Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- much better for the and much better for health.
If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only cheap however you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to know.
Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and cost-effective choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The best method is to fit a professional singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, as well as fuel heating.
With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and switch off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van utilizes an Elsbett single-tank system. More
There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to start the engine on normal petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that change to SVO in the other tank when the veg-oil is hot enough, and switch back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.
More information on straight veggie oil systems in my blog site.
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has much better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,
it's backed by numerous long-lasting tests in many nations, consisting of countless miles on the road.
Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and need more development.
On the other hand, biodiesel can be more costly, depending how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with new oil or used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.
But the big and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply each week or as soon as a month and quickly get utilized to it. Many have actually been doing it for many years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems utilize because it's inexpensive or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be eliminated, and it most likely should be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might also make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.
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Make your own Biodiesel Part 2
Kristal Allard edited this page 7 months ago