1 Make your own Biodiesel Part 2

Lara Thayer edited this page 2025-01-18 03:54:19 +00:00

Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run much better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- much better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just cheap but you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to understand.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify 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 mix. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. Journey to 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 have to start the engine on normal petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then 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 veggie oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather homes than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by many long-term tests in numerous countries, including countless miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and need further development.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more pricey, depending just how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with brand-new oil or used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has actually to be processed initially.

But the large and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply each week or as soon as a month and quickly get used to it. Many have been doing it for years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems use because it's low-cost or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be removed, and it probably ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may as well make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.