Make Your Own Biodiesel Part 2
Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge 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 much better for health.
If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only low-cost however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.
Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The very best way is to fit an expert 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 instance you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other automobile. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses an Elsbett single-tank system. More
There are likewise two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to begin the engine on normal petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then switch 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 info on straight grease systems in my blog.
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (but not as excellent as see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,
it's backed by lots of long-lasting tests in many countries, consisting of 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 require additional development.
On the other hand, biodiesel can be more costly, 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 on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.
But the big and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply weekly or as soon as a month and soon get used to it. Many have been doing it for many years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems use since it's inexpensive or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be removed, and it probably should be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.