Make Your Own Biodiesel Part 2
Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies offer you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- better for the environment and better for health.
If you make it from used cooking oil it's not just inexpensive but you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to understand.
Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and economical alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The finest way is to fit an expert singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, in addition to fuel heating.
With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for circumstances you can utilize petro-diesel, or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses an Elsbett single-tank system. More
There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to start the engine on ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then change to SVO in the other tank when the veg-oil is hot enough, and switch back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.
More information on straight grease systems in my blog site.
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it operates in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,
it's backed by many long-lasting tests in lots of countries, consisting of millions of miles on the road.
Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that many SVO systems are still experimental and require further development.
On the other hand, biodiesel can be more costly, depending how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.
But the large and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply every week or as soon as a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, prepared), which lots of individuals with SVO systems use since it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be eliminated, and it probably ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might as well make biodiesel instead." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.
