Biodiesel from Waste Veg Oil - consensus?

[Gozo]

Safe - not safe?
More power - less?
Maintenance nightmare or dream?

What is the general consensus on the use of WVO as a fuel for diesel engines?

[trbankii]

I'd say one very real issue is how you go about it. There are definitely a number of "snake oil" and "cheap" ways to convert WVO into something usable that most definitely give the whole idea a bad name.

[Peter J. Bierman]

If you can get the viscosity right ( heating ) and get it clean enough it should work fine.
What I read is start and stops are best on dieselfuel couse it won't clog the pump and filters.

If you intent to run it permanently a Mil-spec injectionpump might be a good idea, they are more forgiving on bad fuel quality and less lubrication.

peter

[NH2112]

I recently posted my experience with WVO at work, where we've had 4-6 Bobcats come in with engine problems due to running WVO. Bobcat doesn't cover warranty issues caused by using something other than diesel fuel so some of these turned out to be pretty expensive repairs - probably enough to offset the economic advantage of running WVO in the first place.

I guess that you just have to be careful what you put in your tank. There's always a chance of getting bad fuel from a truck stop, but I'd have to say the odds of making or getting a bad batch of biodiesel or WVO are a lot greater. 99% of vehicles might have no problems on bio or WVO, but if you're one of the 1% who does that doesn't help the situation.

[Duncan Sterling]

Originally posted by Gozo:
Safe - not safe?
More power - less?
Maintenance nightmare or dream?

What is the general consensus on the use of WVO as a fuel for diesel engines? I think it depends on what you mean--there is a fair amount of confusion of terms these days when people speak of biodiesel.

If you mean running straight WVO ( AKA "greasel"--heated, filtered, but otherwise unmodified Waste Vegetable Oil), you may run into some problems with injector deposits, particularly if you don't run the engines in question on regular dino diesel for a few minutes prior to shutdown. You must also run a separate fuel tank for the WVO, and a heat exchanger that can warm it to 110 degrees fahrenheit before it will run through your fuel system properly.

If you mean running actual biodiesel made from WVO, that's different--that goes straight into your regular fuel tank, and requires no special plumbing or handling.

And then it further depends on whether you mean running with a dino diesel/biodiesel blend (like B2, B5, B20, B50) or straight biodiesel (B100).

In most cases (of course, YMMV), running up B20 blends should create no problem for any on road or off road automotive or industrial diesel engine.

At blends above B20, and up to B100, you may run into some minor issues, depending upon your situation. Why? For two potential reasons:

1) Because biodiesel has a strong detergent property. Diesel fuel systems tend to accumulate various kinds of muck and sludge over time and running B50 - B100 can cause varying amounts of this muck to break loose and wind up in your fuel filter causing running problems (until you swap out the filter). However, this problem will self resolve after your fuel system is thorougly cleaned out.

2) Because of the potential presence of residual alcohol left over from the refining process. Biodiesel is made by processing vegetable oil (whether virgin or used) with a sodium methoxide catalyst to separate biodiesel (technically methyl ester) from glycerin (a component of soap). Depending on the type of refining process, a small amount of alcohol can be left in the biodiesel. This will slowly cause older (say mid 90's or earlier) rubber fuel and injector return lines to go soft and eventually start "weeping". Replacing the lines with newer synthetic rubber (viton, teflon, etc.) as they begin to go soft will solve this problem.

As for power, you should do fine. B100 is within about 5% of dino diesel for energy content, a negligable difference which shouldn't really be noticeable behind the steering wheel. In most cases your mileage should be about the same (depending on tuning and some other minor variables specific to each engine).

Biodiesel tends to have a minimum cetane rating of 50 or higher (vs upper 30s, low 40s for most dino diesel) so most engines will run very smoothly and somewhat more quietly on it.

Biodiesel has a very high lubricity (lubrication quality), so will help keep your IP and quite possibly other internal engine components very happy, particularly when compared to low sulfur diesel coming (at least to American diesel pumps) in January of 2006.

As for emissions, when running B100, you will drop the pollutant content of your exhaust from 60-90% across the board with the exception of NOX. Particulate emissions (one of the worst parts of diesel emissions by most standards) are drastically reduced because of the non-existent sulfur content of biodiesel.

As for greenhouse gas emissions, you get a major plus: biodiesel is a "closed carbon cycle" fuel, meaning that the amount of CO2 you generate by burning a gallon of biodiesel is nearly the same amount of CO2 needed to grow the plants required to make a gallon of biodiesel. In other words, when burning biodiesel, you are not making a net contribution to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

The only other real concern is biodiesel's gel point during cold weather (slightly higher than dino diesel); standard dino diesel antigel additives don't work in biodiesel, but there are several products on the market that are specifically designed to work with biodiesel (try google if you're curious).

Finally, with regard to engine warranties, most diesel engine manufacturers are beginning to certify that using methyl ester (AKA biodiesel) will not void the warranty. The use of biodiesel and biodiesel blends has become very common in Europe, which may have prompted this.

