Run Your Diesel Vehicle

on Biofuels
This page intentionally left blank
Run Your Diesel Vehicle
on Biofuels
A Do-It-Yourself Guide

Jon Starbuck and Gavin D. J. Harper

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About the Authors

Jon Starbuck makes his own biodiesel and converts vehicles to run on his cleaned-up chip-shop
oil. He writes websites and teaches courses on the subjects of renewable energy, vegetable oil,
and biodiesel. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Kent at Canterbury (UK)
and is currently pursuing an M.Sc. in Renewable Energy Systems Technology at
Loughborough University (UK). He lived, worked, and taught at the Centre for Alternative
Technology (CAT) in Wales for five years, and he is now a freelance renewable energy engi-
neer. He still lives in Wales with his wife and their dog, where he is always making something.
This is his first book.
www.jonstarbuck.co.uk
Gavin D. J. Harper is the author of 50 Awesome Auto Projects for the Evil Genius, Build Your
Own Car PC, 50 Model Rocket Projects for the Evil Genius, Solar Energy Projects for the Evil
Genius, and Fuel Cell Projects for the Evil Genius (all from McGraw-Hill), and has had work
mentioned in the journal Science.
He holds a Diploma in Design and Innovation and a B.Sc. in Technology from the Open
University, UK. He went on to study toward an M.Sc. in Architecture with Advanced
Environmental and Energy Studies with the University of East London at the Centre for
Alternative Technology, Wales. He also holds the Diploma of Vilnius University, Lithuania.
He has undertaken further study with the Open University and with Loughborough
University’s Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology. He is currently reading for
his Ph.D. into the impacts of alternative vehicles and fuels at Cardiff University, Wales.
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Contents

Foreword xiii
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
The birth of biodiesel 2
Vehicle emissions and biodiesel 2
Introducing … biofuels 9
Emissions from biodiesel 10
The lowdown on biodiesel maladies 16
Great … but I’m skeptical … nowhere I know sells biodiesel 17
Final remarks 17
Chapter 2 History of Diesel and the diesel engine 19
Early life 19
Birth of the diesel engine 20
Death 22
Legacy 23
Chapter 3 How does a diesel engine work? 25
Differences between petrol and diesel engines 25
The diesel engine fuel system 28
Fuel injection system configurations 30
Fuel injectors explained 35
Improving the efficiency of your diesel engine 40
Chapter 4 Collecting waste vegetable oil 43
Buying WVO 43
Regulations 45
Transporting it 46
Suckers 46
Storage of waste oil 46
Health and safety 47
How to titrate 47
Testing for water 49

vii
Contents

Chapter 5 Biodiesel chemistry 51

Introduction to the chemistry of biodiesel 51
Chemistry refresher 51
Organic chemistry, hydrocarbons … and all that jazz! 52
Representing chemicals 53
Alkanes 53
Alkenes 54
Alkynes 56
Introduction to functional group chemistry 57
Alcohols 57
Fatty acids (carboxylic acids) 58
Oils and fats 59
Esterification 64
Transesterification 66
Triglycerides 66
Chapter 6 Fuel modification: making biodiesel 71
Introduction 71
Health and safety 72
Where to obtain the chemicals 73
Making biodiesel 74
Titration 75
Water in your WVO 75
Requirements 77
How to achieve high-quality biodiesel 87
Other methods of making biodiesel 87
Two-stage reactions 87
Buying biodiesel 88
Chapter 7 Biodiesel reactors and processors 93
Where to put the processor? 94
Electricity 94
Water 94
Lighting 95
Ventilation 95
Bunding and spills 95
Reactor materials 95
The US Appleseed biodiesel reactor 98
UK hot water tank 103
Vents and methanol recovery 109
Recovering leftover methanol 110
Plans, kits, and readymade reactors 114
Fully automated reactors 117

viii
 Contents

Chapter 8 Engine modification – running on SVO 119

The basics 120
Heating the fuel 121
How to make a heat exchanger 123
Filters 124
Heated fuel tanks 128
Lift pumps 129
Injection systems 129
Valves 135
Bleeding 138
Advantages and disadvantages of the twin tank 139
Putting together your own two-tank system 140
Commercially available two-tank systems 142
One-tank systems 143
Advantages and disadvantages of single-tank conversions 144
One-tank DIY 144
Commercially available one-tank systems 145
Chapter 9 Using WVO in your SVO engine 155
Introduction 155
Processing waste oil 155
Test first, WVO or biodiesel? 156
What is filtering? 156
Dewatering your WVO 160
So what does all this mean? 162
Testing for water 163
Dewatering 163
WVO in the cold weather 164
Summary 164
Chapter 10 Other options and solutions 165
Diesel, kerosene, and heating oil 166
Solvent thinning and blending 167
White spirit 167
Open source, not secret sauce 168
That is too good to be true! 168
Anecdotal evidence is not good evidence 169
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof 169
Magnets 169
HHO and water-powered cars 169
Acetone 170
Adding engine oil or automatic transmission fluid to diesel 170

ix
Contents

The great gas conspiracy 170

Pogue’s carburetor 171
Not a diesel engine? 171
Wood gas 171
Bioethanol 172
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or Autogas) 173
Electric vehicles 174
Hydrogen as a future energy vector 177
Human-powered vehicles 179
Chapter 11 Engine conversion or fuel conversion? 181
How many vehicles are you running? 181
What is your location? 184
How are you going to dispose of the waste? 184
What is your typical journey duration? 184
Who else uses your car? 185
Which is greenest? 185
How proven is the technology? 185
Chapter 12 Waste streams 187
Glycerol 187
Soapy water 188
Oily empties 189
Chapter 13 Health and safety 191
Heavy things and manual handling 191
Working with/under vehicles 192
Biodiesel risks 192
Practical safety hints for biodiesel production 194
Electrical safety 195
Slippery oils 196
Heat 196
Chemical burns 196
Chapter 14 Biofuel ethics 199
Introduction 199
The carbon cycle – the bike with the wonky chain 199
Interdependence, not independence 200
Can we grow enough biofuels? 200
Biofuels, global warming, and big business 201
Food vs fuel 201
Biofuel from waste oils 202
Biofuel from agricultural waste 202
Fuel from algae 203
Other alternative transport technologies 203

x
 Contents

Conclusions 204
References 205
Further reading 205
Chapter 15 Biodiesel and vegetable oil are not just for cars! 207
Introduction 207
Motorbikes 208
Boats 208
Airplanes 208
Portable generators 209
Chapter 16 Epilogue 211
The kids from NERD? 211
Algae 211
Nanotechnology in the production of biodiesel 212
Final remarks 213
Appendix 215
Index 221

xi
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Foreword

I can remember the first time I met someone with a vegetable oil ride. A classmate’s
boyfriend had done a full “waste vegetable oil” (WVO) conversion of his decade-old F-150.
I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I must have grilled him about it for half an
hour. How dirty is the exhaust? Can you start it in cold weather? How do you have to prep
the oil? How long did it take you to get it up and running?
And finally, after he’d answered all those questions for me, and I was satisfied that waste
vegetable oil was both a viable and environmentally friendly option, I asked him whether he
could make one for me. Unfortunately, this was the one question I asked that had an unsat-
isfying answer. He didn’t have the time to make WVO cars for other folks. And so, to this day,
I’m driving a regular, old boring gasoline car.
But the possibilities of WVO-powered travel are considerably more mouth-watering than
the fried food responsible for the fuel itself. I may want a chicken nugget every once in a
while, but I want free gasoline every single day of my life. And don’t make a mistake, that’s
what we’re talking about here … free, clean fuel, straight from the trash. And while I never
had the expertise (or a willing friend) to build a biodiesel vehicle for myself, now Jon and
Gavin have provided a guide for us all.
But don’t mistake, you’re not going to be one of billions traveling on this fuel. There simply
isn’t enough waste oil out there to power much of our current fleet. The path you’re about
to go down isn’t going to solve the world’s energy crisis, but it is an important step. Simply
noticing that this valuable fuel has been treated like toxic waste for the last 50 years is a great
step on the path to a more efficient world. It’s people like Gavin, Jon, and (hopefully) you
who can identify the profligate waste of our systems and use it to their own advantage, and
who will teach the rest of humanity how to behave on a finite planet.
HANK GREEN
Editor-in-Chief/Founder
EcoGeek.org
Hank Green is the Editor-in-Chief and Founder of EcoGeek.org, the largest environmental
technology publication on the Internet. If you want to learn about the thousands of ways
in which the world’s smartest people have committed themselves to growing our civilization
without destroying the planet, you should check it out.

xiii
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Preface

Before you begin

Before you so much as read the Introduction to this book, we want to make sure that we are
all singing from the same song-sheet. Some of the terms we are going to use in this book are
often misunderstood. Journalists who don’t understand the technology writing articles from
corporate press releases, a lack of “green literacy” in the media reporting stories on sustain-
ability, and just plain confusion means that terms are often used loosely and indiscriminately.
We’ve tried to be as consistent as possible in this book to avoid confusion, so read the follow-
ing before you start so that we are all using the same terms of reference!

What is in a name? Clarifying terminology and

biofuels basics
There are a number of reasons why the biodiesel terminology has become muddled – from
a simple misunderstanding to the very deliberate campaigns by some in the biofuels
community to confuse the public by using the same words to mean different things. Here we
are going to explain what we mean by various terms in this book and terms that you may
come across in other publications and across the Internet.
Be vigilant and mindful at all times when reading information on biofuels and remember:

There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.
Voltaire (1694–1778), Dialogue XIV, Le Chapon et la Poularde (1766)

Biodiesel is a fuel made from vegetable oil and/or animal fat. It is not vegetable oil, and has
been chemically altered to make it more like mineral-diesel fuel. Most commonly, the veg-
etable oil is reacted in the presence of a catalyst with methanol to make fatty acid methyl
ester, or FAME.
Biodiesel blends are not 100% biodiesel. Biodiesel refers to the pure fuel. Biodiesel blends,
“green” diesels, and so on are usually denoted as “BXX,” where “XX” represents the percentage
of biodiesel contained in the blend; B20 is 20% biodiesel and 80% mineral diesel, and so on.

xv
Preface

SVO or straight vegetable oil is just that: vegetable oil, usually food-grade cooking oil,
unused and unmodified, such as you can buy in any supermarket or from any wholesaler.
Some in the industry call it PPO, pure plant oil.
WVO or UCO or grease is waste cooking oil, used cooking oil, yellow grease. It is the
vegetable oil and/or animal fats that have been used by a restaurant and are now a waste
product. It is usually dirty, has some water in it, and is not very pleasant to handle. This is
the typical raw ingredient for making biodiesel.
Diesel or mineral-diesel petrodiesel or even dinodiesel is the traditional diesel fuel you
would expect to find on a filling station forecourt; it is also sometimes referred to as DERV.
It is a distilled fraction of crude oil that was formed over millions of years in the earth from
dead plant matter, usually algae (sadly not dinosaurs). Modern mineral-diesel has a large
number of additives in it.
MWVO is modified waste vegetable oil. Confusingly, it can mean a number of things,
but usually refers to waste vegetable oil that has had a thinning agent added to it to reduce
its viscosity rather than being chemically modified.
RUG or regular unleaded gasoline is the fuel sold on gas station forecourts across the world
for use in modern gasoline engines. It is unleaded gas (USA) or unleaded petrol (UK).
Other terms used in the book (see also Appendix) are RME, rapeseed methyl ester, a specific
form of biodiesel made from rape or canola oil; PPO, pure plant oil (see SVO or straight
vegetable oil); ULSD, ultra low sulphur diesel; CO, carbon monoxide; NOx, various oxides
of nitrogen; CNG, compressed natural gas; FAME, fatty acid methyl ester, biodiesel.

xvi
Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the following people who have contributed to the development
of this book.
A massive thank you to the two Peters: Hampson and Jackson, of City Yacht School, UK.
Peter Hampson was especially invaluable in sharing his knowledge about diesel engine tech-
nology, and kindly let us include pictures of some of his diesel engine teaching aids, and an
eclectic collection of diesel engine parts and tools, in this book. Geoff Harper helped to
source diesel pictures and put us in touch with the right people. Hearty thanks to Charles J.
Melton and Steven Charles at Cummins Inc. for their help in sourcing diesel engine cutaways
for the chapter on diesel engine technology.
Gavin would like to thank Willie Nelson for giving him a platform in his fabby little book
On the Clean Road Again – a must read. A massive thanks to Annie Nelson, Bob and Kelly
King, and all the folks at Pacific Biodiesel for their warm welcome to the 2007 National
Biodiesel Conference – these folks champion the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance (SBA;
www.sustainablebiodieselalliance.com), which aims to keep a bit of integrity in the biodiesel
industry by keeping it green, clean, local, and free from GM, nasty additives, colors,
sweeteners, and artificial flavors. Without the invite to the SBA, Gavin would never have
met Frankie Abralind, editor of the truly awesome BiodieselSMARTER, a smashing little
quarterly, for which you can find a discount coupon in the back of this book.
An especially big thank you to Amanda Starbuck, Jon’s wife, for the financial and emotional
support and the beer. Thanks to Robert Starbuck, Jon’s brother, for his photos and prompt
responses to emails. Big thanks to Greenpeace, especially Timo for the desk space and the
coffee, and special thanks to Gesche for keeping Jon hydrated. Thanks to the city of San
Francisco for hosting Jon while he typed the manuscript and cycled about like a maniac in a
futile attempt to work off the burritos.
A few people in the UK biofuels community have been especially helpful: big thanks to Jon
and Dan at Golden Fuels (Oxford, UK) as well as Jan at Sundance Renewables (Swansea,
UK); thanks also to Patrick Whetman of Goat Industries, and to Daniel Blackburn of
www.vegoilmotoring.com for the UCO and for dressing up as Elvis.
The great people at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), Wales, introduced the
authors; thank you to the folks of the CAT kitchen, especially Yvonne, Natalia, and Dave, for
the smashing chickpea curries that will always hold a special place in Gavin’s heart.

