bio diesel

[mark]

anyone making there own yet??

will be firing the still up next week hopefully

[SIXFOOTSTEVE]

Sounds interesting Mark ,I can feel a google coming on.

[mark]

got all the equipment gathered, seems pretty straightforward, street legal(ish) 25p a litre diesel here we come

[blackvelvet]

is this on the level about the diesel?

[mark]

indeedy. Visited someone last week with there own home brew reactor, makes 400 litres a day from either used or new cooking oil

new cooking oil can be bought in bulk, delivered to your door for 18p a litre, other ingredients, sodium hydroxide and isopropyl alcohol (surgical spirit) but you don\'t need much of the others

if you want you can pay the duty which at EU rates rather than UK rates, (which you can pay to brussels and stick one up gordon brown - so cheaper) is 21p a litre on top. the end product is chemically identical to commercial biodeiesel bought on the forecourt!

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html is a good strating point

equipmnt needed, couple of barrels, heating element and a small motor to mix the stuff up

my mates barn is being fitted out at the mo!

apart from the price its is infinitly more environmentally friendly the fossil diesel

the CO2 output can be viewed as nil, cos all the carbon it puts out was already absorbed by the plants that made the oil, no sulphue, little nitrous oxides and the like

if it all goes to plan, me an 2 \'colleagues\' are gonna do a 200 gallon run, once a month!

only down side is, in the winter it has a tendency to gel at low tempreratures

[MT]

is it not dangerous mark

[mark]

apparently not, watched the whole process last week. just a big barrel with cooking oil, small amount of caustic soda/alcohol being mixed by a cordless drill clamped on top of the barrel, couple of hours later, 4\' layer of glycerin/soap on the bottom of the barrel, rest pure \'esters\' - biodiesel to the rest of us sat on top of it, drain it off and filter it and thats that

filled the discovery tank with it and drove back from cheshire!

[SIXFOOTSTEVE]

Wow I\'m impressed Mark ,what can you do about it gellifying in the winter ...maybe just buy it from the garage ! it\'s only a few months after all.

[Edited on 23/5/2006 by SIXFOOTSTEVE]

[Marc]

There is a additive that can be mixed to diesel to stop it from waxing, Smirnoff stops me from remembering whatt it is at the moment but I will find out.
A little paraffin also stops waxing, helps to start normal diesels in the winter as well.

[mark]

yeah, you can buy it on the net, designed for artic use, a litre bottle does about 1500 litres of fuel

[jimmy]

you got to remember even bio diesel is still thicker than proper diesel,takes more to heat it up also the fact that it burns hotter than deisel and therefore can burn ya valves out quicker,a bit like kerosene

[mark]

sure you\'re not confusing biodeisel with some of the other cooking oil cocktails???

been checking all over the place, including the relevant BSI standards for fossil versus bio and made correctly they are identical, with the exception that the bio version has a lot less nasties left over in it??

according to the EU all fossil diesel already has 2.5% bio diesel in it and that is to rise to 5.75% in 2008

from everything I\'ve looked at and read thus far, if your home brew is properly \'esterified\' it become structurally identical to commercial biodiesel, which in turn is chemically identical to pure fossil diesel.

checked with landrover and the discovery is ok to run on either

[jimmy]

MARK
I am positive that it takes longer to heat than deisel and also that it runs/burns much hotter as well.watch out for those valve stems burning through after a while

[mark]

Everything I\'ve looked at says the opposite, proper biodeisel, with all the fats etc taken out (esterified), has the same viscosity as normal diesel and same burn characteristics. there are loads of home made potions out there based on cooking oils that are thicker and coke up your injectors though.

the end product is chemically identical to commercial biodiesel, and needs no engine mods. Asda, incedentally, now run there fleet on biodiesel. some they buy, the rest they make themselves from their own waste cooking oils

alfred deisel, who invented the diesel engine, designed it to run peanut oil (till the french shot him for telling the british how to build deisel engines in ships)

guess we\'ll wait and see, gonna run this tank full through (500miles) and pull an injector to see what it looks like.

as it stands, it is starting in the mornings when cold exactly the same as before, and runs the same. no sign off the engine getting hotter or excess noise, in fact its a bit quieter than before

[blackvelvet]

impressive stuff, I see you\'ve been doing your homework on it. I thought it would bugger up the engine using is long term but I\'m no expert