First batch of biodiesel

[Hugh]

Totally OT,

I cooked up my first 22 gallon batch of biodiesel last night . After a couple of days of settling, then I will transfer to my wash tank for a few water washes, then drying...then into my F-250 diesel

Anyone else brewing? Driving diesel cars/trucks?

--Hugh

[Speedzilla]

I wish there were more diesels to coose from in the US.

Jeep has got a rumored 4 door Wrangler in the works and there was mention of them using a diesel motor.

Keep us updated on the Biodiesel project.

Where are you getting your "fuel"?

[Eric]

For minute there I thought I was on the wrong website.

I burn Bio pretty much exclusively in my VW. It's readily available here

in Portland, so I have no real desire to make my own. I'm

curious what your source of grease is. The stuff I buy is made

from Kettle potato chip fryer oil.

http://www.kettlefoods.com/index.php?cID=227

[Hugh]

I have a 100% corn oil source from a restaurant that only cooks tempura in it. They change it twice a week. I get 8-10 gallons a week and pickup once per week.

My truck is a 1991 F-250 7.3L, 5 speed with 152K miles http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v308/schugh/blue1.jpg

--Hugh

[Sinecure]

Hugh,

Can you get those stickers that allow you to run in the HOV lane if you run Bio Diesel in that thing? Does the truck smell like a Japanese restaurant if I follow you down the road? :p

What's involved in "brewing" biodiesel? Do you steal filters from work to get the crud out of the oil?

[Gecko]

I wish there were more diesels to coose from in the US.

Jeep has got a rumored 4 door Wrangler in the works and there was mention of them using a diesel motor.

Keep us updated on the Biodiesel project.

Where are you getting your "fuel"?

Jeep has the Liberty 2.8LCRD, I've got 8500 miles on mine. The new 2007 Wrangler was supposed to get the CRD in Rubicon trim but I think they had issues with the axles that they wanted or some such excuse. It also looks like the new Gladiator (if they build it) will get the 2.8L CRD as the stock motor. Next years Grand Cherokee is supposed to get a 3.0L CRD The Liberty Forum (www.lostkjs.com) that I belong to has a bunch of folks who use Bio. I noticed the difference when I had a tank of BioWillie in mine, however there isn't much of a selection for Bio in southern R.I. (closest is in Warwick about 45 miles away though they do deliver) and I'm not interested in brewing my own, though I may spring for a fuel oil tank in a year or two and fill it with B100 to tank mix.

[Speedzilla]

Gecko, what kind of MPG are you getting?

[Hugh]

No bio stickers that I know of that let me cruise in the fast lane, but I'll check into it. The "Man" would rather tax me for not buying his fuel.

Yes, my truck will smell good :D , as it is now, it still smells like regular diesel

To make my batch last night, I heated up 86 liters of filtered (20 micron) waste veggie oil (WVO) in my homemade converted electric water heater (Appleseed processor), then pumped in 860 grams of potassium hydroxide dissolved in 5 gallons of methanol. Mixed for 90 minutes, now it is settling for a couple of days. Next step is to drain off the glycerine byproduct, then water wash the biodiesel fuel, filter and dry, then pour into my truck. No conversions to the truck needed to run biodiesel.

I bought some particle filters from Grainger.com, also bought my oil pump and suction tube from them too.

Thanks for sharing my excitement :D

Hugh

Hugh,

Can you get those stickers that allow you to run in the HOV lane if you run Bio Diesel in that thing? Does the truck smell like a Japanese restaurant if I follow you down the road? :p

What's involved in "brewing" biodiesel? Do you steal filters from work to get the crud out of the oil?

[Gecko]

Gecko, what kind of MPG are you getting?

on Diesel 2 and B20 I got about 25-27mpg, here in New England on "Winter Diesel" I get about 20mpg. that should improve when they stop adding so much D1 to the mix in 2 months or so. BTW this mileage is city and hiway as my driving is about 50% each; I always warm up the engine before driving as it just behaves better. I love the grunt my Libby has when leaving a stoplight.

[D-Sub]

would love to convert to something like this, but...hugh...it seems that its damn near impossible, of not at the very least highly unproductive to have to through all that every time you need 20 gallons, especially at only 20ish mpg?

the idea of not spewing out deadly junk is but the work necessary to get there just seems, well, more than is feasible.

hmmmm...business idea! open BioDiesel fuel stations!

