Eco Sustainable Village

Links to Bio diesel

We can grow our own fuel what is 70% more economical than mineral based diesel used in out industries. One one hand we reinforce our agricultural base by growing fuel in the farms and on the other hand we use the waste oil material, fat, and grease to make batches of Bio Diesel and create a NEW COTTAGE INDUSTRY.

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Bio Diesel

Making Bio Diesel at Home as Cottage Industry

Making your own fuel from vegetable oil can be easy, cost-effective, and environmentally beneficial. What makes this fuel even more attractive is that you can make it from the waste vegetable oil of any kind which is wasted every year, which amounts to more than three billion gallons in the US. With a bit of know-how and persistence, you can run any diesel engine on vegetable oil.

Only diesel engines can run on vegetable oil-based fuels. This means that any engine that has spark plugs and is made for leaded or unleaded gasoline cannot use vegetable oil fuel. If you want a practical homemade fuel for a gasoline engine, you might consider making ethanol, methane, or wood gas.

Growing and cultivating Fuel

We produce a large quantity of used vegetable oil in the United States, but there is an oilseed crop you can grow no matter where you live. The possibilities include coconut, soybean, canola (rapeseed), sunflower, safflower, corn, palm kernel, peanut, jatropha, and hundreds more. To learn which vegetable oil crop is best suited for your area, contact your state’s office of agriculture, the agriculture department of a local university, or talk to local farmers. One of the crops with the highest yield of oil per acre is canola. From just one acre of canola, you can produce 100 gallons (379 l) of vegetable oil. The most common oilseed crop in the U.S. is soybeans, which produce 50 gallons (189 l) of vegetable oil per acre. Growing your own oilseed crop has an added bonus. The meal that is separated from the oil is an excellent source of protein. This meal can be used as animal feed or in breads, spreads, and other food products. Pressing the oil from the seed does not require a large, expensive press.

The Three Ways to Use Vegetable Oil as a Fuel

Diesel engines that are found in cars, trucks, generators, boats, buses, trains, planes, pumping stations, tractors, and agricultural equipment can all run on fuel from vegetable oil. Pure vegetable oil, lard, and used cooking oil work just as well as diesel fuel.

Bio-diesel

The most conventional method of running a diesel engine on vegetable oil fuel is to produce a fuel called bio diesel. Bio diesel is made by combining 10 to 20 percent alcohol with 0.35 to 0.75 percent lye and 80 to 90 percent vegetable oil. A very reliable reaction can be made with 80 parts new vegetable oil, 20 parts methanol, and 0.35 parts lye. These ingredients are mixed together for an hour and left to settle for eight hours. After the chemical reaction is complete and the new products settle out, you have bio diesel fuel and glycerin soap. The fuel is yellow to amber in color and flows like water. The soap is brown in color and has the consistency of gelatin. The soap settles to the bottom, allowing you to pump, siphon, or pour off the bio diesel.

Veggie/ Kero Mix

The second method for using vegetable oil in a diesel engine is to simply “cut” the oil with kerosene. This method is best suited for emergencies, heavy duty engines, and warm temperatures. Although it is possible to mix other petroleum products with vegetable oil, kerosene is most suited for the diesel engine. Depending on ambient temperature, the blend of kerosene to vegetable oil will be anywhere from 10 percent kerosene and 90 percent vegetable oil to 40 percent kerosene and 60 percent vegetable oil. A fairly reliable blend is 20 percent kerosene to 80 percent vegetable oil. The effectiveness and reliability of the veggie/kero method is increased by starting and cooling down the diesel engine on diesel fuel or bio diesel fuel. This can be accomplished by installing an extra fuel tank and switching to the veggie/kero mix when the engine is warmed up.

Straight Vegetable Oil

The third method for running a diesel engine on vegetable oil is to use straight vegetable oil. As with the other methods, you can use either pure vegetable oil or used cooking oil. To ensure the reliability and longevity of your diesel engine, the engine must be started and cooled down on diesel or bio diesel fuel. This also requires the use of an extra fuel tank and a valve to switch between the tank of diesel or bio diesel fuel and the tank of vegetable oil. Think of it as a startup tank and a running tank. The key to running a diesel on straight vegetable oil is to heat the vegetable oil at every stage—in the fuel tank, fuel hose, and fuel filter. The vegetable oil must be heated to at least 70°C (160°F). Most diesel engines have hoses that carry hot coolant. This coolant can be channeled to heat the vegetable oil hoses, tank, and filter. You can make simple modifications to the coolant hoses. These modifications combined with some extra fuel and oil hoses, an extra fuel tank, and an electrically operated switch will allow you to run your diesel engine on straight vegetable oil.

