Science Forums 2

[alexander]

Hold on people, lets discuss the different "types" of diesel engine bio fuel conversion, how it's made, what the deal is, and so forth...

Ok, so you generalize bio-fuel, while different companies make it different ways, some are better then the others, some are cleaner, and some call themselves bio-diesel but are not that, even though it is still bio-fuel.

Little bit of a history on diesel engine, diesel, when making his engine, actually used to run it on peanut oil (because diesel was not yet being commercially produced and all).

So coming from that diesel engines can run on oil, however why don't most diesels run on it? well, oil presents a nasty component called gluten, it's properties are such that they will, in weeks, clog most diesel filters and lines, unless it is kept at a decently high temperature. Also like diesel, oil gells as the temperatures drop below 34, it is a big problem with oil, even bigger then with regular diesel. In today's world, special additives to diesel in winter, prevent the gelling, however if added to oil they are still quite useless.

So from this 2 ways of bioizing your diesels come out:

Using this "new" notion of bio diesel (which is 80% cooking oil, stripped of glutein, and generally mixed with 20% diesel or methanol to keep oil from gelling up)

Recycling Oil for straight use in the engine.

So first of all, how is most bio-diesel made (honest and good kind). Used frying oil is first filtered of any chunks (most of the time through a decent filter) and fead into a container. Depending on the oil acidity, a certain amount of lye is added, lye actually strips the oil of gluten (to which all the nasty food stuff attracts) and in sinks with it to the bottom, that process can take a little while, so generally people leave it for a few hours to separate)... Now that stuff can be pumped out (or drained out) until you are left with gluen-free oil (light yellow colored). To that now, you can either add about 20% diesel, or something close to that in methanol (cant remember exact numbers here), and your bio-diesel is ready to be used in your vehicle...

Now to the second one. This one is cheaper on fuel, but more expensive on the vehicle setup, though if you compare this to the bio-diesel refinery, then the prices are comparable. What happens is you put a second tank in your car, fitted with a heating element, a good filter, then a heated line to a "switch valve", a point where your line from a regular tank, line from the secondary tank and fuel line into the engine meet What happens is this: you put in raw cooking oil (generally filtered before making it to the tank) into the second tank, you start the vehicle on regular diesel, then when the oil tank heats up to the proper temperature, you switch the valve over to oil, and 5 minutes before you reach your destination, you switch the fuel lines back to diesel, to flush out all the oil in that system. This will require replacing all the fuel lines in the vehicle though, oil will not tolerate the rubberized lines used in most diesel cars.

Though things to note:
You should never use hydrogenated oil for either one of these products. Also I've heard of places using just regular used cooking oil, and that is well and good, only some farms have converted to bio-diesel production, especially out in Asia for palm oil, cutting out forest, left and right, so ethically you should not use that stuff as a bio-diesel producer.

So that's that, everything i wanted to clarify i have, if you have any questions ask