xvii
Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, California, especially Ashley Schaeffer and
Pete Huff for putting Jon and Amanda up and showing them about, and John Schaeffer for
the delicious breakfast.
Thanks also to the following people: Andrew Morris in Oakland, California, for showing Jon
his set-up; Maria Alovert, aka Girl Mark, for her book on biodiesel that is probably the best
homebrew book available; and Graham Laming, for brilliant ideas and a ton of free, high-
quality information on the web (if you find any of Graham’s information useful please make
a donation to Cancer Research UK; details in the back of this book).
Our thanks to the people of Machynlleth and the Dyfi Valley who are dear to both the
authors, and to Ben Robinson (who’s filling up a truck in Chapter 12) and all at Dulas for
letting Gavin take pictures of their big plastic tank.
Thanks to Roustabout Ltd, especially Geoff. Thanks for the letters and see you at Burning Man.
Thanks to Spanner Films and The Age of Stupid – go see it.
Remember, open source not secret source!
This book was brought to you by the letter B and the number 100.

xviii
Run Your Diesel Vehicle
on Biofuels
This page intentionally left blank
Chapter 1
Introduction

Finding ways to run your diesel engine on fuels derived from vegetable, or indeed animal,
oils is an exciting hobby, and one which can help reduce the cost of running a vehicle, and if
done correctly, improve your carbon footprint.
There is a wealth of different literature, in print and on the Internet, covering a range of
different solutions and a plethora of different approaches and techniques: In this book we
hope to unify the existing literature on the topic, bringing together the different solutions,
and helping you, the reader, to decide which one, if any, is for you.
Throughout this book, we have tried to maintain a tone of being critical about the technol-
ogy, rather than being evangelical. We do not maintain that biofuels are right for every
application, nor are some of the techniques used to produce it “sustainable.” We encourage
you to become widely read on the subject, using this book as a stepping stone to finding out
much more about the topic. Throughout the book, we try to flag up useful web links and fur-
ther sources of information. We encourage you to investigate the sources of further reading
and information, and to make your own informed conclusions.
The information in this book represents our attempt to bring together the current “practical”
literature relating to biofuels. This is not an academic book, although academic sources are
cited. It does not attempt to be a comprehensive evaluation of the academic literature that is
developing on the subject; it is, however, a thorough, practical handbook.
Biofuels are such polarized subjects at the moment, with good arguments on both sides of
the fence. We believe that a full understanding of biodiesel is only possible with an under-
standing of where the technology has come from, the social and ethical implications of using
the technology, and a full understanding of a range of techniques and applications.
We live in a world that is facing a whole catalog of environmental problems. Additionally,
with the prospect of resource scarcity, the global economy will be forced (and indeed is at
the moment) adapting to change. At this stage, where we are looking for new technologies
and solutions, it is too early to write off any technology that shows hope and promise; how-
ever, as we investigate the technology, we must do so slowly and cautiously and not always
look to technology for solutions that can be reached more easily by social adaptation and
changing lifestyles.

1
Chapter 1

The birth of biodiesel

On August 31, 1937, G. Chavanne, a Belgian academic at the University of Brussels, obtained
a patent, entitled “Procedure for the transformation of vegetable oils for their uses as fuels” –
Belgian Patent 422,877. This patent described the alcoholysis – which in Chapter 5, we refer
to as transesterification – of vegetable oils using ethanol (and mentions methanol) in order
to separate the fatty acids from the glycerol by replacing the glycerol with short linear alco-
hols. This appears to be the first account of the production of what is known today as
“biodiesel.”
We are going to hold up on giving you a full account of the history and chemistry of biodiesel
for now, which is covered in later chapters; for the time being, we are going to try and capture
your imagination for the subject by explaining why there is a need for this technology.

Vehicle emissions and biodiesel

Vehicles produce large amounts of localized pollution. You only have to look at pictures of
cities like Los Angeles and Mexico City to realize what a tremendous impact smog has on local
air quality. Compared to petrodiesel, biodiesel offers a cleaner solution at the point of com-
bustion and can readily be used in present-generation vehicles.

380
 Figure 1.1
375 Atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels measured at Mauna Loa
370
Observatory.
Concentration (parts per million)

365
360
355
350
345
340
335
325
320
315
310
305
1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

Year

2
 Introduction

To understand vehicle emissions, let us take a look at how vehicle pollution is formed.
The high temperatures that are reached inside a diesel engine during the process of com-
bustion cause the nitrogen in the air to react with oxygen in the air to produce nitrogen oxide
as an exhaust pollutant. This process is called “photolysis”:

N 2 (g) + O2 (g) → 2NO(g)

Nitrogen oxide can in turn react with oxygen to produce nitrogen dioxide. We often refer
to a mixture of nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxides as “NOX,” which stands for nitrogen
dioxides. This is only an abbreviation; it is not a proper chemical symbol.

2NO(g) + O2 (g)2 → NO2 (g)

Sunlight often causes one of the oxygen atoms to split away from the nitrogen dioxide mol-
ecule (remember, this is a “single” oxygen atom, not “diatomic” oxygen, the form in which it
exists as a gas); however, this isn’t the end of the story:

sunlight
NO 2 (g) ⎯⎯⎯→ NO(g) + O(g)

This single atom of oxygen combines with diatomic oxygen in the air to form another vari-
ant of oxygen, namely ozone:

O + O 2 → O3

Ozone is an irritant. No, not the Moldovan pop music trio, the gas. As we have seen from
the chemistry above, vehicle emissions lead to the production of ozone. If you’ve ever
noticed a strange smell when standing on a subway platform, or after a lightning storm
have smelled that peculiar odor in the air, the chances are you’ve smelt ozone. In fact
Schonbein, who discovered ozone, named it after the Greek word ozein for odor.

In addition, single oxygen atoms liberated from ozone can then combine with nitric oxide
(NO) to form nitrogen dioxide and diatomic oxygen:

NO(g) + O3 (g) → NO 2 (g) + O2 (g)

We get more nasty pollutants, when nitrogen dioxide, oxygen, and unburnt hydrocarbons
from the exhaust (because the engine can’t hope to burn 100% of the fuel) all combine
together in sunlight:
sunlight
NO2 (g) + O2 (g) + hydrocarbons ⎯⎯⎯→ CH3CO-OO-NO2 (g)

3
Chapter 1

 Figure 1.2
Evolution of pollutants during a
NO2
smoggy day in Los Angeles.
Pollutant concentration
CO O3

6 a.m.

8 a.m.

10 a.m.

2 p.m.

4 p.m.

6 p.m.

8 p.m.

10 p.m.
Noon

Time of day

They form peroxyacyl radicals, which combine with nitrogen to make peroxyacetyl nitrates
(PANs), which cause irritation to the eyes and the respiratory tract. One of the reasons that
they are so irritating to the human body is because they dissolve readily in water. The eyes
and respiratory tract both provide sources of moisture in which the PANs will readily
dissolve, causing irritation and discomfort.

Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know.

M. King Hubbert

15
 Figure 1.3
Hubbert’s peak theory.
billions of bbls / year
Oil production

10

0
1850

1900

1950

2000

2050

2100

2150

2200

Year

4
 Introduction

100

Discovered volume (billion barrels)

90 New oil discoveries
80 Oil production
70
Difference between
60 oil production and
50 new discoveries

40
30
20
10
0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year
Data source: IHS energy / The oil drum

 Figure 1.4
Oil discoveries and oil consumption compared.

If we look at a gallon of diesel, we can begin to see where the money goes. 2005 figures show
that the average cost of a gallon of diesel was around $2.40.
The oil companies are giant monoliths, with many employees to support.
If we take the United States as an example, we can see that 21% of the cost of a gallon of diesel
will go to taxes. Some European countries have much higher taxing regimes; as a result, a
larger proportion of the cost of a gallon of diesel in these countries goes to pay for taxes.
Eight percent of the cost of every gallon of diesel that goes in your tank goes to marketing
and distribution. When you think about the massive operation needed to ship diesel all over
the world and to advertise and sell it, you begin to realize that with a small-scale, community
or home biodiesel production plant, this cost can be massively reduced.
Crude oil is turned into a variety of petrochemical products, by a process known as frac-
tional distillation. Crude oil contains a number of hydrocarbons, which are of different
lengths. The different fractions all have different boiling points. In fractional distillation, the
crude oil is heated, and the vapor allowed to rise through a column, which, uncannily, is
called a fractional distillation column or fractionation tower.
Hydrocarbon boiling points follow a relatively simple set of rules. We are going to learn a lot
more about hydrocarbons later in this book in Chapter 5, but all you need to know for the
time being is that fractions with the higher boiling points:
● Have more carbon atoms in the chain
● Are heavier (having a higher molecular weight)
● Are thicker (more viscous)

5
Chapter 1

2005 average diesel cost=$2.40

Taxes 21%

Marketing and distribution 8%

Refining process 21%

Crude oil 50%

 Figure 1.5
How the cost of diesel at the pump breaks down.
Source: Department of Energy – Energy Information Administration – Diesel Fuel Prices:
www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/diesel/dieselprices2006.html.

● Are harder to ignite

● Are darker in color
Contrasting gasoline (petrol) with diesel for a moment, we can see how diesel is heavier and
thicker than gasoline, harder to burn (which is why it won’t work in a spark-ignition engine),
and is a darker color than gasoline. This is a property of the longer hydrocarbon chain
length, which is one of the distinguishing characteristics of diesel over gasoline.
Back to our fractional distillation columns, which have a number of internal baffles, and
form a series of zones of different temperature ranges within each column. Heat is applied
at the bottom of the column, so that the bottom of the column is very hot while the top of
the column is relatively cool.
The lighter fractions pass through the series of baffles to the top of the column and, where
the temperature is cool, they condense. Meanwhile, the heavier fractions are “tapped off ” at
lower points on the column.

6
 Introduction

Temperature Lighter fractions

Gasoline / petrol
Naptha
Kerosene
Diesel
Engine oil
Heavy oil
Bitumen

Heavier fractions

Fractional
distillation
column

 Figure 1.6
Fractional distillation column.

Fractional distillation is generally a continuous process, with new fresh crude oil being
input into the process and derivative products being steadily drawn off from the column.
Diesel fuel makes up one of the fractions of crude oil; for every 42-gallon barrel of crude
oil, we can expect to extract 7.8 gallons of diesel, as shown in Figure 1.7.

Standard barrel of crude oil

42 U.S. gallons

7.4 gallons
Other products
1.5 gallons
LPG
4.1 gallons Jet fuel

1.7 gallons Heavy fuel oil

2.7 gallons Other distillates

Diesel
7.8 gallons
Gasoline
19.4 gallons

 Figure 1.7
How a barrel of crude breaks down into its fractions.
Source: Department of Energy – Energy Information Administration – Diesel Fuel Prices:
www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/diesel/dieselprices2006.html.

7
Chapter 1

This results in the price of diesel tracking the price of a gallon of crude oil. The two are tied
by the ability to supply this commodity: If there is less crude oil available, there will be less
diesel produced. However, basic economics tells us that it is not just supply that governs the
price of a commodity – it is also demand.
Demand for diesel has been steadily growing. With more advanced diesel engine technologies
being introduced by automotive manufacturers, there are now many less concerns about
the performance of diesel engines compared with gasoline engines. Time was, when diesel
engines were the noisy, smelly, clunky poor relation in the internal combustion engine
family; however, advanced engine management technologies, combined with more sophisti-
cated fuel injection systems, have resulted in diesel engines that are relatively sedate,
compared to the diesel engines in times gone by.
Luxury cars in continental Europe have employed diesel engines for some years as, one by one,
car manufacturers awaken to the sophistication of modern diesel engines. Even the British car
manufacturer Jaguar, a marque that has become synonymous with refined performance
and understated class, now offers a diesel engine variant of its luxury saloons – long-held

$3.50

$3.00

$2.50
Price / gallon

$2.00

$1.50
Fossil diesel price
$1.00

$0.50 Crude oil price

$0.00
May 2002
September 2002
January 2003
May 2003
September 2003
January 2004
May 2004
September 2004
January 2005
May 2005
September 2005
January 2006

Month – Year

 Figure 1.8
How the price of fossil diesel tracks crude oil prices.
Source: Department of Energy – Energy Information Administration – Diesel Fuel Prices:
www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/diesel/dieselprices2006.html.

