Does anyone make their own Bio-Diesel???

[mangus580]

I have been running commercially made bio in all my vehicles for almost a year now. My only issues are temperature related (and my own fault of course). I ran B100 from April until about November, and now run a random blend.

FYI - my new place of employment is the company I was buying from... I can try to answer any questions anyone has....

 

[stump]

I am lucky Stampy is a friend of mine and i went to his house and looked at his setup. I used a steel drum with hot water element 220 v but wired it to 110 v . It wont burn up then also use the temperature unit off the hot water tank. Stampy has a great centrifuge that i wish i could buy. Money was tight and I have some skils and built one myself. I use the same process as Stampy and all is good. Heat drain water and sediment. Then centrifuge and blend. I also would say get rid of the fuel filter on the blazers and pickup trucks and use a fuel water seperator for a boat. Get them at Walmart cheap. Alot easier to fill and much cheaper . Just some thoughts try at your own risk for me its great.

 

[Katahdin]

I think the op (and other Biodiesel newbies) should be advised we're talking about two different fuels in this thread.

(1st) Biodiesel: the creation of which involves reacting de-watered and ph neutralized waste vegetable oil with an alcohol (usually methanol) and further refining it through washing and drying processes. As such BD can be used in its straight (B100 form) in most diesel engines without blending above gel temperatures. Due to the methanol (approx 20%) it does have solvent properties so you'll be required to change your fuel filters and replace rubber seals and lines with synthetic ones.

(2nd) Waste Vegetable oil that's either been de-watered and/ or centrifuged and blended with dino diesel.

Just wanted to clear up any confusion (I hope!)

 

[jakwi]

Great point and all true except for this point,

Due to the methanol (approx 20%) it does have solvent properties so you'll be required to change your fuel filters and replace rubber seals and lines with synthetic ones.

the solvent properties of bio are inherent to the bio itself, as properly washed and dried bio has no free methanol in it.

When processing vegetable oil to make biodiesel you do add methanol, 22% actually, lye (aka KOH or NaOH as a catalyst), and heat.

After the process is complete you drain glycerin, then water wash the bio, to remove any leftover lye and methanol.

then the biodiesel is dried to remove the water.

The process is known as transesterification and breaks the bond of a tri glyceride chain (molecule of oil) and bonds a methanol molecule to each glyceride chain. The end result is that methanol replaces the glycerine on the molecule and for each tri glyceride chain (large molecule of oil) you end up which three single chains (individual chains are smaller) of biodiesel hence the lower viscosity for the same mass.

An easy way to think of it is like a bag full of oranges. If you tried to pour that bag it would have a certain viscosity, on the other hand if you pealed the oranges and broke them into orange pieces it would be less viscous, but you would have essentially the same material. It's not the perfect analogy, but you get the idea.

Anyway I supposed I've turned this post into a book, sorry about that.

 

[stampy]

Agreed jakwi, so many people do not "wash their biodiesel because it extends the time to make it a day or 2 so it's acidic and slightly corrosive also. Biodiesel makes an excellent cleaner/ degreaser too...Go figure... I have seen no degredation due to use and pretty much everything you buy now is resistant to biodiesel (viton hoses for example). But I am not a huge fan of the work and cost, so I only make bio every so often.

 

[CGarbee]

I've made my own biodiesel in the past and liked how it worked in my MV's (and in a friends' construction equipment).
I've since swithed to running a blend of WMO and diesel since my processing time is much lower (only have to filter and blend) and I can get the WMO for free whereas getting good WVO is getting very tough in my area (too many people running WVO or biodiesel, either homebrew or purchased from one of three local processors....).

We have noticed that the diesels at work that sit for a week or so between uses have experience serious problems with microbial infestation in the biodiesel (B20) that we run. The guys at the shop have managed to get a tank of straight dino diesel for those applications and (after boiling out the tanks, flushing lines, and otherwise purging the systems) have instructed those users to fill with regular diesel. For rigs that run every day or so, the B20 has worked very well...

Good luck.

 

[jakwi]

that's really interesting, I wonder if they had a low grade infection to begin with? I've stored biodiesel for more than a year in a plastic drum with no problems at all, of course I stated with a clean drum.

How do you like the wmo/diesel blend? What percentages do you use? I've been thinking about giving it a try.

 

[CGarbee]

that's really interesting, I wonder if they had a low grade infection to begin with? I've stored biodiesel for more than a year in a plastic drum with no problems at all, of course I stated with a clean drum.

How do you like the wmo/diesel blend? What percentages do you use? I've been thinking about giving it a try.

Hard to say about the infection... But keep in mind that average relative humidity for us runs from an afternoon low of 46% in April to a midday high of 92% in September. The average thus runs from 56% to 75%... So, we tend to get a lot of moisture in partial tanks. We just know that we have an issue statewide with B20 that we do not have with straight diesel, and only in vehicles/equipment that spends more time sitting than running... Anything that runs through a complete tank each week seems fine, and the trucks that burn a tank a day have been running cleaner (oil analysis) than they used to.

Meanwhile, I like the WMO/diesel blend. I've been running anwhere from 25% WMO in the winter to 50%WMO in the summer in the NHC250's without any issues. A little extra smoke when you get on the throttle after an extended idle, and more of a black puff than blue on initial start up, but otherwise no visible differences from the stack. Driving performance "feels" the same. Can't see any real differences in MPG. I run the WMO through a one micron filter and store it in drums, collect it from a couple of friends who perform fleet maintenance for loggers/grading contractors.