Fuel Comparison

The chart will show you the differences between the three vegetable oil fuel methods. As you can see, bio diesel is a good substitute or additive fuel for diesel fuel. Veggie/kero mix is decent for use as an emergency fuel. And using straight vegetable oil is good if you have the time and know-how to properly modify your engine’s heating and fuel tank systems. Diesel engines are used in many different situations. For each situation, there is a way to make fuel from vegetable oil.

How to Make Biodiesel

This section outlines the process for making bio diesel fuel from new vegetable oil or used cooking oil. This fuel can be made in a blender or in a larger, homebuilt mixer. The materials you’ll need are vegetable oil, methanol, and lye. If you are using new vegetable oil, always use 3.5 grams of lye per liter of oil. Since each batch of used cooking oil is different, the amount of lye in each batch of bio diesel will be different. To ensure that you are using the correct amount of lye, make a small test batch of bio diesel in a blender before attempting a reaction in a large mixing tank. For the test batch, use 100 milliliters of vegetable oil and 20 milliliters of methanol. Then you must determine how much lye to use. If you are using used vegetable oil, use 0.45 grams of lye for the first test batch. If this batch makes bio diesel and glycerin, use the same proportions for the large batch reaction. If the test batch does not form two distinct layers, increase the amount of lye to 0.55 grams and make another test batch. If this batch is unsuccessful, make another batch and increase the amount of lye to 0.65 grams. If that batch is unsuccessful, make another batch with 0.75 grams of lye. Make sure you can make bio diesel on a small scale before attempting a large reaction. Once you have made a successful small test batch of bio diesel, multiply the number of grams of lye you used by ten to see how much lye you will need for each liter of oil in the large reaction. For example, if you used 0.55 grams of lye in the test batch, you will need to use 5.5 grams of lye per liter of used cooking oil for a large reaction. Here is the basic procedure for making biodiesel fuel. Read the safety information at the end of this article before you begin.

	Purchase or collect new or used vegetable oil.
	If the oil is used cooking oil, use a restaurant fryer filter to remove burned food bits, etc.
	Purchase some methanol alcohol from a local racetrack or chemical supply store. Ethanol alcohol can also be used, but the process is different.
	Purchase some granulated lye (Red Devil is one brand) or caustic soda sold as a drain cleaner from the hardware or grocery store. It must be pure sodium hydroxide (NaOH).
	Measure the amount of vegetable oil you want to use in liters. We will call this number V. Pour the vegetable oil into the mixing container.
	When the temperature is below 70°F (21°C), or when the vegetable oil is solid or lumpy, it will be necessary to heat the reactants before, during, and possibly after the mixing. The ideal temperature to attain is 120°F (49°C). A fish tank heater will heat 10 to 30 gallons (40–120 l) of reactants. For larger batches of bio diesel, a water heater element can be mounted in a steel bio diesel mixing tank. Make sure that you follow the manufacturer’s directions and safety precautions when adding any electrical device to the system. Be careful when heating vegetable oil in a plastic container. Polyethylene cannot withstand temperatures above 140°F (60°C).
	Multiply V x 0.2. The result will be the amount of methanol you will need in liters. We will call this number M.
	To determine how much lye you will need to use for new vegetable oil, multiply V times 3.5 grams. For used vegetable oil, use the number of grams of lye you got in the small test batch. For example, if you used 0.55 grams of lye in the test batch, you will multiply V times 5.5 grams of lye. Call this number L.
	Carefully pour L grams of lye into M liters of methanol. Stir until the lye is dissolved in the methanol. Be careful, this creates a toxic substance called sodium methoxide.
	Pour the sodium methoxide into the vegetable oil right away. Stir vigorously for one hour.
	Let the mixture settle for eight hours.
	Pump the bio diesel from the top, or siphon it off with a hand siphon. Or if you are lucky enough to have a container with a spigot, open the spigot and drain the bottom layer of glycerin. The glycerin will be much thicker and darker than the top layer of bio diesel.
	Allow the glycerin to sit in the sun for a week. After that, the trace methanol will be evaporated. You have made a nice glycerin soap. You can scent it with the fragrance of your choice, add other soap agents as desired, or just use it as it is. This soap is especially good for cleaning grease off your hands and cleaning greasy equipment!
	Make sure your bio diesel goes through a 5 micron filter before entering your diesel engine.