8
 Introduction

perceptions about the diesel engine have been shattered with the advancement of technol-
ogy, leading to a much greater demand for diesel fuel. In an age where oil is expensive, car
buyers prize the higher efficiency of diesel engines, resulting in a greater number of miles per
gallon – far easier on the wallet!
Furthermore, the taxation regimes in different countries can sometimes favor diesel fuel – while
taxes are transient and often changing, where there has been a surplus of diesel fuel in the
past, this is often reflected in a cheap taxation regime to encourage its use. However, as more
and more drivers switch to diesel, the need for this tax incentive is diminished.

Introducing º biofuels

So, with present-generation internal combustion engine technology, how can we escape the
need for fossil fuels? The question is not an easy one to answer – someone more evangelical
than we might shout out “biofuels,” but as we hope the later chapters in this book will
reinforce, biofuels are only part of the solution. However, if we bear in mind sensible con-
siderations about biofuel production, and pursue the technology with a mind to reducing
waste and minimizing our environmental impact rather than carrying on with the status
quo, then in some circumstances, biofuels can be an appropriate energy answer.
The premise on which the environmental benignity of biofuels is based is this: Green plants
operate using a biochemical process called photosynthesis (Figure 1.9). As well as obtaining

 Figure 1.9
Photosynthesis.

Energy Carbon
from dioxide
sunlight

Glucose Oxygen
is formed is released

Water
&
nutrients

9
Chapter 1

nutrients from soil (or agricultural chemicals), plants take in water from the ground,
with energy from sunlight, and carbon dioxide from the air, they synthesize the building
blocks for plant cell structures and food. As plants “inhale” carbon dioxide, they “exhale”
oxygen – the opposite of us mammals. Therefore, the carbon dioxide that the human race and
animal kingdom produce naturally, is in part offset by plants and other flora taking
this carbon dioxide and turning it back into oxygen – our plants act as the “lungs” of the world.
Now, the carbon from the atmosphere is locked in the cellular structure of the plants that
grow with energy from the sun. However, when these plants are ready for harvest, we can
process them and extract oil from them, by milling them, crushing them, and sieving what
is left (we discuss the chemistry of oils in Chapter 5). What we are left with is “trapped
carbon” from the atmosphere, which is passed through the process of growing the plant, har-
vesting it, and turning it into oil. We can then take the oil, and burn it directly, as you will
see in later chapters, or chemically convert it into an analogue of mineral diesel, albeit one
that has been “biologically produced.” Brighter readers by this point should have realized
that this is why it is called biodiesel.
However, when we burn this fuel, we release the carbon that was temporarily trapped in the
plants and later the oil, back into the atmosphere – for plants to then reabsorb as they grow.
However, as we will see, this is not the end of the story.

The great industrialist Henry Ford believed in the potential of biofuels. When he designed
the Model-T Ford motor car, the car that brought automobility to the masses, he
designed it so that it had the potential to run on bioethanol. Ford himself is quoted as saying:
the fuel of the future is going to come from apples, weeds, sawdust – almost anything. There
is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented, enough alcohol in one year’s
yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a
hundred years.
Henry Ford (1863 – 1947)

Emissions from biodiesel

The emissions from biodiesel are better in many respects than from petrodiesel. Testing con-
firms that, when burned in similar conditions, biodiesel results in fewer unburned
hydrocarbons, less carbon monoxide, and a decreased count of particulate matter. This is
evidenced in Figure 1.10.

Walker, W. “Biodiesel from Rapeseed.” Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.
1994. 155, pp. 43–44.
A desire for energy independence, a search for more sustainable solutions, not to mention
the amount of money that can be made, has led to a rapid increase in global biodiesel pro-
duction in the past decade. The U.S. case indicates this, with Figure 1.12 drawn from statistics
from the U.S. National Biodiesel Board that illustrates the rapid growth of this technology.

10
 Introduction

+20%

+10% NOx

0%

Percent change in emissions

−10%

−20%

−30% PM

−40%

−50%
HC
−60%
−70%

−80%
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100
Percent biodiesel

 Figure 1.10
Emissions from biodiesel. PM, particulate matter; NOx, nitrogen dioxide;
HC, hydrocarbons.

Air toxins
120%

100%

80%

60%

Particulate matter 40% Carbon monoxide

20%

0%

Nitrogen oxides Hydrocarbons

Diesel Biodiesel B20 Biodiesel B100

 Figure 1.11
Radar chart showing comparison of emissions from diesel, B20 biodiesel blend and B100
biodiesel.

11
Chapter 1

U.S. biodiesel production

300

250 250

Millions of gallons
200

150

100 75

50
20 25
15
0.5 2 5
0
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Fiscal year
 Figure 1.12
U.S. biodiesel production.
Source: Estimates from the U.S. National Biodiesel Board.

However, not everyone in the biodiesel industry is producing a product that can be classed
as “sustainable.” In Chapter 14 on Biofuel Ethics, we discuss some of the dilemmas surround-
ing biodiesel production.
Biomass, in which we class energy derived from burning plants, has always been an impor-
tant energy source to mankind. Before the industrial revolution and widespread use of coal
as a fuel, wood was the most commonly used fuel: bits of log gathered from the woods, or
heated in the absence of oxygen to produce charcoal. Biomass still plays an important
part in man’s energy portfolio, as evidenced in Figure 1.13, from United Nations statistics.


Nuclear Figure 1.13
Oil
Hydropower 5% Hierarchy of global energy sources:
6% 32% Source data: GREEN ENERGY UN.

Biomass 14%

26%
17%
Coal
Gas

12
 Introduction

 Figure 1.14
Emissions from burning
The carbon dioxide produced by conventional petrodiesel.
burning fossil fuel diesel slowly
accumulates in our atmosphere –
slowly choking the planet

We burn fossil fuel diesel in our

cars and vehicles. This produces
a whole host of emissions

Oil is extracted from the ground

and refined into mineral diesel.
Once the fossil fuels are
exhausted, they will take
millions of years to form again

In fact, we can see that biomass and large-scale hydropower, while contributing significantly
to world energy sources, are dwarfed by the massive amounts of fossil fuel and unsustainable
nuclear power that we consume, all resulting in waste products that our environment must
deal with.
When burning conventional fossil fuels, carbon is passed through a linear chain of being
extracted from the ground, processed, and burned in the internal combustion engines of our
vehicles, before being released into the air. It is an open cycle, a pattern of consumption, with
no renewal involved. Consequently, resources are extracted, burned, and the products end up
in our atmosphere, where they stay. Fossil fuels take millions of years to form from plant

13
Chapter 1

The amount of carbon dioxide

present in the atmosphere
affects our ecosystems
and the global temperature

Burning biofuels As biofuel feedstocks

releases carbon grow, they take carbon
dioxide into the dioxide out of the
atmosphere atmosphere

 Figure 1.15
The “idealized” biofuel carbon cycle.

matter compressed by layers of rock; unfortunately, the rate at which we release the carbon
into the atmosphere is not matched by the rate at which new carboniferous matter is
sequestered by dead plant matter and turned into fossil fuels – so there is no “cycle”; the
process is linear.
Proponents of biofuel would like you to believe that emissions from biofuel are part of a
“closed carbon cycle,” a message reinforced in the National Biodiesel Board’s FAQs; however,
this is, at best, an oversimplification of the truth. In an idealized biofuel closed cycle, plants
capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as plants take in carbon dioxide, water, sun-
light, and nutrients from the soil, using a process called photosynthesis. However, in reality,
ideal models rarely represent the full complexity of the processes occurring in the real world.
To view the carbon input into biofuel production as a closed cycle is at best a distortion of

14
 Introduction

This results in
In the process of additional carbon
producing biodiesel dioxide being
fossil fuels containing released into the
carbon are often atmosphere that
burned to provide power is not part of the
cycle

 Figure 1.16
The biofuel carbon cycle in reality.

the truth, and at worst a real stinking lie! We’re going to explore some of the other inputs
needed for a sustainable biofuel production cycle in Chapter 14, and look at some of the
arguments surrounding the sustainability of biofuel production, but for the time being, let’s
conduct a thought experiment.
Let’s think about growing things commercially. It’s not just a case of planting the seeds and
watching them grow: Energy is needed to produce seedstock on a commercial scale and
transport it to the farm. Fuel is then consumed by the agricultural machinery that sows
the seeds; there is also energy input required to plough the ground to prepare for sowing.
This is not insignificant. Think about the effort required to dig a hole in your yard: You
quickly work up a sweat!

15
Chapter 1

Then, once the seed is planted, there is energy required to pump water for irrigation. In com-
mercial agriculture, pesticides and other agrichemicals are also needed; these are produced
from chemical feedstocks that need to be mined from the earth and processed into a form
that is suitable for use in agriculture. Producing these chemicals requires inputs of energy at
all stages of the supply chain.
Then there is also the case of harvesting the crops once they have grown, which again
requires agricultural machinery. The processing of crops, by milling or crushing, also
requires an input of energy. Subsequently, when the oil has been extracted, we still need to
heat it, add methoxide (see Chapter 5), and perform processes on the resulting mixture to
obtain those esters which eventually go into your vehicle. This all requires energy, so we need
to be careful that the sums add up – i.e., the amount of energy we expend making the stuff
is lower than the energy we get out.
Of course, there are plenty of opportunities to substitute renewable sources of energy for
fossil fuel sources of energy at all stages of this supply chain: For example, delivery vehicles
running on biofuel or electric machinery running on renewable energy would help us to
reduce the carbon intensity of the process. However, we can only make these changes to the
process if we are mindful of what is happening and take affirmative action to improve the
sustainability of our processes!
It has been said that “commercial agriculture is just a system for turning oil into food.” If the
product of a portion of our agricultural business is biofuel not food, we have to question the
effectiveness of turning fossil fuel into biofuel, with efficiency losses in the process. The only
way we can make the system sustainable is if in the process we can capture more energy (from
the sun through photosynthesis) and more carbon (through plants growing and capturing
carbon dioxide) than we put into the process from other inputs. If we can get our feedstock
from a waste resource, such as used oil which would be sent to landfill, then we can make a
net energy gain.

The lowdown on biodiesel maladies

Rudolf Diesel intended his engine to be adaptable and to run on a variety of fuels; however,
just about all modern diesel engines are designed to run on modern, mineral diesel fuel
oil and are not very tolerant of being run on vegetable oil. This can be summed up in one
word – viscosity.
Vegetable oil, whether it is new or used, is significantly more viscous, thicker or less runny, than
mineral diesel. One way or another we have to get our vegetable oil to be a similar viscosity to
the mineral diesel fuel the engine was designed for; there are several different approaches.
It is usually at this point that someone says that they know this guy who has been putting
neat vegetable oil into his car for years and has never had any problems. Indeed, one of the

16
 Introduction

authors is guilty of putting no end of different oils in his tank and has always appeared to get
away with it. Just as we all know someone who knows someone who smoked 40-a-day and
lived until they were 100-years-old and yet we still know smoking is bad for you, putting
unprocessed oil into an unmodified vehicle will lead to problems sooner or later.
Indeed, this may in part be a product of the confusion in the public’s mind over the differ-
ence between biodiesel and vegetable oil and in biodiesel damaging engines. In Greg Pahl’s
book Biodiesel, Raffaello Garofalo of the European Biodiesel Board points out that “one
barrel of bad Biodiesel is enough to spoil the reputation of the entire biodiesel industry.” He
goes on to write about people who put vegetable oil into their cars, which, after a while,
caused the engine to fail, the cars being returned under warranty to the manufacturers with
the claim that the biodiesel had caused the failure!
We’re going to show you how to do things properly in this book. We focus on tried and tested
methods for home biodiesel production and methods for converting your vehicle to run on
SVO and WVO. If this sounds like too much hassle by the time you’ve finished this book,
then there are plenty of places where you can now obtain biodiesel or other diesel fuels “off
the shelf.”

Great º but I’m skeptical º nowhere I know sells biodiesel

It’s one thing finding a great local supplier of biodiesel who you know produces good-quality
fuel, but what if you want to make a long journey on biofuel and you’re concerned about
finding refueling locations. Got an iPhone, Blackberry, or a PDA? Then use Earthcomber to
locate your local friendly biofuel outlet! It’s a free PDA application that will help you to
locate alternative fuel sources. Earthcomber contains not only locations for biodiesel but also
for the following fuel types:
● Biodiesel
● E85 (ethanol)
● LPG (liquefied petroleum gas)
● CNG (compressed natural gas)
● Hydrogen
● Electric (hookups to recharge electric cars and hybrids)

Earthcomber software: www.earthcomber.com.

Final remarks

We hope that you enjoy the chapters that follow. We’ve tried to be as comprehensive as
possible, and cover the subject from all angles, not just the technology; however, we also give

17
Chapter 1

you an overview of the politics and the social scenarios that surround biofuels. We urge you
to read more about the subject; we’ve tried to provide as many leads and references as we can
for you to hunt out further information. We hope that this is the start of your clean energy
journey and ask you to remember that neither the destination nor the route you take are
important – it’s the impact of what you put in your tank that really matters!

