For many, the use of methanol is a little disconcerting as it is derived from fosil fuels, however it is still the simplest alcohol to use for the biodiesel production process. As a means of reducing the ecological impact of methanol use some have opted to recover a portion of it via the use of a condenser and simply distill it from the glycerine by-product ect. left over after the reaction has completed.

There are many ingenious ways of building a condenser; some are attached to the reactor/processor while yet others are free-standing units, not unlike the old pot stills used in the moonshine days. Actually a pot still would make an excellent methanol recovery unit, for those with the knowledge and materials to build one.

For common people, like us, we have chosen a simpler route. A very basic, water-cooled condenser with steam entering one end and liquid coming out at the other. Our condenser can be made by anyone who has access to a hardware store where plumbing supplies are sold.

We have used a piece of black two inch water pipe as the body and a coil of soft copper as the condensing unit.

In the above photo you can see all the materials needed, other than what you attach it to, to build a no-nonsense methanol recovery unit.
A .91m (3ft) piece of 5.08cm (2in) water drain pipe with two 7.6cm (3 inch) nipples cut from the ends. Then the nipples are fitted into end caps and T's with a 5.08cm (2") female thread in the side port. Into these threaded side ports we screw in poly bungs from poly drums with a center thread of 1.9cm (3/4in) already installed in the knock-out plug. Into these openings we screw in 1.9cm (3/4in) male to hose barb fittings. Standard teflon pipe tape is used for the fittings. Be sure to use the proper type of pipe cement when glueing the parts together. Ask the people where you get the drain pipe from which is best for your application.

Were it not for the soft copper coil we would be done, but then it wouldn't work, so on to the coil.

Seeing as we are using soft copper and it already comes pre-measured, we decided on a 3.04m (10ft) piece. You may think that that is way too long to fit inside that short piece of drain pipe, but think again. We took a 3.8cm (1 1/2in) diameter pipe and, leaving enough for end lengths, started slowly coiling the soft copper around the pipe until we got the result seen in the photo. Now all that has to be done is fit it inside the drain pipe and close it all up. The end caps have to have holes poked through to let the ends of the copper coil stick out. Make the holes just barely big enough for this purpose. You can actually just make small X incisions in the center and then thread the coil through it at either end which will cause the X's to bulge outward. This is good and will fascilitate the sealing of it later.

After having poked one end of the coil through the end cap and making sure that the cap is well glued to the nipple you can then gently stretch the coil out so that the other end can be poked through the other end cap. You do not leave the pipe inside the coil, by the way, it is only used to do the coiling so you don't get any kinks in the copper tubing. Now that you have the copper coil poking out both end caps, they have to be sealed so the water won't be coming out and mixing with the methanol making the whole exercise pointless.