Does anybody here make biodiesel at home? I have no real need to do it, but I've wanted to do it forever. Most of the older online resources leave me with a few dots I can't quite connect. If anyone in Missouri does it, I'd love to lend a helping hand for a few hours to see the full process. I'd be happy to bring pizza, beer, or both.
I'm not is Missouri but I made bio to feed my truck for about 6 years. I ran it exclusively on my home brew from 150K miles to about 250K miles. The truck is about to hit 390K miles, like later today, so I'm pretty sure the "You'll damage your engine!!!!" crowd has been silenced.
I haven't looked at any of the old web sites in years, I even forget what they are called. I got pretty advanced with the process(for the time) and was doing a base/base/prewash method. After the reaction process I washed the fuel with a fine mist of water, about 300% by volume, total. Then I ran a fish tank bubbler in it for a few days to dry it. If I were to start again I would probably go with a resin system to polish up the fuel instead of water washing.
My processor was a 120gal propane tank stood on end with legs long enough to be able to drain the glycerol into a 5 gal bucket. My wash tank was a cone bottom plastic tank that held 175gal IIRC. I could get about 90gals a batch.
Ask me anything!
I don't really want to ask you to expand on literally everything you wrote... Can you describe the base/base/prewash process? Do you know of any books or websites with good information?
What engine did you run it in?
Some related reading from the back catalog:
In reply to jgrewe :
Awesome amount of wisdom coming from you!
Basically how much was your final cost per gallon to get it ready to use. Feel free to speak in code if you don't want the tax man.....
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
When methanol was about $200 for a 54 gal drum my final cost was about .90 a gal. That included my meth, potasium hydroxide, and electricity. I don't know how much it is now, you need to find a supplier that doesn't try to make "all the money" on one drum. I had to go to a chemical supply place in Tampa to get a reasonable deal.
I need to dust off some old brain cells here.
The normal home brew process used 22% by volume of the methanol and Hydroxide mix. You can use Sodium or Potassium hydroxide. I liked Potassium because I could make great hand soap liquid from the glycerol that is the waste product of making fuel. Sodium is good if you want to make bar soap later. It all looks nasty but man it will clean.
So you have 100 gals of oil, you will need 22 gals of methoxide. The amount of hydroxide you need to add to your methanol is determined by a titration test. You need to get your oil to neutral Ph and some extra for the reaction to remove the mono, di, and triglycerides from the oil. What you end up with is called fatty acid methyl esters="Biodiesel". The exact titration process escapes me right now. I can find some info and post it later. It is the most difficult part of the process.
You heat the oil up to about 130F, I used to push it a little bit but you can't get over the boiling point of methanol, 142F if I recall. Add the methoxide slowly and let it circulate in the system for about an hour or so. The reaction occurs quickly at first but then slows down because the reacted stuff slows down new reactions. You shut it off and let it settle. The glycerol falls to the bottom, black nasty looking stuff, the stuff left on top is biodiesel. Drain the black stuff out and the fuel looks like tea or apple juice colored.
That is the basic method. Base/base/ prewash is just a few extra steps. Titration and all the heat is the same. You only add 75% of your methoxide at first though. Let that process for a while and let it settle out for a short time, maybe 30 minutes. Then you add the last of your methoxide and let it run for an hour or longer. Draining off some the glycerol that has reacted helps speed up the process when you add the other 25%. The reaction only needs about 15% methoxide in perfect conditions, the extra 7% is an insurance policy. After running that for another hour you add 5% water(5 gals in our case) and let it run for while.
The prewash was black belt level stuff back then. One problem you will have is water in your oil stock. Any water in your oil during the reaction process and you will make soap! The reaction is done before the prewash so what it does is starts to absorb any methanol and soaps you may have in the mix.
I usually let it sit over night after the prewash. The next day you drain all the water and glycerol off the bottom and move what is left to the wash tank or run it through your resin beads to remove the methanol and soaps.
After washing and drying, feed it to your diesel engine.
There are a lot of ways E36 M3 can go sideways with high Ph oils and bad titration methods. Too much for me to remember enough to bail any body out if they have a processor full of tan goo. You can get into playing with acids to magically break up the goo and still get fuel.
Found a picture of the processor and wash tank. Its was about 8' tall, all the poly tubes are gone though.
In reply to jgrewe :
Thank you!
In reply to bigeyedfish :
I ran it in a 24V Cummins with a VP44 pump and in my friends 2004 Cummins with the common rail pump system. Also in my Bobcat and a friends boat.
The first tank full you run through anything will clean out the fuel system so well it will clog your filter in a few days. Biodiesel is a great solvent.
I didn't do biodiesel. I ran straight veggie oil for about 100K miles. Bio was too much work, and too much per gallon for me lol.
IIRC I had about $0.07 per gallon for my fuel. Maybe it was $0.17, but I think $0.07 is it. Just electricity.
In reply to DrBoost :
I looked at SVO(straight vegetable oil) but the newer and higher tech injection system, the less likely it will work. I also do too much city driving to heat up an onboard tank of oil, switch to it, and purge it out of the injection system before shutting down. I knew a guy that ran SVO in his lawn service work truck and he would just let the truck idle at the job sites all day.
I'm still thinking about adding a propane fogging system to the truck right now. You are just swapping to a different Btu source but there is a lot of performance potential and some cost savings with diesel over $4 a gal.
DrBoost said:I didn't do biodiesel. I ran straight veggie oil for about 100K miles. Bio was too much work, and too much per gallon for me lol.
IIRC I had about $0.07 per gallon for my fuel. Maybe it was $0.17, but I think $0.07 is it. Just electricity.
I'm glad you posted. I knew someone here had done something similar and had a good thread about it, but I couldn't find it.
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