18
Chapter 2
History of Diesel and the diesel
engine

Early life

Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was born on March 18, 1858 in Paris to Bavarian parents,
Theodor and Elise Diesel, the second of their three children. Theodor had immigrated to
France from Germany around 1850, he had a small leather working business there and pro-
vided a meager income for his family. Rudolf, a shy but bright child, spent most of his
childhood in France. He exhibited an aptitude in mechanics from an early age but also
excelled in mathematics and languages (he spoke three; German, French, and English).
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 Germans became political undesirables in Paris
and so the family left for London. Theodor found it very difficult to obtain work there and

 Figure 2.1
Rudolf Diesel.

19
Chapter 2

when an uncle back in Augsburg, Germany, offered to take the now twelve-year-old Rudolf
his parents agreed. Rudolf was entered into a three-year program at a technical college in
Augsburg where he again excelled. After his parents returned to Paris in 1871, Rudolf stayed
in Germany where he graduated as top of his class. He returned to Paris but after the tragic
death of his elder sister returned again to Augsburg where he enrolled on a mechanical engi-
neering program and again graduated top of his class.
Rudolf was awarded a scholarship to attend the Munich Institute of Technology where he
studied thermodynamics under Professor Carl von Linde, the inventor of the ammonia
refrigeration machine and the man who devised the first practical method of liquefying air.
It was here that Diesel began to think about his ideas for a “heat engine.”
At the time the dominant source of mechanical power was the steam engine; however, this
suffered from very poor efficiency, between 6 and 10%, with less than one-tenth of the energy
available to do useful work relative to the energy in fuel it was fed. Diesel asked himself if the
heat could not be turned directly into mechanical energy rather than via the steam.
Three factors motivated him from this point on: mechanics, thermodynamics, and a social
conscience.
Diesel graduated from Munich Institute of Technology in 1880 and became an apprentice
pattern maker and engineer in Winterthur, Switzerland. He was quickly transferred to Paris,
where his old teacher Carl von Linde arranged a job for him in the city’s first ice-making
factory, where he was quickly promoted to plant manager.
Here in Paris he filed for his first patent (on the “production of ice in glass containers”),
became a connoisseur of the arts, a linguist, and a social theorist. He married Martha Flasche
in 1883 (they had three children – Eugene, Heldi, and Rudolf). Carl von Linde arranged a
franchise for Diesel to sell Linde’s refrigerators in Southern Europe and the young family
moved to Berlin.

Birth of the diesel engine

In 1892 from Berlin, Diesel filed for a patent at the Imperial Patent Office in Germany and
within a year he was granted Patent No. 67207 for his proposed engine (Figure 2.2). This is
also when he wrote his paper, “Theory and construction of a rational heat engine to replace
the steam engine and contemporary combustion engine” which described an engine that
could burn any fuel ignited not by a spark but by the temperature caused by the compres-
sion of gasses, a similar concept to refrigeration.
At this time the engine was only a concept: Diesel needed to build a prototype. With the
help of the Augsburg Machine Works, among others, he produced his first working proto-
type in February 1894 in exchange for sales rights to most of Germany. Diesel had enormous
technical problems to overcome. He continued to build prototypes, modify designs and

20
 History of Diesel and the diesel engine

 Figure 2.2
Rudolf Diesel’s patent for the diesel
engine.

experiment with fuels such as gasoline, kerosene, and lighting gas for several years. On
December 31, 1896, Diesel ran the first engine he considered to be a success.
As word of his new invention spread, he started selling licenses to build and refine the design
across the world. He sold the American patent rights to the brewer Adolphus Busch for
one million marks. As companies bought licenses, Diesel quickly became a very wealthy man.
He established a company, the General Society for Diesel Engines, in 1898 to manage the
business; it bought the rights to his engine and assumed full control, paying Diesel 3.5 million
German marks for this (a massive amount of money).
All was not rosy, however; years of constant work were having a serious effect on Diesel’s
health; he suffered severe headaches, exhaustion, and gout and was sent to various sanatori-
ums for rest. He suffered exhausting patent disputes, the Diesel engine not being the first to
employ the principle of compression ignition. In addition, while Diesel had been very
successful in his own business, he had also made some terrible investments and lost millions
in other peoples ventures.

21
Chapter 2

At the Paris Exposition of 1900 a diesel engine was exhibited and won the Grand Prize. Myth
has it that it was exhibited by Diesel himself, but in reality at the request of the French
Government it was exhibited by the Otto Company; however, it is true that it ran wholly on
peanut oil. To quote Diesel himself:

... at the Paris Exhibition in 1900 there was shown by the Otto Company a small Diesel
engine, which, at the request of the French Government, ran on Arachide (earth-nut
or pea-nut) oil, and worked so smoothly that only very few people were aware of it.
The engine was constructed for using mineral oil, and was then worked on vegetable oil
without any alterations being made.

This is often cited as evidence of Diesel’s foresight on biofuels but it seems that it was more
to do with the French Government’s desire to enable their African colonies to become more
self-sufficient and less reliant on imported fuel. Diesel, again:

The French Government at the time thought of testing the applicability to power pro-
duction of the Arachide, or earth-nut, which grows in considerable quantities in their
African colonies, and which can be easily cultivated there, because in this way the colonies
could be supplied with power and industry from their own resources, without being
compelled to buy and import coal or liquid fuel.

However, it is true that Diesel was a strong advocate of the use of biofuels, if only for his
original desire for the engine to be operational almost anywhere on almost any fuel. In 1911
he said:

The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the
development of agriculture of the countries which use it.

And in 1912:

The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today but such oils may
become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal-tar products of the
present time ... motive power can still be produced from the heat of the sun ... even when
the natural stores of solid and liquid fuels are completely exhausted.

Death

Despite the publishing of another book in 1912, Die Enstebung des Dieslmotors, recounting
the history of his invention, Diesel’s problems continued to rise. He seemed to be sinking
into a deeper depression over his financial difficulties. On the evening of September 29,
1913, he boarded the SS Dresden to cross the English Channel from Belgium to England to

22
 History of Diesel and the diesel engine

attend a meeting of the Directors of the British Diesel Company. He boarded the ship
with three fellow directors. The three men took dinner on board and later strolled on deck
before retiring to their cabins around 10 p.m., arranging to continue their conversation in the
morning – Diesel was later described as “cheery and buoyant.” When, as instructed, he was
called at 6:15 a.m. the next morning he could not be found; his bed had not been slept in
and his night shirt was laid out ready and his watch was next to the bed. Several thorough
searches were carried out, but he was not to be found; he had utterly vanished.
The British, European, and U.S. press had a field day, suggesting that Diesel had been
murdered by big oil business, the British Secret Service, the Germans, or the French.
On October 10, 1913, his body was found in the water off the Dutch coast. Following the
custom of the time, personal effects were removed from the decomposing body and it was
returned to the sea. Diesel’s son identified the effects as belonging to his father.
Considerable speculation has grown around Diesel’s death: No autopsy or official investiga-
tion was ever carried out, he had marked an X by that date in his diary; he left no suicide note
and no will. However, he did leave an overnight valise with his wife, with instruction not to
open it until the following week; it contained 21,000 German marks in cash and bank state-
ments showing that they were nearly broke.
Rudolf Diesel has no known grave.

Legacy

After Diesel’s death, the diesel engine underwent considerable development, and became a
very important replacement for the steam engine in many applications. The diesel engine has
undergone many refinements and modifications since those early years – the system of fuel
injection has become much more sophisticated, and electronic controls now meter fuel more

 Figure 2.3
German commemorative stamp – 100 years of the
diesel engine.

23
Chapter 2

precisely, achieving smooth running and low emissions while returning fantastic figures for
economy. In some respects, the modern diesel engine is virtually unrecognizable from its
humble beginnings, while in many ways, the fundamental principles, motivations, and abil-
ity to run on biofuels are as relevant today as they were when the idea of Diesel’s engine was
conceived.

24
Chapter 3
How does a diesel engine work?

It is not essential to have an understanding of diesel engine technology in order to successfully

run your car on biofuels but, especially if you encounter any problems, a smattering of knowl-
edge will help immensely when trying to find faults and troubleshoot problems.
Modern diesel engines are immensely sophisticated devices. Whereas a diesel engine “can”
be one of the simplest internal combustion engines, with the ability for a diesel engine with
a mechanical fuel injection pump to operate with no electrical input at all, the modern diesel
engine has a large number of sensors and controls to ensure that you are consuming the most
frugal amount of fuel, while producing the greatest power with the lowest emissions.
Figures 3.1a and b give some scale of the mechanical complexity of the modern diesel
engine. For those of you who are relatively familiar with gasoline engines, much that is
shown in these two pictures will seem familiar.

Differences between petrol and diesel engines

We are assuming that you have a familiarity with internal combustion engine technology.
A diesel engine shares many common concepts with what you might call a gasoline engine, more
properly called a “spark ignition engine.” The fundamental notion of a piston being propelled by
a burning mixture of fuel and air in a linear motion, with this motion converted into a rotary
motion by a crankshaft, is common to both gasoline and diesel engines (see Figure 3.2).
Diesel engines differ fundamentally from the “spark ignition” gasoline engines that we are
more familiar with, in the respect that there is no “spark plug” to ignite the mixture – instead,
the diesel engine relies on the heat generated by compressing the charge of air and diesel. If
you have ever noticed how the end of a bicycle pump heats up when you use it, then you will
know what we are talking about; compressed air gets hot and the more you compress it the
hotter it gets. How much the air/fuel mixture gets compressed is known as the compression
ratio; it is much higher for a compression ignition engine than for a spark ignition engine.
The compression ratio is the difference in volume between the engine cylinder when the
piston is at the bottom of its stroke, and the top of its stroke. You may see the initials “BDC”

25
Chapter 3

and “TDC” a lot when reading diesel engine literature. “BDC” refers to bottom dead center,
which means when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke, and the connecting rod is per-
fectly central, whereas TDC refers to the converse, when the piston is at the top of its stroke.

Adiabatic heating
“Adiabatic process” is a term used in thermodynamics to describe a closed system where
no heat enters or leaves the system. (The opposite to an adiabatic process, is an isothermal
process where heat is free to enter and leave the system.) In a closed engine cylinder, in an
“ideal” world we can consider this a closed system (of course the real world is not ideal, but
sometimes engineers and physicists need to pretend that it is). The diesel and air is heated
“adiabatically” by the rapid change in pressure caused by the piston coming up inside the
cylinder. Another way of thinking about this is that there is a fixed amount of “energy” in
the system; this energy is the movement of molecules of air and the mist of fine diesel
droplets. By compressing this mixture there is the same amount of energy present, but in
a smaller space. As pressure and temperature are related, as the pressure increases, so does
the temperature. If you want another example, think about a bicycle tire pump. As you
compress the air in the cylinder to pump up your tires, the cylinder wall begins to feel
warm. The heat generated by the compression of the charge, is what is used to ignite the
mixture in the cylinder, as opposed to a “spark plug” in a spark ignition engine.

(a) (b)

 Figure 3.1
(a) Cutaway common rail diesel engine (longitudinal cross section). (Courtesy of
Cummins Ltd.)
(b) Cutaway common rail diesel engine (transverse cross section). (Courtesy of
Cummins Ltd.)
26
 How does a diesel engine work?

 Figure 3.2
Piston and crankshaft
components.
Piston

Pin

Upper “big end” bearing

Crack pin

Crack shaft

Lower “big end” bearing

Furthermore, unlike a gasoline engine, which sucks a mixture of air and fuel into the cylinder
(with the fuel being dispensed either by fuel injection into the manifold, or a more traditional
carburetor), a diesel engine sucks only air into the cylinder, injecting the diesel fuel directly
into the cylinder once the inlet valve has closed, as discussed later in this chapter when look-
ing at diesel engine cycles.
If you want to do some further reading, the following web pages on diesel engine technol-
ogy will reinforce and complement the information in this chapter:
auto.howstuffworks.com/diesel.htm.
www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/basics/jtb_diesel_engine.pdf.

 Figure 3.3
Otto cycle.

27
Chapter 3

 Figure 3.4
C
Otto cycle graph.

Pressure (P)

D
B

Volume (V)

Line AB – Compression
Point B – Ignition (Spark)
Line BC – Combustion
Line CD – Expansion
Line DA – Exhaust

The diesel engine fuel system

In modifying a diesel vehicle to run on vegetable oils, we will be concerned with two of the
diesel engine systems: the cooling system and the fuel system. Let’s take a look at how diesel
engines are fueled.
Diesel engines’ fuel systems are more complicated than the simple fueling systems used for
gasoline engines.
Diesel fuel is stored in a tank, usually at the rear of the vehicle, mounted below the trunk or
below the rear seats. The fuel tank is connected first to the fuel filter by a pipe. Fuel filters
can take different forms and there is some variation.

 Figure 3.5
Diesel cycle.

28
 How does a diesel engine work?

B C

Pressure (P)
D

Volume (V)

Line AB – Compression
Point B – Injection
Line BC – Combustion*
Line CD – Expansion
Line DA – Exhaust**
*Occurs at constant pressure
**Occurs at constant volume

 Figure 3.6
Diesel cycle graph.

Fuel injection

The technology of fuel injection is fundamental to a diesel engine’s operation. Unlike gaso-
line engines, where fuel injection is a design option and a carburetor can be employed to
meter the fuel/air mixture, with diesel, fuel injection is mandatory. This affects the way that
the speed of the engine is regulated, as well as a host of other subtle things about the way
the fuel is handled. This section should serve as an introduction to fuel injection technol-
ogy; however, you may need to supplement it with further reading on information specific
to your engine.

