To do a titration, we typically will build a titration kit, and what this consists of is everything we need to make a titration, and do one with. To start off with you’re going to need to get some distilled water. The reason you want it to be distilled is because water has 0 pH, it’s neutral in other words with the pH. Kay, so you need some distilled water. You’re going to need some isopropyl alcohol. It’s important that it’s isopropyl and not methyl alcohol. I like to get as pure as I can. This is about 91% isopropyl alcohol, from the little local grocery store. I’m going to need a jar or a jug that’s sealable that can hold a liter of water, because this is what I’m going to make, and put, my titration solution in so that I can reuse it multiple times.
It’s important that if you put it in a jar that may be looking like water, that you mark it with a warning so that no one ever drinks out of it because this is poisonous, what we are going to make. You’re also going to need some containers to do your titration in. These are just simple little cups with milliliter markings on the side, if hit your local grocery store you can find some of these as well, usually in the kitchen isle. Then you’re also going to need a container with graduations up to a full liter because this is what we’re going to use to mix our titration solution in. You’re going to need a scale that’s accurate to.01 of a gram. This scale is called a gem scale. We use it jewelry to measure karats and stuff like that. It works quite well as well. But basically any scale will be a digital or a balance scale that can measure in accuracy to.01 of a gram.
You’re also going to need some syringes that have milliliter markings on them. You can go into a grocery store over at the pharmacy isle and pick some of these up as well. I have an assortment of syringes for doing several things but these go up to five milliliters, and then I have these little bulbs that allow me to get extremely accurate with how many drops of titration solution is put in to see just where I’m at. You’re also going need a pH indicator. This is phenolphaylene. It is a one percent solution of phenolphaylene, and it is what will indicate pH when I get over about 8.5, 8ish or so. It basically is going to tell us when we’ve neutralized all the acid, so we’ll be using this.
I have a little funnel that I like to have around that I can make my solution up with. I also have some safety gloves. It’s important to wear a safety guard when you’re doing this because you are going to be playing with some chemicals, particularly the catalyst either sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. You’re also going to need some catalyst. In particular this is potassium hydroxide.
Whatever you plan on making your biodiesel with, whether it be sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide, that needs to be the same chemical you use when you make up your titration solution. You can do the math to do the conversions, but you just get much more reliable titrations if you use the same chemical. That’s basically what makes up a basic titration kit. Titration kits can be had on the internet from various sources.
You can go into Walmart and build one up. Expect to pay a little bit for shipping because they have to send chemicals in them. Phenolphaylene can also be ordered online from various different places. You can get it at chemical stores. A good scale you can find on eBay or different things like that. So, that’s what you need to do a basic titration.
