What would make a diesel engine run better on vegetable oil? Do you have any ideas?

[RichC]

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Hello Everyone

What would make a diesel engine run better on vegetable oil ?

I was wondering what everyone thought ?
Any ideas, comments, suggestions ? All are welcome !
Even if the idea sound ludicrous or impossible.
I just wanted to brainstorm about the possibilities.

What do you think ?

Here a few of my ideas.

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Heating the oil.
Turning the oil into biodiesel.
A new fuel injector specifically made for vegetable oil use.
Larger diameter fuel lines.
Higher compression engines.
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Thank You
Have Fun
RichC

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by RichC

.
Hello Everyone

What would make a diesel engine run better on vegetable oil ?

I was wondering what everyone thought ?
Any ideas, comments, suggestions ? All are welcome !
Even if the idea sound ludicrous or impossible.
I just wanted to brainstorm about the possibilities.

What do you think ?

Thank You
Have Fun
RichC

I'm just a layman, but I recall that vegetable oil has glycerin it it that will gum up the works. Here's a handy-dandy do it yourself gob o' information:

Make your own biodiesel: Journey to Forever

[silverslith]

The main problem with directly using vegtable oil is that it is too thick at temperatures below 15C, in fact clouding as small grains of solid form that clog filters and injectors. You can use it directly in warm temperatures.
Bio fats like veg and animal oils are glycerine molecules with long fatty acid chains replacing the hydrogen in the three alcohol (-OH) groups on the 3 carbons of the glycerine molecule:



Transesterification is the easy reaction that is used to turn any bio-oils or fats into far more fluid mixtures of lower cloud temps called "biodiesel"
methanol, ethanol or other longer chain alcohols are added at ratios like 20% methanol to 80% oils. Acids or Bases catalyse this reaction replacing the glycerine with the alkyl group of the alcohol on the fatty acid chains. this giving you a monoester and some glycerine contamination that is fairly easy to remove due to its water solubility as are remaining traces of catalyst and free carboxilic acids.

Its easy stuff to do at home or in the boot of your car to prepare things like chip fryer waste oil etc.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by silverslith

The main problem with directly using vegtable oil is that it is too thick at temperatures below 15C, in fact clouding as small grains of solid form that clog filters and injectors. You can use it directly in warm temperatures.

Thanks for the help on the chem silver; not my tank of fuel so to speak. I did some reading on the page I linked to above, and found this on SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) diesel set-ups:

Originally Posted by journeytoforever.org

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and economical option.

Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The best way is to fit a professional single-tank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, as well as fuel heating. With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for instance you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and switch off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to start the engine on ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then switch to SVO in the other tank when the veg-oil is hot enough, and switch back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.

Make your own biodiesel: Journey to Forever

Originally Posted by silver

Transesterification is the easy reaction that is used to turn any bio-oils or fats into far more fluid mixtures of lower cloud temps called "biodiesel"
methanol, ethanol or other longer chain alcohols are added at ratios like 20% methanol to 80% oils. Acids or Bases catalyse this reaction replacing the glycerine with the alkyl group of the alcohol on the fatty acid chains. this giving you a monoester and some glycerine contamination that is fairly easy to remove due to its water solubility as are remaining traces of catalyst and free carboxilic acids.

Its easy stuff to do at home or in the boot of your car to prepare things like chip fryer waste oil etc.

What waste by-products do these treatments leave behind?

[silverslith]

Originally Posted by Turtle

What waste by-products do these treatments leave behind?

most people use NaOH as a catalyst so your main wastes are glycerine, sodium ions.

[Michaelangelica]

Is this of interest?
Running On Cooking Oil