Direct/indirect injection
In some diesel engines, especially older engines, rather than being injected directly into the
cylinder, the fuel is injected into a precombustion chamber, also known as a “swirl chamber,”
which is connected to the main engine cylinder. This chamber is designed to induce
“swirl” into the fuel air mixture, ensuring effective mixing of the fuel and air, which aids with
ignition.

29
Chapter 3

Petrol Diesel
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
4
5
5
6
6
7
7
8
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Volume when piston at TDC

Volume when piston at BDC

 Figure 3.7
Compression ratio explained BDC, bottom dead center; TDC, top dead center.

Fuel injection system configurations

Mechanically regulated fuel injector pumps

In-line injector pumps (port helix pumps)

An in-line injector pump consists of a series of “small pistons” in a row – hence the name
in-line injector pump – with each individual piston supplying high pressure diesel for a fuel
injector.
An in-line injector pump regulates the amount of fuel delivered to the injector, mechanically
using a device called a port-helix valve, which can be seen in Figures 3.12 and 3.13.
The valve consists of a piston, which slides within a cylinder. The cylinder has a “port” in its
side. The piston, which runs inside the cylinder, has a sloping groove cut around the outside.

30
 How does a diesel engine work?

Injectors Fuel return line Fuel under low pressure

 Figure 3.8
Basic generic diesel engine
fuel system.

Diesel
tank

Injection Fuel under high pressure

pump

Pump
Filter

Fuel under low pressure

Valves Cylinder head

Intake port
Injector

Exhaust port

Glow plug

Combustion
chamber

Engine block
 Figure 3.9
Piston Direct injection.

31
Chapter 3

 Figure 3.10
Cylinder head Indirect injection.

Injector

Glow plug

Swirl chamber

Engine block
Piston

 Figure 3.11
In-line injector pump from
a large diesel engine.

32
 How does a diesel engine work?

Sleeve
 Figure 3.12
Port-helix geometry.

Port
Helix

Piston

Think about how a slide runs around and round a helter-skelter. This provides the “helix”
bit of the port-helix name.
The piston can move inside the cylinder in two directions, in and out, driven by a cam; this
provides the “compression” of the diesel fuel.
Now, pay attention: This is the clever bit. The “port” in the side of the valve allows “excess”
fuel to escape. The helix pattern allows the pump to dispense a different amount of fuel,
depending on the “rotary” position of the valve in the cylinder.
The valves for all the cylinders are usually coupled together by some sort of rack and pinion
that allows them to move together so that the same amount of diesel is delivered to all the
cylinders.

 Figure 3.13
Port-helix valve.

33
Chapter 3

The cylinder is “under pressure” for all the time that the port is “covered up” by the solid
metal of the cylinder. As the piston reaches the point where the “helix groove” uncovers the
hole in the side of the cylinder, the pressure is lost.
By rotating the piston, the port can be uncovered sooner or later in the piston stroke, result-
ing in a larger or smaller amount of diesel fuel being dispensed by the injection pump.

Rotary injector pumps

In the same way that a distributor in a gasoline engine takes a rotary drive and turns it into a
series of (electrical) outputs to produce a spark in each cylinder at the correct time, so a rotary
diesel injector pump takes rotary motion, and turns it into the correct outputs of high-pressure
diesel to supply the injectors in each cylinder at the correct time. Anecdotal evidence suggests
that diesel injection pumps by Bosch, Denso, and many Japanese suppliers are more tolerant
of the viscous fuels like SVO and WVO than Lucas and CAV injection pumps.

Mechanical unit injectors

Some older diesel engines use “mechanical” unit injectors, where the injection pump and
the nozzle are combined into a single injector unit, which is actuated by a camshaft.
This system does away with the complexity of a seperate mechanical injector pump, and
removes the need for high-pressure diesel pipework, fuel being supplied to the injectors at
low pressure.

Electronically actuated fuel injection systems

Common rail injection. In many systems the fuel injection pump serves the purpose of both
delivering fuel at a suitably high pressure and providing synchronization with the engine
timing, delivering the fuel to the right place at the right moment mechanically.
In common rail systems, the injector pump merely pressurizes the fuel that is supplied to all
the injectors on a common rail; the injectors’ actuations are controlled and synchronized to
the engine electronically.

Some common diesel engine acronyms

CDI, common rail diesel injection
HDI, high-pressure direct injection
UTD, uniJet turbo diesel (Fiat group’s common rail diesel technology)
HEUI, hydraulically actuated unit injection
SDI, suction diesel injection
TDI, turbo direct injection
TD, turbo diesel

34
 How does a diesel engine work?

Fuel injectors explained

A fuel injector consists of a number of components: namely, a nozzle body and a needle. We
can see an exploded fuel injector in Figure 3.14, to help us understand the consituent parts
of the injector. There is a bore running through the nozzle body, in which the needle can
move freely. The needle acts as a seal against the high injection pressures. The needle has a
“seat,” and the injector body has a conical recess into which the injector needle’s “seat” fixes.
A spring which bears down on the needle maintains the integrity of the combustion chamber –
only high-pressure fuel from the injection pump can move the needle to allow fuel to be
injected. When the pressure of fuel between the needle and the seat exceeds the pressure of
the spring bearing down on the needle, the needle lifts and fuel is dispensed. This is often
referred to as the cracking or crack pressure.
Because the orifice through which the fuel is administered to the cylinder is small, the high-
pressure fuel expands rapidly and atomizes, mixing thoroughly with the air. At the end of the
injection period, when the fuel pressure in the pipe from the injection pump drops below a
certain level, the needle closes, sealing the compression chamber.
There is a subtle difference between the way that the nozzle is shaped after the injector
needle, which leads to a differentiation between the two different types of injectors. You
will remember back to the concept of “direct” and “indirect” injection: Well, the different
injectors suit different applications. In the first injector, shown to the left of Figure 3.15,
and shown in close-up in Figure 3.16a, we have the “throttling pintle” injector nozzle, which
is commonly found in “indirect” injection engines, where the fuel is first sprayed into a
precombustion chamber. Pintle nozzles produce a “cone-shaped” spray pattern. This is a
characteristic of its nozzle design, where the needle, which has a small “pintle” on the end,
protrudes through a hole at the end of the injector.
By contrast, hole-type injectors, which are more commonly used in direct injection engines,
have an additional piece of metal at the end of the injector, shrouding the end of the needle,
with a number of holes offset at an angle. With the nozzles located below the edge of the seat,
the fuel must pass past the needle into a small cavity, before spraying through the holes, which
produce a number of smaller plumes of fuel, which are injected directly into the cylinder. We
can see that with a hole-type fuel injector, as with the pintle nozzle, the high pressure of the
fuel inside the injector allows the fuel to atomize as it is sprayed into the cylinder, ensuring
that it mixes well with the air.

 Figure 3.14
Component parts of fuel injector.

35
Chapter 3

Pintle type Hole type  Figure 3.15

nozzle nozzle Fuel injector nozzles compared.

(a) (b)

 Figure 3.16
(a) Close-up of the pintle nozzle injector.
(b) Close-up of the hole nozzle injector.

36
 How does a diesel engine work?

 Figure 3.17
Fuel injector sprays a fine mist.

Turbochargers

A turbocharger allows a greater amount of air to be squeezed into a cylinder. It uses some
of the energy in the escaping exhaust to spin a small turbine, which, in turn, spins another small
turbine that is used to push air into the cylinders – more air than would have got in there
otherwise – which results in greater efficiency. The more air and diesel (in the correct ratio)
that you can squeeze into a given space, the more power that you can extract from the combus-
tion of the fuel. However, at “atmospheric pressure,” which is the pressure at which “normally
aspirated” engines are filled, there is a given amount of air that will fill a given volume.
Diesel fuel and air burn in a given ratio, called the stochiometric ratio – put in too much fuel,
and the mixture is rich, not enough fuel and the mixture is lean.

Helping the engine to start – glow plugs

It’s worth mentioning glow plugs, as they are often a point of confusion when trying to
understand how a diesel engine works. A glow plug does not fulfill the same function as a

37
Chapter 3

 Figure 3.18
Testing fuel injector spray
patterns.

 Figure 3.19
Pattern produced by a
multi-hole fuel injector.

38
 How does a diesel engine work?

spark plug in a spark ignition engine: It does not ignite the fuel like a spark plug – glow plugs
are only there to assist with cold-starting.
It’s like this … as we have discussed earlier in the chapter: When you squeeze a mixture of
fuel and air into the engine’s cylinder, it gets hotter because it is a closed thermodynamic
system and the pressure is increasing. However, the fuel and air need to reach a certain tem-
perature for ignition to take place, and when the engine is cold a lot of the heat from the
compression is going to escape into the cold engine block. This causes bad ignition and the
engine will run roughly, if it runs at all.

Exhaust gases exit

the turbocharger
The energy in the exhaust
The turbines are
gases turns a turbine before
connected by a
leaving the turbocharger
common shaft
Air is compressed by the
intake turbine and forced
into the cylinder at pressure

Fresh air is sucked

into the turbocharger

More air enters the cylinder.

The heavier charge means
more diesel can be injected
and so the same size cylinder
produces greater power.

 Figure 3.20
How a turbocharger works.

39
Chapter 3

 Figure 3.21
A glow plug.

The idea of including a glow plug is to preheat the cylinder so that smooth combustion can
take place inside the cylinder. Referring to Figure 3.22, we can see that a glow plug is simply
an electrical heating element that is “ruggedized” and designed for the harsh environment of
the diesel engine. The engine block provides an electrical ground return, while a supply is
delivered to the terminal of the glow plug.

Improving the efficiency of your diesel engine

The following modifications are not for the faint hearted; however, it is possible to make
some fairly simple modifications to your diesel engine to improve efficiency. If you are not
confident with these procedures, seek professional assistance – a good engine shop may be
able to carry out the work for you for much less than a damaged cylinder head would cost
to replace!
Diesel engines are mass-produced items and, as with any commercial item, there is a balance
to be struck between the quality of the product and the price it retails at. The more work that
goes into a casting by an engine manufacturer, the greater the cost of the final product, so
that manufacturers have to trade off a compromise between the amount of work they are
able to carry out on the casting and its performance. Thankfully, much of this extra finish-
ing work can be carried out afterwards; however, it will entail a strip down of your engine
and some serious work!
The work you can do on your cylinder head is focused around smoothing the path of the air-
flow to enable it to flow through the cylinder head while encountering the least resistance as
possible. There are several options for improving your cylinder head.

Removing obstructions

Sometimes, castings are made with “extra metal” where it is helpful for strength/durability of
the engine, cost-effectiveness of the casting, or is just sloppy design. It is sometimes possible

40
 How does a diesel engine work?

Terminal  Figure 3.22

Cutaway diagram of a glow plug.

Glow plug body

Screw thread

Heating element

Remove protruding
Sharp bends are obstructions that
eliminated smoothing slow in charge flow
the path for air flow
Relieve valve heads

Smooth rough surfaces of

cylinder head port walls

 Figure 3.23
Efficiency modifications to your cylinder head.

41
Chapter 3

that there is extra metal, e.g., in valve guides, which obstruct the airflow through the cylinder,
and could be smoothed or removed to optimize the airflow. Removing obstructions allows
the air to flow more freely and optimizes the performance and efficiency of your engine.

Eliminating sharp bends

Sometimes, for practical reasons, the bends in the air’s path between the inlet manifold and
the inlet valve are sharper than optimal. It is possible in some instances to carefully remove
metal in the path inside the cylinder head, to allow the air a smoother flow.

Smoothing cylinder walls

Castings come with a less than perfect surface finish, and often, in the name of cost, castings
have a less than smooth internal surface finish in the air path through the cylinder head.

Relieving valve stems

It is possible to remove a small quantity of metal from the stem of the inlet and exhaust valves
to allow the intake charge to flow into the cylinder more easily and the exhaust charge to exit
the cylinder as quickly as possible. The less metal in the path of the gases flowing into and out
of the cylinder, the quicker they can flow. You want to leave a smooth surface; remove suffi-
cient metal to smooth the flow of gases, but do not compromise the integrity of the valve.

42
Chapter 4
Collecting waste vegetable oil

Waste vegetable oil (WVO), or used cooking oil (UCO), or used vegetable oil (UVO) or what-
ever you prefer to call it is the stuff that is used for deep-frying by restaurants, pubs, burger
vans, and fish and chip shops everywhere. It is the raw ingredient for biodiesel home brew-
ers and WVO enthusiasts. This short chapter is all about how to get hold of it and how to
select the good stuff.
Collecting WVO is common to Chapter 6 and Chapter 9, so rather than repeating ourselves
too much, we have put the information into this handy little chapter instead.

For the perils of overenthusiastic collection of WVO, check out Issue 5 of

“BiodieselSMARTER,” which chronicles how one unfortunate biodieseler had to dispose
of over 3,500 gallons of WVO. After setting up happy liaisons with local purveyors of
grease, the oil kept flowing in, piling up in the back yard; however, processing ability
lagged behind, causing an “oil mountain.” Moral: Only collect 500 gallons a week of oil if
you have the capacity to process it: Save your enthusiasm for a day when your plant and
processes are up the job!

