A diesel engine is currently the only widely available way for consumers to make use of vegetable oil biofuel.
Coupling increasing global awareness of environmental issues with the rising costs and scarcity of fossil fuels, alternative fuel sources have never been more popular. Used cooking oil can be converted into a fuel that will power a vehicle that uses a diesel or turbodiesel (TDI) engine. There are multiple ways to acquire this oil, but the most common way is to make regular trips to a restaurant or other place of business that would be frequently discarding a large amount of used oil.
Instructions
Blending SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) with Petrodiesel in a Diesel Engine
1. Put on your protective eyewear, gloves, and apron.
2. Pour whatever quantity of WVO (waste vegetable oil) you'd like to use into your large container through a coffee filter to strain out the impurities.
3. Deacidify the WVO by combining it with 99 percent isopropyl alcohol. The amount of alcohol you use should be 10 percent of the total volume of your WVO.
4. Determine the blend of SVO and petrodiesel you'd like to use. The standard blend is 80 percent petrodiesel to 20 percent SVO, but you may want to tweak that, depending on whether your engine is a new turbodiesel (use less SVO), or an older diesel engine (use more SVO).
5. Pour your SVO into the gas tank of your diesel engine.
6. Pour your petrodiesel into the gas tank of your diesel engine.
Convert WVO to Biodiesel: Titration
7. Put on your protective eyewear, gloves, and apron.
8. Perform titration to determine the correct amounts of ingredients to use in your biodiesel. Combine 1 gram of lye with 1 liter of distilled water. Stir or shake thoroughly to dissolve.
9. Mix 10 mL of isopropyl alcohol with 1 mL of WVO in a separate container. Stir to dissolve. Add 2 drops of phenolphthalein with your eye dropper.
10. Add several small drops of the water/lye solution to the alcohol/WVO/phenolphthalein solution, stirring vigorously after each additional drop. When the solution turns magenta (pink) and stays magenta for 10 seconds, titration is complete, and you should stop adding the water/lye solution.
11. Calculate the amount of lye needed for the reaction by taking the number of milliliters you used to turn the solution pink and multiply that by the number of liters of WVO you are attempting to convert to biofuel. It should require roughly between 6 and 7 grams of lye per liter of WVO, but the exact number will be based on the particulars of the WVO you use.
Convert WVO to Biofuel: Transesterification of biodiesel
12. Heat your WVO to 120 degrees F and keep it stabilized at that temperature (or within 5 degrees).
13. Add the appropriate amount of lye (determined in the previous section) to your methanol. The amount of methanol you use should be 20 percent of the amount of WVO you use. This reaction creates sodium methoxide, which is extremely corrosive, so use extreme caution when making this reaction.
14. Add the sodium methoxide to the WVO while stirring. Continue to stir the heated solution for an hour. You may use a paint mixer if you do not want to stir by hand.
15. Allow the solution to sit for at least 8 hours. Transfer the thin liquid at the top to a separate container. The remaining liquid in the container should be a thicker, browner liquid. This is glycerine and can be used for other purposes, but should not be introduced to your engine.
16. Add the reserved biofuel to your engine via the gas tank. You may use 100 percent biofuel or mix it with petrodiesel.
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