[Hugh]

I held off for a few years, thinking that it wasn't worth my time commitment vs. implied cost savings. As it turns out, the biodiesel people are very nice/friendly people, not just a bunch of dopers. Funny that once people know you are making it, the hippies start coming around. My three dogs and a few padlocks will deter them at my house.

Diesel fuel is pretty cude nasty stuff, biodiesel smells good, lubricates better and is fun to talk about.

Some co-op groups have some people that do the collecting and another that does the brewing. Some use biodiesel to run their diesel generators to produce the fuel and also cut down on electricity.

I also have new friendships with the people at the restaurant that I pickup from.

All good,

Hugh

would love to convert to something like this, but...hugh...it seems that its damn near impossible, of not at the very least highly unproductive to have to through all that every time you need 20 gallons, especially at only 20ish mpg?

the idea of not spewing out deadly junk is but the work necessary to get there just seems, well, more than is feasible.

hmmmm...business idea! open BioDiesel fuel stations!

[Gecko]

would love to convert to something like this, but...hugh...it seems that its damn near impossible, of not at the very least highly unproductive to have to through all that every time you need 20 gallons, especially at only 20ish mpg?

the idea of not spewing out deadly junk is but the work necessary to get there just seems, well, more than is feasible.

hmmmm...business idea! open BioDiesel fuel stations!

I'm surprised at you D-Sub you went immediatly to the negative and didn't even try to to understand what I meant when I said that I have a 5MPG loss in Winter Diesel. Beside I don't expect to have the motor broken in for another 15K-20K miles and my mileage should be better. If you want to be reallyGREEN get a VW TDI...then your gonna get at least 45MPG city and you can run BIO. As for selling BioDiesel, Bio Willie is looking for partners. B100 usually increases mileage a few MPG (sometimes as much as 20%) but it's only really good in warm weather (well warm in comparison to New England) it gels when it gets too cold. This is the same reason that Diesel 1 is added to Diesel 2 during the winter months and why mileage in all diesels falls off in the winter and increases in the summer. Gel point and cetane number (think octane for diesel) are related, high cetane means that you will have good mileage but as it gets cold your gas tank will gel...this holds for both Bio and D2.

[Gleb]

I wonder what the mpg for the jeep rescue will be with the bio desiel. Thats me way back in the day (2-3 years ago:) )

[D-Sub]

I'm surprised at you D-Sub you went immediatly to the negative and didn't even try to to understand what I meant when I said that I have a 5MPG loss in Winter Diesel.

jeez gecko..I didnt realize I sounded that serious. the focus of my point was the effort involved in obtaining or making the stuff...the MPG "loss" was secondary imo.

but hell...Im drivin a 94 explorer that gets 15-17 max. thats a joke if you ask me.

Hugh. will check that link. thanks!

[Dr D]

I've played with biodiesel. a little more for power generator than for a truck.

fifty gallon drum full of any vegetable oil prefiltered. a quart of alcohol and a cup or so of lye. give it a good stir with a paddle and let it sit till it seperates into glycerin and fuel. works great a little faster if you heat it with heat tape around the barrel. the biggest gain is in engine life the lubricant properties are better by far than the low sulphur stuff at the pump. we run it in a single cylinder china diesel engine attached to a generator. relatively free power. I have seen ready made setups you can buy on line to do a more precision job and get better yield etc. Also a conversion to the motor that will let you burn vegie oil without converting it.

I got no problems running normal fuel I just hate paying three bucks a gallon for it:eplus2:

[kipstar]

Over here in Thailand, most of the road pick ups (and Thailand is the world's second biggest market for pickups after you guys) are diesel, so the King of Thailand has been pushing bio diesel. I think they use palm oil and coconut oil.

He actually invented some process to do it with coconut I think.

Here, they also have stuff called gasahol, which is petrol also using bio degraded stuff at about 15% and 85% normal petrol.

And we also have NGVs at the moment. Traffic here is pretty bad, so the smog and gases are chronic (and that is not Dr Dre ChRoNiC)

Both better for the environment, although natural gas I think is better again. In fact if you wanted to really look after the environment, I suspect that a natural gas vehicle is probably the best and only requires the installation of the tank,but then what to do about filling it if there aren't filling stations?

So.... how come the restaurants will give you the cooking fat to do this... because here most of the cooking fat gets collected and recycled into something or rather.... do you get that bit for free?

