a nice reactor tank, would it not?
not_important - 9-5-2007 at 08:42
a typical way to get answers to questions such as yours is to type a phrase like "pvc chemical resistance" into a search engine and then examine
results likw these :
http://www.buerkle.de/eng/d2-1.php
http://www.omega.com/pdf/tubing/technical_section/chemical_c...
http://www.vylonpipe.com/techsheets/Chemical%20Resistance%20...
http://www.tangram.co.uk/TI-Polymer-PVC-Rigid_Chemical.html
Note that PVC rapidly loes strength the warmer it is, by 60 C ordinary PVC will have lost at least 3/4 of its room temperature strength.
vulture - 9-5-2007 at 13:21
There is no such thing as PVC. Well, there is in the chemical definition, but there are many different types of PVC on the market.
Additives, molecular weight, processing history all influence the properties of a polymer greatly, something which you need to be absolutely aware of.
bio2 - 9-5-2007 at 20:33
Unplasticized rigid PVC is a translucent blue product available
as tube (pipe). It is FDA rated for food content and is
the purest form of unmodified polyvinyl chloride generally available.
The white water tube of PVC is pthallate modified and swells and softens easily using organic solvents and is really suitable
for only aqueous acid and base.
PVC integrity
chemrox - 18-8-2007 at 10:51
I was involved in the installation of a number of 400+ ft. deep PVC monitoring wells in an arid environment with naturally mineralized groundwater.
The pipe would go in flexible but after a few months in the hole it became brittle. We left one for a month before trying to develop the well with
air and ended up blowing a huge chunk of the casing out. In my shop we had the same questions. The engineer I work with looked up chemical
susceptibilities for various materials and concluded Schedule 40 PVC pipe would be usable but I'm skeptical about it because of my experiences with
it.
[Edited on 18-8-2007 by chemrox]
evil_lurker - 18-8-2007 at 11:28
Yes you can use plain old hardware store PVC with biodiesel.
Eclectic - 18-8-2007 at 12:48
Why not just use a 5 gallon plastic bucket?
Or a 15 or 55 gallon plastic drum?
[Edited on 8-18-2007 by Eclectic]