Buying WVO

It is perfectly possible to buy waste oil too, but harder to control its quality. Find out who
your local waste oil collectors are and see if you can strike a deal with them.

Choosing the good stuff

Its quality varies massively from one place to another. Chinese restaurants tend to have the
best stuff, but it varies massively. Good-quality oil will tend to be clearer and lighter in color;
bad-quality oil will often be thicker or darker or creamy due to overheating or overuse.

43
Chapter 4

Take your time, finding a good source of oil will make your biofuel-life easier in the long run.
Good WVO has not been used too much or been overheated; it will have a low acid number
(see How to titrate, p. 47) and will not have much, if any, water in it (see How to test for water
in Chapter 6).
If its acid number is more than 3 or 4, you may not want to use the WVO for making
biodiesel, at least until you are more experienced at making it; if it is greater than 10, it is use-
less for biodiesel unless you are using the acid–base method. If you are thinking of using it
in a converted engine, rather than for making biodiesel, take a look at Chapter 9 but as a rule
of thumb oil titrating at higher than 3 or 4 is often considered too acidic.

Collecting it

How you go about finding, negotiating, and collecting your raw ingredient, WVO, is very
important; do it wrong, and you could alienate a restaurant manager or even find yourself
in trouble with the law.
You should not simply take the stuff you find behind the restaurant. Just because we are calling
it waste, does not mean it is without value. It almost certainly belongs to someone (the oil
collector, the restaurant, another biofuel maker), and it is very likely the restaurant won’t
take kindly to you helping yourself without permission.
In the UK, pubs and chip shops usually pour the used oil back into the 25 liter drums or
the “cubies” (cubelike plastic containers in a supportive cardboard box) it arrived in to

 Figure 4.1
Waste fish and chip shop oil
in Wales.

44
 Collecting waste vegetable oil

await collection. In the United States, it is more normal for the oil collection company to
provide a dumpster for the used oil.
Start by going into the place as a customer; pick a time when they are not too busy. Try to
look neat and tidy, maybe order something, and ask to speak with the manager.
Explain to the manager, very briefly, that you make biodiesel, even if you are not planning
on actually making biodiesel, from waste vegetable oil, and ask if you could take a little of
their waste oil to test its suitability.
In years gone by, biodieselers had trouble convincing restaurant managers why they really
wanted the oil (making fuel from it was just too improbable), but the chances are that
everyone has heard of biodiesel today. However, this is not the time to be explaining the
subtleties of SVO and WVO and biodiesel and blending – keep it simple.
At first explain that it is only an experiment at this stage: You need only a small amount,
maybe a gallon. You don’t want to be making a deal with someone who is going to give you
bad oil, which makes you have to back out of it, alienating managers and making life harder
for a biofuel maker who follows you.
If the manager agrees, then take your sample home and test it; if it is good, go back and strike
a deal.

Regulations

Regulations vary massively from country to country and are constantly changing, so check
the situation in your local area.
In the United States the oil, once poured in, often becomes the property of the dumpster
owner, so providing another container for your oil may help make you legal in this situation.
The law in the UK regards used cooking oil as an industrial waste and its storage, transport,
and disposal are regulated accordingly by the Environment Agency (EA), regardless of
whether you are a private individual, club, or commercial business. In order for you to legally
collect the waste oil, you need to be a registered waste carrier; transporting the oil is illegal if
you are not registered. The cost is about £150 (US$300) for 3 years and the application
is pretty much just a formality; send off the money and the form and you will be issued
a Waste Carriers License. Being a registered waste carrier will not only enable you to move
the WVO legally but also you will be able to issue Waste Transfer Notes: Something pubs,
restaurants, and schools should want to receive from you in return for their WVO in order
to prove they disposed of it properly, but in reality a lot don’t seem to care. The issuing
of licenses and Waste Transfer Notes enables the EA to keep track of where waste is being
produced, who is moving it, and where they are moving it to. This may initially seem
over-the-top, but the rules are there to protect the environment from unscrupulous people
who would dispose of waste inappropriately.

45
Chapter 4

More information about waste carrying, Waste Transfer Notes, and the Duty of Care can be
found on the EA’s website: www.environment-agency.gov.uk.
The caterer you are looking for to collect the WVO from may have already paid the cost of
disposal in the price he paid when buying the oil; it is often the same company who supplies,
delivers, collects, and disposes of the oil. However, many catering companies in the UK don’t
buy their oil from a dedicated oil supplier and have to find ways of disposing of their WVO
themselves; these methods are sometimes not entirely legal and sometimes involve pouring
the oil down the drain. While maybe not entirely legal, you should also not beat yourself up
too much if you find yourself collecting WVO from these guys; you are doing them, the
sewage company, and the environment a big favor.

Transporting it

Cubies are easy to load into your car, but can still be dirty and oily and the empties present
a disposal problem for you afterwards.
Once you have loaded up the containers of oil into your vehicle, it is well worth triple-checking
that they are secure; the last thing you want is for them to fall over and spill in your car. Eugh!
Also, don’t overdo it; you don’t want to be overloading your car with oil just because it is
there. It is dangerous and illegal, so make two runs instead.
Other caterers may have their oil in a bigger container requiring you to pump it from
their container into yours. Rotary pumps are good, simple, and reliable; 12V electric pumps
can also work great. Any big container in your trunk to transfer the WVO into will do just
so long as it’s secure: not too heavy when full of oil and not going to spill everywhere on the
trip home.

Suckers
An old refrigerator’s compressor makes a great vacuum pump; you can build a vacuum-proof
container into your vehicle or a trailer, maybe from an old gas tank, suck all the air out of it
when still at home, and then drive to your favorite burger joint and suck up all their WVO.
You can buy plans for a sucker at Murphys Machines: www.murphysmachines.com/
supersucker.html

Storage of waste oil

In the UK, storage of waste oil is regulated under the Waste Management Licensing regulations.
However, they do allow you to keep up to 100 liters of waste cooking oil for the production

46
 Collecting waste vegetable oil

of fuel without worrying about licenses. The waste cooking oil and the biodiesel must be
securely stored and a “bund” is always a good idea, often a legal requirement.
Again, the regulations are updated often and vary from one place to another.

Health and safety

This is often dirty work, so you will need to make sure you are not wearing your favorite
jeans and have some gloves on. Good shoes with good grip are a good idea, as you will be
working in some slippery places, and steel toecaps if you are handling anything heavy. It is a
good idea to have a change of shoes with you, as driving with oil on the soles of your boots
could be dangerous.

How to titrate

What is titration?
Titration is a quantitative chemical analysis used to determine the concentration of a
substance. Sounds complicated and scary? Well don’t worry, it is actually very easy. As far
as we biofuels people are concerned, titration is a simple test we perform on used oil
(WVO) in order to determine how strong its free fatty acid (FFA) concentration is.

Why titrate?

Unlike new, unused oil, your WVO has FFAs in it. FFAs are made when the fatty acid
“legs” of the triglyceride oil molecule get broken off. The more the oil is used and the
hotter it gets, the more legs get broken off and the higher the FFA concentration.
When we make biodiesel, we need to know how much of the FFA stuff there is in our
WVO in order to know how much extra catalyst to add.
When using the WVO in an SVO converted engine, we need to know how strong the FFA
concentration is because we want to manage the risk of possible damage to our engine.

Requirements
● Some small jars or beakers
● An empty bottle to store your testing solution in

47
Chapter 4

● A marker pen or sharpee to write on it

● Chemical resistant gloves
● An apron
● Some goggles
● Some lye, catalyst, KOH or NaOH
● Distilled water; ordinary water is no good
● Isopropyl alcohol, rubbing alcohol
● An indicator: Phenol red works, as does, turmeric or red cabbage
● Some small syringes, a few small sizes, the kind you get a shot with, but without the
needle. Some pharmacies may be willing to help you, or maybe your local veterinarian
● A way of accurately measuring 1 liter of the distilled water
● A way of accurately measuring your catalyst

How to do it

Basically, we are reacting small amounts of our chosen catalyst (lye) with the FFAs in
our oil and measure the pH as we proceed. The normal way of doing this is to have an
indicator in the reaction. The indicator will change color when we reach the pH we are
looking for and, because we were paying attention to how much catalyst we have added,
we know how much it took to neutralize the FFAs.
The test will give us a number, called the acid number.

Step 1
First, we need to make our reference testing solution, a solution of 0.1% NaOH; it’s not
as tricky as it sounds. Using our scales to measure the catalyst, simply dissolve exactly 1 g
of it in exactly 1 liter of water. Improved accuracy will be achieved by dissolving X grams
in X liters of water; this will give you a lot of reference solution but it keeps reasonably
well so long as it is kept in a closed container and is not exposed to the air. Each milliliter
of your distilled water now contains one-thousandth of a gram of catalyst.
If you are planning on making biodiesel from your WVO, you must always use the same
catalyst for titrating as for making the biodiesel.
Now, label the bottle clearly so you know what it is next time and don’t get it confused
with some other bottle of clear liquid.

Step 2
We need to do a thing called a blank titration, i.e., we need to check to see the pH of our
isopropyl alcohol: Usually it is neutral but sometimes it’s not and if we don’t check, it

48
 Collecting waste vegetable oil

will give us an inaccurate result when we titrate the oil later. The procedure for the blank
titration is exactly the same as for the oil, only without the oil.
Measure about 10 ml of isopropyl alcohol from a syringe (the one you wrote “isopropyl
alcohol” on, so as not to get it confused with the others) into a small, clean dry jar or
beaker; add to it a little of your indicator.
Now, using the testing solution syringe, add the testing solution to the alcohol drop by
drop, swirling the beaker as you go, until it changes color. Stop when you have neutralized
the acid in the alcohol; from now on we are only measuring the pH of the oil.
Next, test the WVO. Measure, using your WVO syringe, exactly 1 ml of WVO into your
jar of alcohol. Swirl the mixture to keep the oil suspended in the alcohol.
Keep swirling and add the testing solution in tiny increments, keeping a note of exactly
how much you have added, until the beaker’s contents change color and stay that way for
about 30 seconds. You have neutralized the FFAs.
It is easy to make a mistake doing this. Perform the test a few times and obtain a consistent
result before proceeding.
So how many milliliters of testing solution did it take to neutralize the FFAs? Each
milliliter of testing solution equals the number of grams of extra catalyst you will need to
add to your biodiesel reaction. If it is more that 3 or 4, you may not want to use it for
making biodiesel until you are more experienced at it; if it is >10, it is useless for biodiesel
unless you are using the acid–base method. If you are thinking of using it in a converted
engine, take a look at Chapter 9.

The Collaborative Biodiesel Site has an excellent article on how to titrate:

http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/titratingoil/.
There are a number of excellent videos showing how to titrate on Youtube
(www.youtube.com); search for how to titrate.

Testing for water

(This section is repeated in Chapter 9.)

Testing for water in your WVO is simple, if rather crude. Take a small cupful of your oil in a
pan and gently heat it to around 100∞C (212∞F). If there is bubbling or spitting, you have
water present. How much is usually a matter of guesswork and experience.
See the Dewatering section of Chapter 9 for advice on separating the water from the oil.

49
Chapter 4

Quantitative test for water

You know you have water present, but how much? Calculating how much water is in your
WVO is not difficult. Take a representative sample from your WVO by first ensuring it is well
mixed. Take a few hundred milliliters, measure quite carefully, and weigh it accurately. Put it
into a pan and heat it gently; let the water in it boil, but not so much as it spits out of the
pan. Careful here: Hot oil is the number one cause of household fires and can give you nasty
burns. When it has stopped spitting, turn off the heat, allow it to cool, and weigh it again.
The difference between the two numbers is how much water you had; 1 ml of water weighs
exactly 1 g, so if you know how many milliliters of wet oil you started with, you can calculate
how wet the oil was as a percentage.
However a quantitative test is of limited use because, whether you’re making biodiesel or
using the WVO straight, anything more than the tiniest amount of water is not acceptable.

50
Chapter 5
Biodiesel chemistry

Introduction to the chemistry of biodiesel

What follows is a guide to the chemistry of biodiesel for the nonchemist. In this section, we
are going to be introducing some chemistry terminology, and ways of visualizing the process,
that may seem familiar from high-school chemistry. If this process seems to fly by a little fast,
links have been included to web material that will help you brush up on your chemistry
knowledge. If however, your chemistry skills are fairly sharp, you might want to skip the next
few pages and look at the “Transesterification” reaction, which is where things will really start
to get interesting.
None of this is particularly scary stuff, once you are familiar with the process. Later in this
book, we will be exploring this in a more practical manner, which hopefully will help you
make sense of some of the reactions that are presented in this chapter. You do, however, need
to bear with the theory, as understanding of the theory is essential to being able to produce
biodiesel successfully.
We’re going to start by revising some really simple high-school chemistry terminology that
you will need to be familiar with in order to understand the processes that take place when
we produce biodiesel. Here we will be covering the chemical theory behind biodiesel. In later
chapters, we are going to go through the practice, starting with small samples and working
up into larger batches.

Chemistry refresher

If your knowledge of chemistry is a little rusty, you might want to take a look at online
resources to brush up.
www.chemguide.co.uk/.

