Hey guys and gals, I've been contemplating whether or not to start making my own biodiesel. Just wondering if its worth the hassle or not, how much area would it take to set up shop and if you have any suggestions on making my own reactor or buying a pre-made reactor.

any information would be helpful (success or failure stories)

Thanks!

Have you looked over in the alternative fuels section? Lots of good info

viewforum.php?f=94

_________________


05 CRD Sport Dark Kahki

RRO: Adventure Rack/Rails ** MOPAR: Skids/Renny Flares & 255/75r17 (32.1) BFG M/T on JK wheels ** ARB: Bumper/IPF lights/790/948/shocks ** GDE: TCM/Hot Tune ** ROCKLIZARD: Super Sliders/Komodo Bumper

My Build Thread
US Army Infantry

If you do end up making your own, take the time to do it right and not make any shortcuts. Bad conversion that leaves vegetable oil in the mix will accumulate in your rings and engine oil, and eventually cause compression and lubrication issues. And soap byproducts not washed out can cause filter plugging issues. Of course any water in your fuel will prematurely wear your fuel pump and injectors -- don't rely on the water separating function in the filter to keep your fuel dry, they will only stop free water, and not water still dissolved and suspended in bad fuel.

_________________
'05 Liberty CRD B100, SEGR - SOLD

'01 Beetle TDi B100, EGR delete
'83 Mercedes 240D B100, no EGR

--- SEGR Builder ---

Before you invest any money on reactors and fancy equipment make sure you can get oil to process. I have had a hell of a time finding oil to use for Bio, not to mention free oil.....
In my area restaurants sell their WVO and it's all on contracts, get caught "stealing" from their dumpsters and you'll face steep fines.
Good luck !!

_________________

x2 Siardi

All restaurants in my area do the same. When I first started the restaurant had to pay to have the used oil removed. We came in an offered a free service and were in business. Nowadays the rendering companies are paying big bucks for the used oil. We lost almost all our accounts because of this. The only restaurants we have left are ones that are owned by friends or family. If you do not have a line on free grease, do not invest in the equipment.

_________________
2006 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited
Gen2 Fuel Head - Magnaflow Exhaust - Ram transmission swap - In-Tank Lift Pump
Moab Wheels - 245/75/R16 LR E Cooper Discoverer AT3 Tires - OME Lift 790/90009 948/60069 - Etecno Glow Plugs - V6 Airbox
RUNNING B100
Pic of my Jeep!

Lack of supply and bad quality of what I could get is what put me out of the biodiesel business too. Up to the point I stopped, I had made over 1000 gallons on a home-built processor.

It is possible to build for less than $400, but it won't be pretty or easy. The nice cone-bottom tanks are the expensive bit, especially on the ready-made units. I also never messed with washing the biodiesel - If you don't add water to the mix, you don't have water to try and deal with later in the process. Clean the raw oil BEFORE doing anything to it, and your biodiesel will be clean too.

Don't want excess soap production? Well... You make soap by mixing the NaOH into the oil with WATER as the binder, not alcohol. So to avoid soap, don't have any water in the oil. I gravity filtered my oil for about a week (since I didn't have a flow centrifuge) and never pulled from the bottom 2 inches of the barrel. Oil floats on water and they don't mix well. Every once in a while, I would pump out that bottom sludge and do a real small batch to see what I had - had some glop, but not much.

The chemical process as I understand it is that the methoxide mix breaks the long molecule chains of the oil, and uses the alcohol molecules to plug the break creating shorter chains. This cuts the viscosity of the oil, so that it flows like diesel. The remaining chain is the glycerin, which sinks to the bottom b/c it is too heavy. When the reaction runs out of one of the three elements, it stops:

Not enough oil - I'm not sure this is even possible, b/c you should always be at about a 85% / 15% oil to alcohol.
Not enough alcohol - The remaining lye in the mix will seek out any water, making soaps, and cloudy biodiesel.
Not enough lye - The possibility of unreacted oil, but if you run with an excess of methanol (About 18-20% by volume to oil) then you should have plenty of alcohol to react the oil almost perfectly. As long as your measurement of the lye is close, the reaction should result successfully. If at the end of a few hours, you have smelly biodiesel (Smells like the alcohol) then you have an excess of methanol. This is good. Let it sit (or keep mixing it) until it quits smelling of the alcohol, OR try to distill the meth back out. I wasn't ever able to do that successfully, so I just let the excess evaporate away.

