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Yes. About 10 years ago. Be prepared for mess, smell and cost.
All the stories about waste veg oil are rubbish. The stuff is like liquid gold, can’t get it anywhere.
Acetone in quantities required is nasty stuff.
Best advice is to do a lot of research. Where will you get the ingredients? Cost? Storage?
Then you come to the cars you intend using it in. Be prepared for a lot of fuel filter changes as the bio is a better solvent than most spirit based things. Cleans everything out and deposits it all in the fuel filter. Once past the filter it continues to clean the system and can clog up the pump and injectors.
Since modern CR diesels can’t really use it you would still need to mix 50/50 with Dino diesel and add lubrication for the pump. If this were not the case we would see Bio available on forecourts as it is commercially viable in large quantities, but nothing less than 15 years old can run on it easily. Tends to void warranties as well.
It’s not something I would do again unless running an old mechanical diesel such as the Merc 300d or the Pompe Douse tdi. Basically it needs to be able to run on neat veg oil without problems if you want to use neat Bio.
Costco sell 20 litre drums of NVO for less than 20 quid but expect that to go up as more gets used as car fuel. Still has to be mixed with Dino so not that much saving but lots of messing around. Plus 1 or 2 drums to dispose of on every fill up.
All the stories about waste veg oil are rubbish. The stuff is like liquid gold, can’t get it anywhere.
Acetone in quantities required is nasty stuff.
Best advice is to do a lot of research. Where will you get the ingredients? Cost? Storage?
Then you come to the cars you intend using it in. Be prepared for a lot of fuel filter changes as the bio is a better solvent than most spirit based things. Cleans everything out and deposits it all in the fuel filter. Once past the filter it continues to clean the system and can clog up the pump and injectors.
Since modern CR diesels can’t really use it you would still need to mix 50/50 with Dino diesel and add lubrication for the pump. If this were not the case we would see Bio available on forecourts as it is commercially viable in large quantities, but nothing less than 15 years old can run on it easily. Tends to void warranties as well.
It’s not something I would do again unless running an old mechanical diesel such as the Merc 300d or the Pompe Douse tdi. Basically it needs to be able to run on neat veg oil without problems if you want to use neat Bio.
Costco sell 20 litre drums of NVO for less than 20 quid but expect that to go up as more gets used as car fuel. Still has to be mixed with Dino so not that much saving but lots of messing around. Plus 1 or 2 drums to dispose of on every fill up.
The_Yellow_Ardvark
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I have.
Slowed down a bit the last few years.
Setting up is the hard part, setting aside time to prepare the used oil need to be taken into account.
Also a few engines ca not run on bio fuels, some needs seals changed.
Take a good look at the items on line to do your research.
Slowed down a bit the last few years.
Setting up is the hard part, setting aside time to prepare the used oil need to be taken into account.
Also a few engines ca not run on bio fuels, some needs seals changed.
Take a good look at the items on line to do your research.
I've been brewing and using it since 2010, so about 25,000 litres.
Less so recently, as the wvo is hard to get hold of.
No problem at very high percentages in CR engines. The main technical hurdle is the DPF...
northwest
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So, in conclusion then, it sounds like more time and faff than reward, in which case I will just buy 20 litre drums of Veg oil from Costco and mix it 50/50 with Diesel which I am assured will work in the Astra.
Not totally self reliant but cheaper to run than the current eye watering prices of road fuel.
Not totally self reliant but cheaper to run than the current eye watering prices of road fuel.
AVI_8
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What age is the Astra?
I would say will work and will be good for are 2 separate issues, old mechanical diesels would just about run off anything, modern emissions systems however combined with sensors, EGR’s, DPF’s and ecu’s that’s a different story.
julianf
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Our central heating runs on biodiesel. Sadly our "on the road" car at present has a DPF, which prohibits biodiesel, but, if it were not for that, id use it (its a common rail).
Eventually ill get the 300tdi back on the road, and that will use bio again.
I have no idea how much veg i have stockpiled currently. Maybe 2000 ltrs ish. I was trying to empty our 1500ltr biodiesel tank earlier today as i was going to swap it over to veg storage in the mean time.
Occasionally i look again at Kroll pressure jet burners for central heating, as im sick of the (very short) service interval you get in pressure jet boilers when running b100.
Eventually ill get the 300tdi back on the road, and that will use bio again.
I have no idea how much veg i have stockpiled currently. Maybe 2000 ltrs ish. I was trying to empty our 1500ltr biodiesel tank earlier today as i was going to swap it over to veg storage in the mean time.
Occasionally i look again at Kroll pressure jet burners for central heating, as im sick of the (very short) service interval you get in pressure jet boilers when running b100.
julianf
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Its a load of bother, but, if you have space, then its not exactly complicated. If you can, reliably, brew wine, or bake cakes etc, then you could make bio.
It generally goes wrong when you use rough feedstock, or try and take shortcuts. If youre lucky enough to source reliably clean feedstock, then its not too hard.
But..