51
Chapter 5

Definitions

Acid
An acid is a chemical compound which has a pH (measure of acidity/alkalinity) less than 7.0
(7 is considered neutral). Acids are corrosive. They have a hydrogen ion activity greater than
water, which is considered neutral.

Base/alkali
A base/alkaline substance, is a chemical compound which has a pH greater than 7.0.
Bases/alkaline substances are caustic. Bases/alkaline substances “accept protons” in chemical
reactions. In the context of this book, we will be using a strong base as part of the methoxide
mixture that converts our oil into biodiesel.

Catalyst

A catalyst facilitates the reaction between other substances, but is not consumed itself.

Emulsification
An emulsion is a mixture of two immiscible (means that they won’t mix!) liquids. If you take
a glass, half fill it with water, and top up with oil – you will find that they won’t mix – the oil
floats on top of the water. However, add a chemical known as an “emulsifier” and you’ll find
that the two fluids will mix together easily, with droplets of one liquid being suspended in
the other liquid. This is great if you want to make a low-calorie spread, but not so grand if
you want to make biodiesel.
A quick test for the presence of emulsifiers is to take a small container – half fill with water,
and half fill with biodiesel. Cap off the container and shake it vigorously for a short period.
Then leave the liquid to settle. If no emulsifiers are present, the oil should find its level on
top of the water, settling out relatively quickly.
If however, your fluids don’t settle into two distinct layers within a couple of minutes, there
are still emulsifying agents present: These could be soaps or mono- and diglycerides; see
Chapter 6 for more information on this.

Organic chemistry, hydrocarbons º and all that jazz!

The branch of chemistry that this chapter is primarily concerned with is “organic chemistry,”
which is principally concerned with the chemistry of compounds containing carbon and
hydrogen.
Strictly speaking, a hydrocarbon contains only hydrogen and carbon atoms – we refer to
compounds containing only hydrogen and carbon as “pure” hydrocarbons; although strictly

52
 Biodiesel chemistry

speaking they are not hydrocarbons, compounds containing additions other than hydrogen
and carbon are often referred to as “impure hydrocarbons.”

Representing chemicals

In this chapter, we are going to be using a variety of different ways to represent chemicals in
order to help you understand the nature of how they are composed. The two main notations
that we will be using are the “structural” notation, “letters” joined by lines, with each line rep-
resenting a bond between two different molecules, and “ball-and-stick” models, which help
you get a better idea of what the chemicals look like in three-dimensional (3D) space.

Alkanes

Alkanes consist of carbons connected by a single bond with hydrogens, forming a single
chain hydrocarbon. The word hydrocarbon implies that alkanes consist of hydrogen and
carbon but nothing else. Alkanes are aliphatic: i.e., they consist of straight and branched
chains only, as opposed to aromatic compounds which contain “rings” of carbon.
We aren’t going to deal with aromatic compounds in this discussion, so you can happily
forget about them for the time being.
The alkane series are also referred to as the paraffin series.
First, we will take a look at methane. You will see we have two representations of methane.
The first shows us structurally the configuration. We have four hydrogen atoms con-
nected each with a single bond to a carbon atom. Methane is the simplest hydrocarbon
around; it is straightforward, all single bonds, and represents a carbon atom with all its
“binding sites” occupied with hydrogen atoms.

 Figure 5.1
Structural representation of methane.

If we look at the ball-and-stick model of methane, we can begin to visualize the way that
the atoms fill physical space.
 Figure 5.2
Ball-and-stick model of methane.

Looking at the next largest chain in the alkane sequence, we turn to ethane. The fundamen-
tal difference between ethane and methane is that ethane has an additional carbon atom.
This takes the place of one of the “hydrogen” atoms in the methane structure, connecting to

53
Chapter 5

the hydrogen by a single bond. We can see that this additional carbon comes with two
hydrogen atoms of its own.
 Figure 5.3
Structural representation of ethane.

Looking at the ball-and-stick model of ethane, we can see how the atoms are arranged
in three dimensions (3D).
 Figure 5.4
Ball-and-stick model of ethane.

The logical extension of this is propane, the gas we use in our flame grills and barbecues!
 Figure 5.5
Structural representation of propane.

 Figure 5.6
Ball-and-stick model of propane.

The general formula for alkanes is CnH2n+2.

Chemicals are named using a fairly structured numbering system that refers to the number
of carbons contained in a chain. This is the system adopted by the International Union of
Pure and Applied Chemistry, and it is simple to follow once grasped. We present here the
prefixes up to 20, which will become apparent in our discussion of the chemistry needed to
understand Biodiesel production (Table 5.1).

Alkenes

Alkenes are also hydrocarbons; however, they differ from the alkanes in that they possess a
“carbon=carbon double bond.” This bond is stronger than a single bond; however, where a

54
 Biodiesel chemistry

Table 5.1 Chemical prefixes

Prefix Number

Meth 1
Eth 2
Pro 3
But 4
Pent 5
Hex 6
Hept 7
Oct 8
Non 9
Deca 10
Undeca 11
Dodeca 12
Trideca 13
Tetradeca 14
Pentadeca 15
Hexadeca 16
Heptadeca 17
Octadeca 18
Nonadeca 19
Icosa 20
For further details on the IUPAC numbering system beyond 20, a good resource to consult is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUPAC_numerical_multiplier.

double bond is formed, the “extra bond” must come from somewhere, so it takes the place
of a hydrogen atom.
Ethene is the simplest alkene, consisting of two carbon atoms and two hydrogen atoms.

 Figure 5.7
Structural representation of ethene.

 Figure 5.8
Ball-and-stick model of ethene.

Look what happens when we add an additional carbon and two hydrogens to produce
propene. Look at how the atoms are configured.

55
Chapter 5

 Figure 5.9
Structural representation of propene.

 Figure 5.10
Ball-and-stick model of propene.

Alkynes

Next, we are going to look at a series of chemicals called the alkynes, sometimes referred to
as the “acetylenes” or the “acetylene series.”
Ethyne, the simplest alkyne, is also known as “acetylene”: welders will be familiar with this
compound!
Note that here, rather than a “double bond” we now have a “triple bond” – see that another
hydrogen has been “sacrificed” to lend its bond to the triple bond.

 Figure 5.11
Structural representation of ethyne.

 Figure 5.12
Ball-and-stick model of ethyne.

Propyne is the next logical extension. See the pattern emerging?

 Figure 5.13
Structural representation of propyne.

 Figure 5.14
Ball-and-stick model of propyne.

56
 Biodiesel chemistry

Introduction to functional group chemistry

One way that we can think of chemistry is in terms of “functional groups.” There are certain
“patterns” that we see time and time again in chemical compounds. We give certain patterns
of chemicals that are joined in certain ways their own names, and we can think about them
as a “group” that we can join in place of a hydrogen bond. Think back to our alkanes, alkenes,
and alkynes – each time, we switched a “hydrogen–carbon” bond for a “carbon–carbon”
bond. With functional groups, we can swap a hydrogen bond for a link to a functional group,
or we can “break apart” a double bond to leave a single bond and two “connections,” which
we could then link to a hydrogen or a functional group. Thinking about chemistry in this
way makes it easy to understand like a jigsaw puzzle.

R O H
 Figure 5.15
Hydroxyl
R group
Functional groups.
O

C
R1 R2 Carbonyl
R1 R2
group

C Carboxyl
R O group
R
H

Alcohols

Alcohol eh!… Now I have your attention!

 Figure 5.16
Structural representation of methanol.

 Figure 5.17
Ball-and-stick model of methanol.

 Figure 5.18
Structural representation of ethanol.

57
Chapter 5

 Figure 5.19
Ball-and-stick model of ethanol.

 Figure 5.20
Structural representation of propanol.

 Figure 5.21
Ball-and-stick model of propanol.

An alcohol is a chemical compound that has an OH (hydroxyl) group bonded to a carbon

atom. We can see the simplest acid “methanol” (Figure 5.17), and we can see how closely this
resembles methane (Figure 5.1) apart from an —OH group where we would expect a hydrogen.
We can also see how this chain grows by adding carbons and hydrogens, so ethanol is to
ethane and propanol is to propane as methanol is to methane.

Fatty acids (carboxylic acids)

Fatty acids, also known as carboxylic acids, follow a similar pattern to the alcohols described
above. Look at the image of methanoic acid (Figure 5.22), and try to compare it to the image
of methane. From the four potential bonds that the carbon atom can make, one has been
replaced by an —OH group (as in methanoic acid above); however, an additional two bonds
are given over to a double bond with an oxygen atom, leaving only one hydrogen. We can
“grow” fatty acids chains, just like with our other hydrocarbons, by adding units of carbon
and hydrogen. So see how methanoic acid transforms to ethanoic acid (Figure 5.24) and then
on to propanoic acid (Figure 5.26) with the addition of a handful of carbon and hydrogen
atoms. We are interested in much longer fatty acid chains, the kind found in fats and oils that
we can process to make biodiesel.

 Figure 5.22
Structural representation of methanoic acid.

58
 Biodiesel chemistry

 Figure 5.23
Ball-and-stick model of methanoic acid.

 Figure 5.24
Structural representation of ethanoic acid.

 Figure 5.25
Ball-and-stick model of ethanoic acid.

 Figure 5.26
Structural representation of propanoic acid.

 Figure 5.27
Ball-and-stick model of propanoic acid.

Oils and fats

Oils and fats belong to a group of biological chemicals called “lipids” – what distinguishes oils
from fats is that oils are fluid at room temperature, whereas fats are solid. So it’s all a question
of the melting point: Heat a fat up, and it turns into an oil. Chemically, they share the same
components; which is to say a “glycerol backbone” that joins together three chains of “fatty
acids.” So, structurally, fats and oils are identical, just that their melting point differs.
Our triglyceride chains contain mainly carbon and hydrogen atoms, with very few oxygen
atoms (6 per triglyceride molecule). This means that chemically we can call them “very
reduced,” which means that the carbon and hydrogen atoms haven’t yet been oxidized.

59
Chapter 5

This is what makes fats and oils good as an energy storage medium – as in “oxidizing” the
triglycerides – whether this be by chemical processes inside our body, or in an internal com-
bustion engine, we can release a lot of energy.
Fats and oils are triesters of glycerol, propan-1,2,3-triol (more about esters later on). The
“tri,” which you should recognise from “triglyceride,” means that there are three chains, and
it is the esters that we are interested in, and that we want to harvest to make our biodiesel.
So, if, chemically, oils and fats share the same basic structure, what is it that makes them dif-
ferent and gives different types of vegetable oil different properties?
One of the factors that distinguises oils and fats is the length of the chain of hydrogen and
carbon attached to the glycerol backbone.

Saturated, unsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats and oils

Another thing that differentiates different fats and oils is that some fats and oils have chains
where all the bonds are single bonds, and the bonding sites of each carbon atom are all filled
with hydrogen atoms, whereas some fats and oils have one or more double bonds along the
length of the chain. This affects the structure of the molecule, as when a double bond occurs,
the chain of hydrogens and carbons can “kink.” These “kinks” in the chain mean that unsat-
urated and polyunsaturated chains do not stack particularly neatly together. This “lack of fit”
means that the forces holding everything together are “stretched” (if you like by the awkwardly
shaped chains), meaning that they can be separated more easily. This leads to lower melting
points in unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and oils than in saturated oils.

Section of unsaturated fatty acid molecule

H H H H H H H H
R C C C C C C C C R
H H H H H H H H
R R

Section of saturated fatty acid molecule

H H H H H H
C C C C C C C C
R
R R
R
H H H H H H H H

Section of polyunsaturated fatty acid molecule

H H H H R
R C C C C C C C C R
R
H H H H H H H H

= Double bond

 Figure 5.28
Saturated, unsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acid molecules.

60
 Biodiesel chemistry

Table 5.2 Common saturated fatty acids

Common name Systematic name Structural formula

Butyric Butanoic acid CH3(CH2)2COOH or C4:0

Caproic Hexanoic acid CH3(CH2)4COOH or C6:0
Caprylic Octanoic acid CH3(CH2)6COOH or C8:0
Capric Decanoic acid CH3(CH2)8COOH or C10:0
Lauric Dodecanoic acid CH3(CH2)10COOH or C12:0
Myristic Tetradecanoic acid CH3(CH2)12COOH or C14:0
Palmitic Hexadecanoic acid CH3(CH2)14COOH or C16:0
Stearic Octadecanoic acid CH3(CH2)16COOH or C18:0
Arachidic Eicosanoic acid CH3(CH2)18COOH or C20:0
Behenic Docosanoic acid CH3(CH2)20COOH or C22:0

Also, where chains are saturated, they are less reactive than chains of double bonds.
In a saturated fat, all the carbon atoms form a chain of single bonds, and all the binding sites
are “fully occupied.”
So, to recap, the main factors distinguishing different types of oil and fat are the chain length
of the hydrocarbon chain and the degree of saturation.
So, we’ve seen how different types of oil can be formed from different fatty acids, different
chain lengths, and different degrees of saturation. This variation in the composition of oils
and fat leads to different chemical properties: For example, oil from soy beans has a lower
melting point than, for example, rapeseed oil (canola oil).

