WVO Biodiesel

[Guest Sopowerclean]

I am considering making biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. This is for use in my truck but my question is

1. Is anyone else doing this for their trucks and what are results

2. could you use this in burner for hot water pressure washer.

Lawrence Carter

Carters Property Maintenance

[Larry B 55]

Kettle foods does this here in town with their chip oil. They are currently contstructing a public bio-diesel facility in the Portland area as well.

[Pams Pressure & Clean 64]

Veggie is pretty big time, especially in northeast states.. Fairly simple and low cost too.

Do a search for veggie conversions.

I see no reason why the burner would not fire with it.. If it'll run diesel, it should run veggie..

[Henry B. 4]

Veggie oil in my burner??? Interesting concept. I've never thought about that before. I'm not ready to try it myself but it would be nice to bring a few burgers and fries to work with me. I could cook the burgers on the burner cover and the fries over the exaust in a pot..lol

Just kidding..

[RyanH 14]

You have to thin it down to near the viscosity of regular diesel fuel otherwise you'll clog the unit.

[Pams Pressure & Clean 64]

From what I have read and been told, the used veggie oil from a restaraunt fryer for example, is essentially the correct viscosity.

According to what I'm told, all that is necessary is to filter it and burn it.. (well, keeping it warm in cooler applications or climates is also required)

My brother has a diesel Volkswagon that burns veggie and he's having no trouble at all.. Pulls up to a local restaraunt that he has an arrangement with, picks up some used veggie oil from out back, pours it in (on board filter) and zooms away..

Absolutely a laugh riot to talk about, but he's paying hard costs of less than a nickel a gallon to fuel his ride... :eek: He says smelling like a Whopper with cheese is only a minor thing :)

[car54 14]

You all are confusing two different things.. The original poster talks about making biodiesel from WVO while some of you are discussing pouring cooking oil into your tanks.. VERY different things.

WVO - you can use it to power a diesel engine as long as it is filtered and heated to ~190F before burning. This requires coaxial heated fuel lines and a heated tank. You must start on regular diesel or biodiesel, switch to cooking oil, and then switch back to regular diesel to flush the lines of cooking oil before stopping the engine.

Biodiesel - fill your tank with it and go.. in your diesel engine. The flashpoint is too high, it will NOT burn in a water heater burner.. I have tried. I had some success lighting it off with diesel or kero and filling the tank with biodiesel, but it never really burned well and made alot of white smoke. Mixing kero and biodiesel worked better, but stunk pretty bad.

Ive designed automation systems for biodiesel processors before, and just stumbled on this thread while reading up on a new pressure washer for myself. I burn bioD in my diesels, but it has not served me well for burners. Ive also taken an old Kubota powered construction light tower and added a second fuel tank with a heat exchanger to run on WVO to use as a prime power generator for a biodiesel processor. It worked well in supplying the processor with both heat and electricity nearly for free. I would not run WVO in my new vehicle, the risk of coking on the injectors is far too great.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Welcome Matt aka car54,

Thank you for your post here. That was an indepth and knowledgable one

We look forward to hearing more from you.

Meanwhile, enjoy The Grime Scene.

Rod~

[jakobe 14]

what about adding a stabilizer like this one to veg-oil

Diesel Secret Energy - Alternative Biofuel Biodiesel

would that allow it to burn?

[squirtgun 122]

DSE is considered by many in the bio-diesel world as snake oil.Not something I want to run through my $15k motor.

[jakobe 14]

I want to find something that I can run through the burner

not my engine.

[Lightning Gene 66]

I am not going to experiment with any of the above make shift fuels in any of my machines.......I have to much invested to have one break down because of cheap fuel.....I just raise my prices 10% and buy the good stuff....

[jakobe 14]

see,

I look at it differently and a little more optimistically

I dont want to raise my prices and I dont want to suck off the oil tit of Iraq forever

if this "fuel" can save me and my customers money without damaging the equipment then it is worth it.

just turning your back on it and saying "Bhah, I'll just raise my prices."

let the customer deal with it.

thats a little too narrow minded for me

I am always looking for a way to save my company and my customers money.

MY community here in GA is very big on "green" fuel and alternative energy.

We are working on several alternative energy projects in our subdivision to reduce our cost and dependancy on foreign oils as well as polluting fuels.

- real world hydrogen conversion, (and no its not a mason jar attached to the engine intake btw), its real, its being used now, and I have seen it in action.

solar hydrogen conversion is the future

see United Nuclear - Hydrogen Fuel Systems for more info

- roof mounted solar panel conversion to get us off the grid and be self sufficient.

- inline hot water heaters

- we are converting all of our street lights and entrance lights to solar only and cutting them from the grid.

- terraced garden to produce higher yield of food in smaller areas

- we did a group buy for cf bulbs last year and got almost all of the homes switched over to cfs, (my bill went down about $30 a month)

those are just a few of the projects various neighbors are working on.

I have always wanted to switch my burner to run something better

I have run kero in it, which is cleaner but more expensive.

I feel guilty running off road diesel in it because of the pollution

and the price is getting out of hand

Edited June 1, 2008 by jakobe

[R L S 14]

I have run thousands of miles on my truck and thousands of hours on my burner using only B100 with no problems what so ever.

[squirtgun 122]

I have no issue with correctly made bio-diesel.I have issue with blending 10 different products to make something like DSE.

[Lightning Gene 66]

i Have No Issue With Correctly Made Bio-diesel.i Have Issue With Blending 10 Different Products To Make Something Like Dse.

Amen !

[MMI Enterprises 289]

For bio to work just like diesel..trick I hear is to offer some amount of money to the food place in order that they change oil out sooner. This makes it more suitable for use in that it still has energy left in it. Guy I spoke with that does it regularly does a quik onsight test batch to make sure it suitable. Forget what 3rd chem is utilized besides methanol and hydrox (methoxide) just now, but its use is related to ph testing which turns color red if all is in order. Other thing he stressed was having to wash the stuff down as final step.