Theres a sweet spot of age of car - too old and theres rubber seals that biodiesel eat, too new and youre into common rail (which will run find on good bio, but maybe not beginners grade bio) and then DPF filters are the end of it all.
Irritatingly our current car is a landrover freelander 2, built just before DPFs became mandatory, but was originally a demonstrator, so has all the "optional extras" fitted, including the damn DPF.
The landrover 101 has an international engines 2.8 TGV in it, so no issues there, and the defender is a 300tdi, which, once the injection pump has a viton front seal fitted, will run forever on biodiesel.
Pigeon_Droppings2
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I was looking at it about 10 years ago...there is an automatic machine that you basically load up with all the ingredients and then press a button and it does every stage.....then you just pump it into your car!
Wasn't cheap machine (think it's made in the USA)...but I seriously considered importing one. I can dig around to see if I can find a link and add it in below...
julianf
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pay a load of money for and then find that it doesnt work.
(of course, this is just an assumption, based on all the other automatic machines that dont work... who knows, you may have found "the one"! : )
Pigeon_Droppings2
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The machine I looked at was similar to this one...basically you have to get the measures right and then it takes care of everything else (supposedly) - the one I saw had eye measures so seemed pretty hard to get it wrong. I have no idea whether it actually works...but seems a simpler solution than others I've seen.
It was the hassle of finding and storing all the ingredients that put me off...not the sort of stuff you can pick up at Tesco.
It was the hassle of finding and storing all the ingredients that put me off...not the sort of stuff you can pick up at Tesco.
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julianf
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biodiesel is a term that gets used for all sorts of rubbish, but, to spec, its technically methy (or ethyl) ester(s)
your vegetable oil is a triglyceride. a big heavy sugar alcohol with three ester side chains.
all youre really doing is chopping off that big glycerol molecule and substituting a smaller alcohol in its place. the reaction is called transesterification, as youre moving the esters from one alcohol to another.
you can kind of guess this is not the same as whacking in some white spirit or acetone to act as a simple thinner on triglycerides.
Pigeon_Droppings2
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What he said...chucking stuff in veg oil to thin it down or heating it up (which works on some engines) isn't the same as bio diesel I think.
julianf
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the trick with it all is balancing a bunch of other reactions with the one you want..
the transesterification reaction is catalysed by (in the case of our diy bucket chemistry) sodium or potassium hydroxide. but most kids and hippies know that lye and vegetable oil (and water) make soap...
so you have to dry the oil, but then you have other stuff going on, in that the feedstock has variable ph, due to its variable former life. and your gcse chemistry will tell you that acid+base<>salt+water
...and then the water triggers the sapponification reaction again. which takes out your catalyst etc.
so, its a balancing act. nice dry non-acidic feedstock and its not too hard at all. tubs of prep containing chicken carcusses and drowned rats, and its not so much fun...
the transesterification reaction is catalysed by (in the case of our diy bucket chemistry) sodium or potassium hydroxide. but most kids and hippies know that lye and vegetable oil (and water) make soap...
so you have to dry the oil, but then you have other stuff going on, in that the feedstock has variable ph, due to its variable former life. and your gcse chemistry will tell you that acid+base<>salt+water
...and then the water triggers the sapponification reaction again. which takes out your catalyst etc.
so, its a balancing act. nice dry non-acidic feedstock and its not too hard at all. tubs of prep containing chicken carcusses and drowned rats, and its not so much fun...
julianf
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most people now run a 2 stage reaction where a set amount of methanol / catalyst is added for the first stage of the reaction, which, when completed will give a percentage conversion of the batch
the percentage converted can be tested with a simple test, and the chemicals required for the second (hopefully final) stage calculated.
what we used to do was try and calculate the total chemical requirement at the start by testing the ph of the feedstock and doing some maths, but there are so many variables that it was found that it was just simpler to run a standardised first stage, and then do the numbers from testing that.
if you have especially evil feedstock it can still be preferential to do the ph testing at the start, in order to (try) and avoid issues, but thats not the task for the first time brewer.
its one of those ones where if it goes well, its not really too hard at all. when it goes wrong and you get left with 250ltrs of failed feedstock that then goes solid at room temperature (solid in all the pipework, the pump impeller, etc. etc.) then you start to wonder why you ever thought it was a good idea at all.
the percentage converted can be tested with a simple test, and the chemicals required for the second (hopefully final) stage calculated.
what we used to do was try and calculate the total chemical requirement at the start by testing the ph of the feedstock and doing some maths, but there are so many variables that it was found that it was just simpler to run a standardised first stage, and then do the numbers from testing that.
if you have especially evil feedstock it can still be preferential to do the ph testing at the start, in order to (try) and avoid issues, but thats not the task for the first time brewer.
its one of those ones where if it goes well, its not really too hard at all. when it goes wrong and you get left with 250ltrs of failed feedstock that then goes solid at room temperature (solid in all the pipework, the pump impeller, etc. etc.) then you start to wonder why you ever thought it was a good idea at all.
