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Main » 2013 » September » 24 » Make Your Own Biodiesel � Part 1 by Yoni Levy
10:39 AM Make Your Own Biodiesel � Part 1 by Yoni Levy |
Make Your Own Biodiesel � Part 1 by Yoni Levy
Three
choices
Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your
kitchen -- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell
you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel,
and it's much cleaner -- better for the environment and better for health.
If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only cheap but you'll be
recycling a troublesome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of
freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it --
everything you need to know.
There are at least three ways to run a
diesel engine on biofuel using vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All three
are used with both fresh and used oils.
1. Use the oil just as it is --
usually called SVO fuel (straight vegetable oil);
2. Mix it with kerosene
(paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or blend it with a
solvent, or with gasoline;
3. Convert it to biodiesel Charlotte Olympia.
The
first two methods sound easiest, but, as so often in life, it's not quite that
simple.
1. Mixing it
Vegetable oil is much more viscous (thicker)
than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or blending it
with other fuels is to lower the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows
more freely through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.
If
you're mixing veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (same as #1 diesel)
you're still using fossilfuel -- cleaner than most, but still not clean enough,
many would say. Still, for every gallon of
vegetable oil you use, that's
one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in
the atmosphere.
People use various mixes, ranging from 10% vegetable oil
and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just
use it that way, start up and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil
much thinner), or even use pure vegetable oil without pre-heating it, which
would make it much thinner.
You might get away with it with an older
Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is a very tough and tolerant motor -- it
won't like it but you probably won't kill it. Otherwise, it's not
wise.
To do it properly you'll need what amounts to an SVO system with
fuel pre-heating anyway, preferably using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for
starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there's no need for the
mixes.
Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are
"experimental at best", little or nothing is known about their effects on the
combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-term effects on the engine
Charlotte
Olympia.
Higher viscosity is not the only problem with using
vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical properties and combustion
characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and
their fuel systems are designed.
Diesel engines are high-tech machines
with very precise fuel requirements, especially the more modern, cleaner-burning
diesels (see The
TDI-SVO controversy).
They're tough but they'll
only take so much abuse. There's no guarantee of it, but using a blend of up to
20% veg-oil of good quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels,
especially in summer.
Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either a
professional SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are generally a poor
compromise. But mixes do have an advantage in cold weather.
As with
biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel mixed with straight
vegetable oil lowers the temperature at which it starts to gel. (See Using
biodiesel in winter) More about fuel mixing and blends post by haiyan701.
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