Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies offer you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- better for the environment and much better for health.
If you make it from oil it's not just inexpensive however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to know.
Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and economical option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best method is to fit a professional singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, along with fuel heating.
With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses an Elsbett single-tank system. More
There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You need to begin the engine on ordinary 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 details on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog.
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has much better cold-weather homes than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,
it's backed by numerous long-term tests in lots of countries, consisting of millions of miles on the road.
Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to state that many SVO systems are still speculative and require further development.
On the other hand, biodiesel can be more expensive, depending just 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 has to be processed first.
But the large and quickly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply every week or as soon as a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for several years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, cooked), which many people with SVO systems use due to the fact that it's cheap 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 have to do all that I might as well make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle 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
Sung Hoffmann edited this page 1 week ago