tesla440

I know that alot of people that make biodiesel are against this thought, but wvo blending works also without the cost of chemicals. Just filter, dewater your WVO as you would for biodiesel & add diesel. start with 50/50 WVO/diesel & work your way to 95/5 WVO/diesel in 5% increaments. Once the truck starts smoking you need to add more diesel. Just remember that you will need more diesel the colder that its out. 50/50 works even down to 0degrees out without any problems, which I don't think you'll see very often in Florida. I know that people think that this will not work or have problems with it. But look at all of the people that have converted over to running straight WVO as fuel without converting over to biodiesel. If you don't like the fact of using WVO. you can do the same thing to WMO (waste motor oil).

Deesil

Do you run this in your truck?

I gotta tell ya, I've done a good deal of hunting around the net the last couple days searching for blend topics and advice. It seems the smart money is on staying away from SVO blends for a number of reasons. What I haven't seen is anyone running the blend that you describe for any decent length of time and stating their results. I have seen NO long term unbiased testing of any blend in the modern Cummins common rail. Even the systems like the Frybrid call for injector modification.

95% WVO 5% diesel blend.....not in my truck.

b4wheeler

Not any tech here for you guys to read, but our local Bio-diesel guy had to shut down business because the govt got on him for not taxing for road use.
Just be aware that if you make your own "over-the-road" fuel and the wrong person finds out, you are going to get hit with some heavy hands trying to get you to pay them there "cut" because you are at that point "essentially" using their roads for free.......
A bunch of "bull stuff" i know, but it happened here and it can happen there.....

Ok, back to the tech stuff.... I am done...

Deesil

Well I don't think the govt would do much about making your own fuel. You just can't sell it. I do agree that it's probably not something you want to advertise too much, the neighbors might get their undies in a bunch over it.

Deezel Nate

You can recover most of the methanol and reuse it, so the cost of the methanol is really not a favor into the cost of the Bio Diesel.... That's how people are doing it for about $1/gal.

kawi600

I used to get mine from a vendor in NH but last month the price went from 170 to 436$ with no real explanation. Methanol is VERY variable in price, but geez thats a big difference. Anyhow Im getting it from a local petro company now and its 199$ delivered with barrel fee included. I just got that price on the phone yesterday and I also priced ethanol locally at 320$
The only explanation I have is that you need to call a few petro distributors and find out if they carry it and how much it costs. It must be delivered it needs a hazmat license to transport.
The other half of the price problem is what kinds of chemical and petro businesses are in your area? This stuff is a waste product from processing natural gas and probably a few other industrial processes. If you are closer to farm country maybe you should look into an acid process and price out ethanol.

Deesil

Thanks Kawi for the tips, I'll look into it.

As far as recovering Meth....I thought I read that you can only distill about 1/4 of the original meth used. Is that the case or did I misread.

I guess the next homework I have is looking into meth recovery

woodrat

you can't recover all of the methanol, because a certain amount of it becomes part of the new molecule that is biodiesel.

more accurate titration should be able to allow you to use the minimum possible amount of methanol.

tesla440

I feel safer running WMO at an additive level of of 50/50. I also add PS to keep everything clean.

Just as a note, I've read several places that a '03/'04 common rail running SVO set-ups with 40,000 trouble free miles.

kawi600

you can reclaim a little bit of methanol, but I dont think its worth doing unless youre trying to be environmentally responsible somehow. heating and cycling the glycerin / biodiesel after the reaction has sat for a day or so should allow you to get some steam at the top vent on the water heater.. you could plumb this over a copper coil with cold water running through it and collect the condensate.
This may reduce the amount of washing needed. might make it safer to handle too. My biodiesel reeks of methanol so bad when its done that I have to vent the wash tank with a ducted fan.

taterfarm

here in Maine I get methanol for $4 a gallon

I have found that once you get set up with pumps and valves to move everything around then it doesnt take up much time. I figure I have more that covered my costs with just over a 100 gallons.

Also,
I guess I can produce 1600 gallons a year tax free, which is probably different for each state.

and I would not run any SVO in a motor without either heating the oil to 160ish or changing the injectors. I have not seen any reports showing success for an extended period of time without modification and have read of several reports of engine damage due to SVO

woodrat

I don't think I would want to mess with straight SVO, with the extra tank and everything, but the blends of SVO and WMO are interesting to me. how do you filter the waste motor and vegetable oil? Do you also have an auxilary filter or prefilter on your truck?

I am also interested in making biodiesel too, and finally scored a good water heater to use for the appleseed design. I already have a few nice metal drums for preheating and wash tanks. now I just need to clear out some space somewhere to start setting it up.

tesla440

WVO & WMO can be filtered in the same way. Let settle for a 1-2 weeks & pour through filter bags in to a tank to use/blend. Or create a pumping setup with stanging filters.... 100micron, 50 micron, 10 micron, 1 micron or any combination that you feel confortable with. The large the spacing between the micron filter rating only means that the finer filter will clog up faster.

Philabuster

Also, biodiesel nets lower MPG than regular #2 diesel, so you can't use a straight price/gal for the final costs. You need to use cents/mile to be more accurate.

My truck normally gets 17mpg with mixed city/highway driving. I dumped in 10 gals of B99 for the first time (shortly after new fuel system was installed) and my mileage dropped to 13.5mpg. Mileage slowly climbing back up as the 10gals is diluted more and more. I also noticed a big power loss with bio as well in three different vehicles I have. BTW, every single vehicle also had a huge improvement in emmisions (almost no smoke and exhaust smelled better). I had a hard time getting one vehicle to pass emissions, so I drained the diesel and dumped in 15gal of biodiesel--passed with flying colors.

I purchased ALL my bio from Western States Petroleum in Phoenix. I have not made a drop of it myself, but helped other friends assemble and troubleshoot their Appleseed processors.

I wanted to see what burning bio felt like BEFORE I commited myself to making it. I'm glad I did. I love biodiesel and the concept, but it is not something I plan to make or burn on a regular basis yet.

woodrat

that's interesting. I actually got a 1 mpg bump on bio and felt no difference in power at all. I've run probably a half dozen tanks of B99 in my truck over the last 10,000 miles or so, and I had one filter plug up a the very beginning and then no problems ever since. And the exhaust does smell better...