Hope this answers your questions. Sorry if this ran a bit long, but it's kind of a complex question to answer.

[Subzilla]

Very good and thorough reply, Duncan. I just got bit by the BD bug last week after a few posts here on the forum and have been doing lots of research on the subject. Your explanation confirms my conclusions. I am very eager to build my processing system!

[Gozo]

Duncan, Wow! That's why I come here!

I'm leaning towards building the appleseed processor on http://www.localb100.com and burning 100% biodiesel during the warm months and a blend with a anti-gel fuel additive in the colder months. With my commute my fuel costs have soared over my mortgage!

I've got a '94 6.5TD Silverado. What fuel lines/parts will I need to swap out?

Again, thanks Duncan!

[Duncan Sterling]

Originally posted by Subzilla:
Very good and thorough reply, Duncan. I just got bit by the BD bug last week after a few posts here on the forum and have been doing lots of research on the subject. Your explanation confirms my conclusions. I am very eager to build my processing system! Thanks, Mark. I've been following biodiesel for a number of years now, and am taking a hard look at building my own reactor. I haven't settled on a particular approach yet, but am currently leaning toward the "apple seed" (converted water heater) setup. Hopefully, I'll be getting to this in the next couple of months.

--Duncan

[Duncan Sterling]

Originally posted by Gozo:
Duncan, Wow! That's why I come here!

I'm leaning towards building the appleseed processor on http://www.localb100.com and burning 100% biodiesel during the warm months and a blend with a anti-gel fuel additive in the colder months. With my commute my fuel costs have soared over my mortgage!

I've got a '94 6.5TD Silverado. What fuel lines/parts will I need to swap out?

Again, thanks Duncan! I'd have to agree with you that the appleseed processor looks like a pretty good starting point for experimenting with BioDiesel. As mentioned in a previous post, I'm inclined toward building one myself in the near future.

I also agree that with fuel costs unlikely to settle down below $2 any time soon, it makes alot of sense to at least blend BioDiesel with dinoDiesel.

While I'm not familiar with the exact setup in the later suburbans (mine's a '91) I would guess that as on my truck, you've got some combination of metal and rubber lines running from the fuel tank up to your lift pump.

So those rubber line sections, plus your injector return lines (and any others I may have missed) are probably good candidates for replacement with synthetic rubber pieces.

You might also consider changing your fuel filter and buying a spare to keep around just in case.

Other than that, you should be good to go. If you do go ahead and build the appleseed reactor, I hope you'll post here about your experiences in building, testing and operating it.

--Duncan

[Subzilla]

I posted a request message to MP Jim to put in a new section on the DP forum for Biodiesel stuff. It seems there is a growing interest in this stuff and it's challenging to keep up with everybody's experiences by having to look on four different forum sections here on the DP for info. I've been doing alot of reading on the appleseed reactor, too, and I wish I knew someone locally to go inspect theirs! The construction of it looks very straight forward but info on the actual process seems scattered on the internet. I'm looking for one source that spells out times, quantities, quality control info, ....

[Gozo]

I would like to see two branches of the forum - one devoted to the manufacture/conversion of SVO and WVO oil into biodiesel and another devoted to issues related to vehicles and engines burning the fuel.

After reading and following posts on other forums devoted to making biodiesel I am fairly convinced that it is a good, viable alternative to dinodiesel. On the other hand, I'm also seeing mixed results with specific engines and parts configurations when burning either straight or blended product. This is where I think the most value is to the followers of this forum. The Chevrolet diesel's we run are far different than the Mercedes straight 5 or an older Perkins generator engine. I'd like to see specific fuel product specs, blend percentages and results related to running the fuels in the 6.2, 6.5 and Duramax engines.

What do you all think?

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

You might want to consider posting this on the Members Forum, or writing More Power an email directly. Dr. Lee's a real understanding guy & will answer most anything we post; personally, I like to keep this foum for the really basic but difficult generic diesel questions. ;)

You may, in fact, notice that he requests that we address questions directly to him, from which he'll select the ones he will answer; he starts the topic himself. Don't feel bad for missing this - I was a member a number of years before I noticed it. :D

Blessings!

[Subzilla]

I agree with moondoggie about posting on the Doc's section. Concerning the biodiesel section, see More Power's response to my request on the Member's section under "biodiesel section". Look's like we'll have to post on the general diesel section.

[diesel lover]

Okay. i tried using wvo (straight) in the warmer days of early September with fantastic results. :D No power loss. Smoother running engine. But when the temps. dropped below 50s overnight truck was harder to start and shut off but restarted when first driven. After a brief warm up everything was fine. :cool: Purchased a wvo heater on ebay with intention of using before winter sets in.(hopefully) Truck in question is 95 chevy w/6.5 TD. Also has been used in 2001 ford psd. same results. In European contries where fuel costs have been high for years, people have had to use whatever they could to power thier vehicles. Look into some of the vwo websites to obtain further information :cool: or look into the history of the diesel engine or it's maker Rudolph Diesel. :cool: