Your Questions About Biodiesel Fuel

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There’s an overview of how the process works here: http://starreviewing.com/books/how-to-create-your-own-biodiesel-fuel/

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Advantages:
It’s a renewable resource
It can be manufactured from used cooking oil, so it doubles as a way to reduce waste

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Bio diesel is made form organic oils like vegetable and animal based oils. They are esterified and converted to bio diesel. The cheapness is due to the source of the raw material. With crude hovering around 100USD bio diesel is getting cheaper. As for performance it should be the same.

admin answers:

Any diesel engine will do, and you don’t have to modify it. However if you start using biodiesel you should keep an eye on a few things. Biodiesel is a good solvent, so like better quality gas, it tends to clean out your injectors… And other things…

-it can “clean” (make holes in) very old rubber fuel lines that needed replacing anyway.

- It can clean out deposits in your fuel tank and fuel lines, which end up in your fuel filter. That can choke the filter, so if you feel loss of power, change that filter. You should only have to do that once.

- In freezing weather it’s somewhat more prone to gelling than regular diesel, so blend it with diesel fuel, kerosene or Jet A. Remember to pay road tax on any fuel that wasn’t taxed when you buy it.

Now if you really want an adventure, you can save 50 cents a gallon or so and run straight veggie oil (SVO). That requires some modification of the diesel car, because veggie oil is a LOT more viscous than diesel, especially as it gets cold. Throw a jar of corn oil in the fridge and you’ll see the problem clear as day. The modifications involve heating the fuel tank, lines, filter and injectors to get the fuel to 120 degrees+ so it flows smoothly. Some setups start the car on a second fuel tank of regular diesel/biodiesel, then use engine coolant to warm the SVO. Other ones do electrical preheating and use extra tough injectors (e.g. The Elspett system). If it’s a diesel that runs 24×7 like a locomotive, hey, go SVO.

Once you’re into SVO you can also check out WVO (waste veggie oil aka used fryer oil) which you can often mooch from restaurants for free. Still gotta pay road tax, but road tax on “FREE” is … Hmm, let’s see. Carry the zero… Total, 0+ 0… Comes out to FREE.

admin answers:

Biodiesel that has not been thoroughly “washed” will still have some methanol which would dissolve any natural rubbers and corrode any brass fittings. If that is your concern then racing quality fuel lines that do not contain rubbers or brass should suffice, nickel plated and stainless steel are best. Of course, properly produced biodiesel would’ve had the methanol removed so no modification should be necessary.

Then there are those who run diesel engines on unmodified vegetable oils. They do so by starting the engine on regular diesel to warm it up and then switching to heated vegetable oil, the heating is so the oil will flow better. For these greasers, there are fuel lines where there is a water jacket around the fuel line and the vegetable oil tank so that engine coolant can be circulated through the jacket to warm the vegetable oil. You should be able to google for those “kits” but I wouldn’t advise modifying your car to be a greaser unless it is a much older diesel car that uses a pre-combustion chamber.

admin answers:

Here some links to get you started.

Http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algaculture

Algae oil does hold out a lot of promise, the studies I’ve read have shown we could replace all our fuel need from algae oil without effecting food crops. Now understand this like most studies are the ideal situation but they seemed to have padded in enough reserve to make it feasible.

Now there are many types of algae out there some are 40%+ oil. There also is one algae strain, Botryococcus braunii, which can be reduced to chemicals traditionally extracted from petroleum and used for transport fuels, that is gasoline, kerosene (jet fuel).

What make me think this is the way to go, rather then say ethonal, is that businesses are putting up their own money for this project, there is very little government money being spent on this, unlike ethonal. That alone tell me that people think there is a profit in it I sure there are some subitisties there but nothing like corn subitisties used for ethonal and ethonal production.

What funny is that in the 1970’s the government spend some money on this very thing found it feasable, but not at the current price of oil back then. Had the government followed through we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now, but then again hindsite is 20/20.

After you extract the oil (you can press the oil out or use a chemical process to extract the oil) then you use a chemical process to convert vetabale oil to bio-diesel.

That is you need to remove the glycerin, remove the catalyst, remove the alochol.

Here a few sites on how to make bio-diesel, they walk you through the process.

Http://www.ehow.com/how_2046024_make-biodiesel.html?ref=fuel

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

If you want more information let me know, I’d be happy to help out.

Hoped it helped

Edit

Libris FIdelis is wrong on many accounts.

First oft biodiesel the meets the industry stands can be used just like diesel in ALL diesel engines that can use low sulfur diesel (the new standard for diesel) and has 90%+ of the energy of diesel (129,500 btu/gal bio-diesel has 118,296 btu/gal)

As far as economics go with private money going into many of the projects, I’m more then willing to bet that they have check it out completely and are expecting a profit or they wouldn’t be spending they own money on it.

As far as the aluminum pellet system, it does work, the down side is that you need to re-refine the aluminum, which takes massive amount of energy to do this. It’s not as clean as they make it seem, to refine aluminum you need electricity. Where does the electricity come from, mainly coal. So it’s not as clean or as easy as putting aluminum pellets into your gas tank the drive away even the inventor admits this.

Http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/05/20/aluminum-pellets-may-facilitate-hydrogen-powered-car-but/

Rapid Transit District in the Los Angeles, if biodiesel is so bad why is the RTD of LA using a 20% blend right now? I’m willing to bet the engines they were using in the 1990’s couldn’t use the low sulfur fuel being sold to day. I’m willing it bet it was the lack of sulfur that damaged the engines (used to lubricate the injectors and fuel pumps) rather then biodiesel.

As far as carbon out put, I’d put algae oil straight up against, aluminum pellets any day. I go into details if you wish.