With ever rising gas prices and my desire to continue to drive my big
gas-guzzling trucks I have been looking into purchasing a diesel truck and
converting it to biodiesel. Biodiesel is basically using vegetable oil or
some mixture of it with regular petroleum diesel. According to Uncle Sam,
biodiesel is NOT the same thing as raw vegetable oil because they have a
standard that the fuel must meet in order to qualify.
When thinking of making biodiesel or converting your vehicle to run on
vegetable oil in any capacity there are three main ways to go about it.
First is to truly just pour vegetable oil in the tank, second is to blend it
with regular diesel or another solvent. The third is to convert it into
true biodiesel.
History
of the diesel engine.
Developed by Rudolph Diesel in the late 1800s as a response to the inefficiency
of the steam engine. Diesel's first demonstration of the engine in Paris,
France in 1898 used peanut oil as the fuel source. Diesel's first engine
boasted a 75% efficiency as compared to the 12% of the steam engines of the day.
Diesel's original design was primarily for a stationary motor due to it's
size and weight but was used in ships and submarines. In the 1920s
technology advanced so that the engines could be made small enough to be used in
automobiles. With the growth of the diesel engine and the already big and
growing oil companies of the time, diesel engines soon started running a
petroleum based fuel because it was less viscosity than the biomass fuels.
During the early years of automobiles other manufactures were using or
experimenting with biomass fuels. Early Fords used ethanol and Henry Ford
shared Diesel's vision of using a plant-based fuel for the American
transportation system. Like with biodiesel the petroleum industry as able
to destroy this vision and ethanol was soon out of the public spotlight.
So what can I do?
Well, lets get back to the three ways to make the conversion.
Method 1 - Just Plain Us IT.
While this may work in some cases, especially older engines, there are many
factors to consider. First of all raw vegetable oil is thicker or has more
viscosity than petrol based diesel. To get based this increased viscosity
you can either modify the engine by using different injectors and glow plugs as
well as heat the fuel. A slightly easier way, the way I am considering is
to use a dual tank setup in which you start with regular diesel and then switch
to vegetable oil once the motor and vegetable system is up to the proper
temperature. The only problem with this method is that you need to purge
the system of vegetable oil prior to turning off the motor or the vegetable oil
will gel up and you be up a creek without a paddle.
Method 2 - Blending.
As I stated earlier, vegetable oil is thicker than diesel. Again in
some cases you might be able to mix some vegetable oil in with regular diesel
and get way with it without a problem. The more vegetable oil you use, the
closer you get to the first method in which a fuel system heater is required.
Mixing with other solvents may also cause problem because the chemical and
combustion properties will be different. In today's engines, with all the
computer monitoring this can throw the system off and cause problem.
Remember this is still fairly experimental.
Method 3 - Making biodiesel.
This this the best way to do things because there are no modifications
necessary to the vehicle, it has better cold-weather properties than the above
methods, less than regular diesel however, and it's been thoroughly tested.
Making biodiesel is the more laborious day-to-day method. Biodiesel is
made through a chemical process called
transeterification whereby the glycerin is separated from the fat or
vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products; methyl esters (the
chemical name for biodiesel) and glycerin (used for making soap).
REF: http://journeytoforever.org