Let it settle for at least 5 hours, then drain from the bottom to get the glycerin out into a 5 gallon bucket until the color changes. Set that aside so gravity settle - You will get back even more bio from that! The rest... Filter it to 5 micron, and put it into clean storage for at least 24 hours. Don't pull from the very bottom of that tank just in case something else settles out, but its ready to go.

_________________
Proud supporting vendor of LOST Jeeps
TRAVELING CRD TECH. I come to you!
Need help? Just ask! I've taken it apart more than most.
Email jeep [at] maincomputer [dot] com - BOARD MESSAGING IS BROKEN
Over 225 CRDs currently driving with my valves, timing belt, rockers, or ARP Studs.
Bad noises = REALLY bad things.

I find it is easier to just burn the veg oil straight. I have burned thousands of gallons over the last ten years. And put 30k miles on my veggie powered CRD. The conversion was cheap next to the cost of a premade biodiesel processor. I find filtering grease is easier than making bio. On that note I spent the last few months making a biodiesel processor out of an upsidedown water heater and pipes and valves. I had a pump and some valves and some pipe and a water heater and I still spend $200 on parts. It is sitting in my backyard "shead" area I still have not tried it yet. Making Bio takes time and effort for about the time it take to titrate the oil I can filter 60 gallons of grease.

I work in a high quality restaurant that requires really clean grease. I benifit from this because I get to take the grease home with me.

_________________
2006 Liberty CRD -- Spare tire replaced with Veg tank, semi filter for veg, FPHE, Electric common rail line heater, fill vegetable oil tank every 3 days. ORM, EHM comes out in front of the passenger rear tire. Wife has new job and 20 mile round trip to work. I borrow her Jeep a lot and live in South Florida.

Thanks for all the comments. Ill make sure I cover all my bases before I start investing.

Thanks again!!

sure. what would you like to know?
I have made my own since 2004..rewrote the book at using Acid to make biodiesel
ran in a DD8.2 my bus..since gone, but not due to biodiesel
currently in a Cummins 5.9 and a jeep CRD

I have built my own processing setup. currently can make 150 gallons+ per week. getting oil is an issue.


why to biodiesel instead of straight WVO?
more than one vehicle to convert? I had 3 at one time
no concern about heating the oil before switching to WVO and no concern about switch back to diesel at cool down.

down side to biodiesel..depending the blend of oil the gel point is higher than diesel..
every to try go somewhere but found out you couldn't because your fuel is frozen..not liquid? its an issue with biodiesel.

-dkenny

_________________
84 BB school bus, DD8.2L turbo ->the transmission died..too expensive to fix..it'll be heading to the scrap yard..4/11)..Bus gone to Scarp 8/23/11
06 Liberty CRD
'99 dodge ram 2500 quad cab, 4x4, 24v
all Biodiesel powered when its warm enough

I have two converted SVO vehicles and I do not consider that a downside. Especially since it elimnates the gel issue completly. I have problems with bio-diesel which is probably due to lack of practice but it takes me a long time just to get set-up to make bio. I filter grease in miutes because it is really self functioning for me at this point.

I really what to run bio for start up and svo for driving and biodiesel for my generator, those things do not like svo. Of course generators might not like bio either but I have not found that out yet. I am not there yet on making my own biodiesel yet but I am working on it slowly. I started grease in 2000 and I quickly learned that SVO was much easier than bio. I have not really made biodiesel in 6 years. And when I did it was in really small batches. (10 gallons). My new just finished processor should make 30 gallons at a time.

When making biodiesel you have to buy ingrediants to make it. With SVO I just have to filter it. And I have gotten real good at that.

_________________
2006 Liberty CRD -- Spare tire replaced with Veg tank, semi filter for veg, FPHE, Electric common rail line heater, fill vegetable oil tank every 3 days. ORM, EHM comes out in front of the passenger rear tire. Wife has new job and 20 mile round trip to work. I borrow her Jeep a lot and live in South Florida.

Ive been running B99 for that last few weeks. Love it.

_________________
2006 KJ CRD Ltd - Suncoast, GDE Eco, EGR Delete, After market T-Stat, Skid Row skids, V6 airbox, 2.5" Turbo back
2005 KJ CRD Sport-Suncoast, Transco, GDE Hot-GDE Trans, EGR Delete, Skid Row skids, V6 airbox, 2.5" Turbo back, After market S-Stat
1987 Suzuki LWB Samurai -diesel powered, custom 4 link coil suspension 38.5 SX Swampers