I might have to teach the village to do this, as it would save some money, especially for diesel generation.....

[Dr D]

well tell us how it ran man. How did it turn out?

[D-Sub]

Im wondering...

would one be able to set up their own "refinery" and pump system at home? that would be badass.

store the veg oil, process as much as you can, when you can, and have yourself a nice storage tank and hell, even a pump, just like a regular fuel station.

heh. dreamin.

I really really like this idea though...for a variety of reasons...

[Gleb]

and then you can eventually sell it to your neighbors. When you pay off the equipment, a 100% profit business

[Dr D]

there are several small scale setups one can buy online. that make 40-50 gallon batches. Any large storage tank would work for storing it. the processors include filter system mixing and settlling tanks. it doesn't take long. the hardest part is finding a restaurant that will give you their old oil. In someplaces no big deal. others you will have to fight six hippies for a share of the goo. I know of several farm operations in the south that grow peanuts and press the oil onsite. they burn the shells for ash to make lye and ahem probably come up with there own source of alcohol to. they produce enough to run all the deisel farm equip for a year. they use the old drum and paddle technique. There is also a conversion kit you can get that will allow you to run straight vggie oil without conversion. you just have to filter the frenchfries out first.:lol:

[Gecko]

Im wondering...

would one be able to set up their own "refinery" and pump system at home? that would be badass.

store the veg oil, process as much as you can, when you can, and have yourself a nice storage tank and hell, even a pump, just like a regular fuel station.

heh. dreamin.

I really really like this idea though...for a variety of reasons...

Yes it can be done, any fuel oil tank (like for a furnace) can be used for the final product storage. A pump is real simple, there are numerous farm fuell pumps available. As for the refinery it can be done fairly simply...a garage can store all of your equipment, supplies and finished fuel

[D-Sub]

OK...Im stockpiling info now. When I do finally own land and a house, I think Im going to look into pulling this off.

another way to escape the clutches of THE MAN

:)

[Hugh]

Pics coming soon...

My fuel shed looks like many backyard biodiesel processing sheds. A friend of mine has a large barn for brewing biodiesel and she has one of those "fuel pumps" like D-Sub is asking about...I'll get a picture of that too.

There are a few yahoo biodiesel groups. My particular Santa Cruz group is pretty quiet, but many others have 2-10 email exchanges per day.

Right now, the cold weather is slowing things down for me. I'm still in the process of water washing and since it is my first time, mistakes are common.

I should have the washing done this weekend and then drying the fuel next week. I'm going to start another batch next weekend after I see how the washing turns out.

--Hugh

[bobdea]

is it the same as drying ethanol?

as in useing a molecular seive?

D-sub, for your current gas guzzler you could probably add some dried ethanol, very easy to make and if you put in a little TLC along with a clean up run the purest neutral spirit you are likely to ever drink

if you have ever brewed beer you have the experience for the harder part of making alc for fuel

since it would not be for drinking you could probably find some sort of waste meterial so the food for the yeast would be next to free

even if you use corn sugar bought in 50 lb pound bags at retail you could probably make ethanol for around 1.50 a galon

a wood fired fractionating still or reflux still could do most of the work for distilling

pretty much all cars can run with no problems with 15% ethanol in the fuel, with some minor tweaks up to 85%

some new cars have a sensor that detects what fuel you are using so they run just fine with no mods with E85% or whatever else you throw in there

BTW it is legal to produce ethanol for fuel purposes, and the myth about dieing/going blind from drinking homebrewed 'shine is just that

what used to happen is people would drink denatured ethanol that was sold during prohibition, that stuff would kill you, in fact it was meant to

to produce ethanol for fuel you are supposed to get a permit but few people do and as long as you don't give 'shine to the local youths no one will bother you unless you live next door to some mormons or something

here is a link on the subject http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/

what sucks about bio fuels are they are hardly worth the energy input at this current time, at least on a large scale, sure hope that changes though

[Gecko]

maybe that's true with ethanol but most Biodiesel (here in the USA) is made from the waste oil left over after Soybeans are refined for animal feed. However that said if the amount of biodiesel needed grows Soy beans wouldn't be able to provide enough oil economicly. There is talk of algee farming as being not only economicly feasible but actually cheap and a huge profit margine per acre used. The issue is that big oil isn't interested, E85 requires gas so it's something they will agree to.