Vegetable oil yields

Bio diesel yield = oil yield x 0.8 approx.

Note: These are conservative estimates -- crop yields can vary widely.

Other oil crops

Oils and esters characteristics

Iodine Values

Chemically, vegetable and animal oils and fats are triglycerides, glycerol bound to three fatty acids. Animal tallow/lard is saturated, meaning that in the fatty acid portion, all the carbon atoms are bound to two hydrogen atoms, and there are no double bonds. This allows the chains of fatty acids to be straighter and more pliable so they harden at lower temperatures (that's why lard is a solid).

As you increase the number of double bonds in a fatty acid, you reduce that ability for oils to gain a conformation that would make them solid, so they remain liquid. To picture it, imagine that you put a bunch of strings in a line. Now tie knots in various places on the strings and see how they don't fit together tightly.

To test a vegetable oil to see how many double bonds it has (how unsaturated it is) iodine is introduced to the oil. The iodine will attach itself over a double bond to make a single bond where an iodine atom is now attached to each carbon atom in that double bond. Higher iodine numbers do not refer to the amount of iodine in the oil, but rather the amount of iodine needed to "saturate" the oil, or break all the double bonds. Oils for the most part contain only trace amounts of iodine naturally.

How does this translate to biodiesel? When the fatty acid chains are broken from the glycerol and then re-esterified to methyl or ethyl groups, those fatty acids still have their double bonds. That means that the more double bonds, the lower the cloud point because they resist solidifying at lower temperatures. So, for instance, if you use lard or tallow, the biodiesel will solidify at a higher temperature because the fat it was formed from also solidified at a higher temperature.

(Image and text compliments of Jeff Welter)

High Iodine Values

[The information below refers to straight vegetable oil fuel, but is also useful to show which oils are suitable for making biodiesel and which may not be suitable.]

-- From "Waste Vegetable Oil as a Diesel Replacement Fuel" by Phillip Calais, Environmental Science, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, and A.R. (Tony) Clark, Western Australian Renewable Fuels Association Inc.

Many vegetable oils and some animal oils are 'drying' or 'semi-drying' and it is this which makes many oils such as linseed, tung and some fish oils suitable as the base of paints and other coatings. But it is also this property that further restricts their use as fuels.

Drying results from the double bonds (and sometimes triple bonds) in the unsaturated oil molecules being broken by atmospheric oxygen and being converted to peroxides. Cross-linking at this site can then occur and the oil irreversibly polymerises into a plastic-like solid.

In the high temperatures commonly found in internal combustion engines, the process is accelerated and the engine can quickly become gummed-up with the polymerised oil. With some oils, engine failure can occur in as little as 20 hours.

The traditional measure of the degree of bonds available for this process is given by the 'Iodine Value' (IV) and can be determined by adding iodine to the fat or oil. The amount of iodine in grams absorbed per 100 ml of oil is then the IV. The higher the IV, the more unsaturated (the greater the number of double bonds) the oil and the higher is the potential for the oil to polymerise.

While some oils have a low IV and are suitable for use as fuel without any further processing other than extraction and filtering, the majority of vegetable and animal oils have an IV which may cause problems if used as a neat fuel. Generally speaking, an IV of less than about 25 is required if the neat oil is to be used for long term applications in unmodified diesel engines and this limits the types of oil that can be used as fuel. The table below lists various oils and some of their properties.

The IV can be easily reduced by hydrogenation of the oil (reacting the oil with hydrogen), the hydrogen breaking the double bond and converting the fat or oil into a more saturated oil which reduces the tendency of the oil to polymerise. However this process also increases the melting point of the oil and turns the oil into margarine.

As can be seen from the table below, only coconut oil has an IV low enough to be used without any potential problems in an unmodified diesel engine. However, with a melting point of 25 deg C, the use of coconut oil in cooler areas would obviously lead to problems. With IVs of 25-50, the effects on engine life are also generally unaffected if a slightly more active maintenance schedule is maintained such as more frequent lubricating oil changes and exhaust system decoking. Triglycerides in the range of IV 50-100 may result in decreased engine life, and in particular to decreased fuel pump and injector life. However these must be balanced against greatly decreased fuel costs (if using cheap, surplus oil) and it may be found that even with increased maintenance costs this is economically viable.

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Last modified: 04/08/06