100
90
80
% Fatty acid composition

70 Other
60 α lineolic acid
Lineolic acid
50
Oleic acid
40 Stearic acid
30 Palmitic acid
Myristic acid
20
Lauric acid
10 Capric acid
0
Canola oil Com oil Olive oil Palm oil Palm Soybean Sunflower
(Maize oil) kernel oil oil oil
Type of oil

 Figure 5.29
Fatty acid composition of different vegetable oil types.

61
Table 5.3 Percent by weight of total fatty acids of some common edible oils and fats
Oil or fat Saturated Mono- Poly-
unsaturated unsaturated

Unsat./Sat. Capric Lauric Myristic Palmitic Stearic Oleic linoleic Alpha linolenic
ratio acid acid acid acid acid acid acid (ω6) acid (ω3)
C10:0 C12:0 C14:0 C16:0 C18:0 C18:1 C18:2 C18:3

Almond oil 9.7 – – – 7 2 69 17 –

Beef tallow 0.9 – – 3 24 19 43 3 1
Butterfat (cow) 0.5 3 3 11 27 12 29 2 1
Butterfat (goat) 0.5 7 3 9 25 12 27 3 1
Butterfat (human) 1.0 2 5 8 25 8 35 9 1
Canola oil 15.7 – – – 4 2 62 22 10
Cocoa butter 0.6 – – – 25 38 32 3 –
Cod liver oil 2.9 – – 8 17 – 22 5 –
Coconut oil 0.1 6 47 18 9 3 6 2 –
Corn oil (maize oil) 6.7 – – – 11 2 28 58 1
Cottonseed oil 2.8 – – 1 22 3 19 54 1
Flaxseed oil 9.0 – – – 3 7 21 16 53
Grape seed oil 7.3 – – – 8 4 15 73 –
Lard (pork fat) 1.2 – – 2 26 14 44 10 –
Olive oil 4.6 – – – 13 3 71 10 1
Palm oil 1.0 – – 1 45 4 40 10 –
Palm olein 1.3 – – 1 37 4 46 11 –
Palm kernel oil 0.2 4 48 16 8 3 15 2 –
Peanut oil 4.0 – – – 11 2 48 32 –
Safflower oil* 10.1 – – – 7 2 13 78 –
Sesame oil 6.6 – – – 9 4 41 45 –
Soybean oil 5.7 – – – 11 4 24 54 7
Sunflower oil* 7.3 – – – 7 5 19 68 1
Walnut oil 5.3 – – – 11 5 28 51 5
* Not high-oleic (mono-unsaturated) variety
 Biodiesel chemistry

Decomposing fats and oils

Where moisture is present, fats and oils can decompose. Heat also causes this to happen.
As fats break down, their triglyceride molecules form monoglycerides, diglycerides, and
FFAs. When making biodiesel, we need to be aware of these components in our oil, and com-
pensate for them accordingly.
One of the factors that makes certain types of oil desirable is a long shelf life; we have seen
how saturated fats contain chains that are saturated with all their hydrogen bonds filled. It is
possible to “saturate” a fat or oil artificially, through a process called hydrogenation, where
hydrogen gas is injected into the fat or oil, saturating the double bonds, filling the binding
sites of the carbon atoms, and producing an oil that is more durable, with a longer shelf life.

Monoglycerides

A monoglyceride is where one single fatty acid chain is left bonded to a glycerol molecule,
the two others having become detached, FFAs, and their “attachment points” can be thought
of as being “capped off ” with a hydroxyl functional group (-OH).

Diglycerides

A diglyceride is much like the monoglyceride above, only two single chains, rather than one,
remain bonded to a glycerol molecule.

Mono and diglycerides and free fatty acids are all undesirable in our finished biodiesel;
they are all symptomatic of an incomplete reaction. See Chapter 6 for more information
on this.

Esters

We make esters from the reaction of an alcohol and an acid.

Esters consist of an acid, where an OH (hydroxyl) group has been replaced with an O (alkyl)
group. We can see from Figures 5.30–5.34 how we start off with a simple ester like methyl
methanoate, and can then grow the ester chain in length by adding units of hydrogen
and carbon.
Compare the methanoates with methanoic acid, and look at what parts of the molecule are
similar and different. Similarly, look at the ethanoate esters, and compare them with the
ethanoic acid and again look at what parts are similar and different.
These esters are shorter-chain esters, however, the mono-esters that we talk about using as
biodiesel have much longer chains.

63
Chapter 5

 Figure 5.30
Structural representation of methyl methanoate.

 Figure 5.31
Ball-and-stick model of methyl methanoate.

 Figure 5.32
Structural representation of methyl ethanoate.

 Figure 5.33
Ball-and-stick model of methyl ethanoate.

 Figure 5.34
Structural representation of ethyl ethanoate.

 Figure 5.35
Ball-and-stick model of ethyl ethanoate.

Esterification

Combining some of the concepts we looked at above we see that we can form esters from
fatty acids and alcohols by a process called “Esterification.” Esterification is the name given to

64
 Biodiesel chemistry

O O H
H H
H H H
C + C H C C H H
C O O C O + O
H H H H
H H H

+ +

Ethanoic acid Methanol Methyl ethanoate Water

(acetic acid) (methyl alcohol) (methyl acetate)

 Figure 5.36
The esterification process.

a chemical process that results in an ester being formed. This can be viewed in Figure 5.36 which
shows a structural representation and ball-and-stick model of the esterification process. Put in
very simple terms, when we combine an acid and an alcohol we produce an ester.
We are now going to begin to pull some of these concepts together. Now that we understand
esterification and fatty acids, we can begin to look at our vegetable oils, which returning to
the parlance of the chemist are called triglycerides.
In homebrew biodiesel production, we routinely use methanol as our alcohol, although it is
possible to use other alcohols such as ethanol. Using methanol for the esterification reaction
results in monoesters of methanol, which we can call monoalkyl methyl esters, or just methyl
esters for short.
During the reaction, our “basic catalyst” (basic in this chemical usage means that it is a
strong base, not using the word to mean simple!) breaks the chains in turn from the glycerol
backbone. Once the chains have been broken off, the fatty acid chains react with the
methanol in the methoxide mix to form esters.
The reaction is sensitive to temperature – we can apply a little heat to accelerate the reaction.

Table 5.4 Temperature sensitivity of esterification

Temperature (∞C) Temperature (∞F) Rate of reaction

21 70 4–8 hours
40 105 2–4 hours
60 140 1–2 hours

Be careful how much you try to “accelerate the reaction” – don’t heat it any more than
140°F as methanol will “boil off ” at 63∞C (148∞F), ruining your reaction and venting lots
of toxic methanol fumes – best to keep it under 50°C (120°F).

65
Chapter 5

Transesterification

Put simply, the transesterification reaction means taking one type of ester and turning it into
another, for example, taking vegetable oil and turning it into biodiesel.
In this reaction we are exchanging the alkyl group of one kind of alcohol for another alkyl
group from a different alcohol (remember, the glycerol backbone of the triglyceride [see
below] is an alcohol!)

Triglycerides

Note that the hydrogens in Figure 5.38 have been omitted so that you can see the chains a
little more clearly. In this model, we have instead represented the hydrogens by removing the
“explicit” hydrogens – i.e., the bonds that we “know” to be there – instead, representing them

 Figure 5.37
Chemical structure of a triglyceride (expanded form).

66
 Biodiesel chemistry

 Figure 5.38
Chemical structure of a triglyceride (condensed form).

with the condensed form of notation. If you feel more comfortable with being able to see all
the bonds, see Figure 5.37.
One of the things that should be immediately apparent to you from looking at the figures
is that the triglyceride molecules are much bigger than anything else we have seen in this
chapter so far.
Because the triglyceride molecules are so large, and because of their complex shape, they
form an oil which is very thick and viscous. When they are used as a fuel for the diesel engine
this viscosity will inevitably cause problems.
One of the most common ways of making triglycerides more suitable for use as fuel for a
diesel engine is to process them into biodiesel. This is most commonly done by reacting
them, in the presence of a base-catalyst, with another alcohol, usually methanol, which
produces methanol-mono-ester chains, our biodiesel. The glycerol backbone, Figure 5.40

67
Chapter 5

 Figure 5.39
Ball-and-stick model of a triglyceride.

 Figure 5.40
The “glycerol backbone.”

is left unstable, so the base donates a hydroxyl group (—OH) to the glycerol backbone to
produce glycerol (Figure 5.41).
Any free fatty acids present in our oil, and there will always be some, will also react with the
base. This uses up some of our catalyst and results in soap and water, called sopification. As
we shall see in Chapter 6 none of these are welcome when making biodiesel.

 Figure 5.41
Structural representation of a glycerol molecule.

68
 Biodiesel chemistry

 Figure 5.42
Ball-and-stick model of a glycerol molecule.

We’ve now looked at biodiesel chemistry from a theoretical perspective; hopefully, this chap-
ter has provided a refresher on some basic chemistry, and helped you to understand some of
the basic chemical building blocks and processes involved in the making of biodiesel.
In the next chapter we are going to take this knowledge and apply it in a practical setting,
where things are never as straightforward as they are in theory, looking at the how-to of
making biodiesel for real!

O O
+ K O C K + H2O
C R O
R OH H

+ +
R
R
Fatty acid Potassium hydroxide Soap Water

 Figure 5.43
Sopification -the fatty acids react with the base to form soap and water.

69
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Chapter 6
Fuel modification: making
biodiesel

Introduction

Many people confuse running their car with vegetable oil with running their car on
biodiesel. They talk about “converting it to run on biodiesel,” when no conversion is
required; biodiesel is a fuel suitable for any unmodified diesel engine.
A biofuel (sometimes called agrofuel or agrifuel) is a solid, liquid, or gas fuel made from bio-
logical material, usually plants. Fossil fuels are also also derived from materials that were once
alive but which have undergone considerable change over millions of years. Generally speak-
ing, biofuels are sustainable and fossil fuels are not. Examples of biofuels could be anything
from wood to whale oil and include fuels such as vegetable oil, biodiesel, and some ethanol;
examples of fossil fuels include gasoline, diesel, heating oil, bitumen, coal, and natural gas.
So, while vegetable oil is a biofuel, it is not biodiesel, which is a diesellike fuel made from veg-
etable oil and has undergone a chemical reaction, usually transesterification, to make it
similar to mineral diesel.
Running your engine directly on straight vegetable oil (SVO) or waste vegetable oil (WVO)
are dealt with in their own separate chapters, as is the chemistry involved in the making of
biodiesel and the construction of biodiesel reactors or processors. Because the collection of
the ingredient WVO is common to several techniques, it has its own chapter too. This chapter
is primarily focused on the realities of making biodiesel.
As covered in detail in Chapter 5, making biodiesel involves replacing the vegetable oil’s glycerol
with another alcohol, usually methanol. Vegetable oil is made up of triglyceride molecules, each
having a glycerol molecule with three fatty acid molecule chains hanging onto it; connecting
them all together are ester bonds. If we think of glycerol as a viscous alcohol, and methanol as a
less viscous alcohol, then what we are trying to achieve in the making of biodiesel is to replace
the glycerol with methanol and thus make a less viscous oil. So, to the vegetable oil, the triglyc-
eride, is added methanol and a catalyst. The catalyst breaks, or cracks, the ester bonds and the
fatty acid chains become bonded to the methanol molecules, instead creating fatty acid methyl
esters (FAME) or biodiesel, leaving behind the glycerol and the catalyst as by-products.

71
Chapter 6

Unfortunately this is not the whole story. Unless you are using new oil, the feedstock will not
only contain triglycerides, but also, among other things, free fatty acids and water. Heating
the oil and prolonged use causes the triglyceride molecule to break apart. Some of the fatty
acid chains become detached from the glycerol molecule and become free fatty acids (FFAs).
Water also gets into the oil both during use and afterwards when it is stored for collection
and disposal.
Both FFAs and water in your feedstock will complicate the reaction by making a soapy
by-product. Whereas some soap is inevitable, a lot of soap is going to cause problems.
Although more advanced methods of biodiesel production can cope with high FFAs, it is
best to choose feedstock that is low in FFAs and water, especially when making biodiesel is a
new experience.

Health and safety

Biodiesel production uses some dangerous chemicals, some of which can burn your skin,
blind you if you get them in your eyes, intoxicate and poison you, or burn your house down.
Don’t let this scare you off, however; if you are careful, use common sense, and follow
sensible procedures, you should not have any big problems.
You need to be very careful when handling the chemicals; use chemical-proof gloves, gog-
gles, an apron, long-sleeved tops, shoes on your feet, good ventilation, and take care not to
breath in fumes or dust. For detailed information, see Chapter 13.

Methanol is both very flammable and poisonous. It burns with an almost invisible flame,
is almost odorless, and is intoxicating via inhalation and through the skin. Methanol can
also burn your skin but you probably won’t feel it burn you as it kills the nerve endings
as it goes. Always work with methanol in a very well-ventilated area, never lean over con-
tainers of methanol, always wear chemical-proof gloves and eye protection, never have
naked flames, and be very careful with other sources of heat, near methanol. And obvi-
ously, do I even need to say this; never smoke anywhere near methanol! Methanol vapor
is heavier than air; it will collect on the floor and in hollows, and vapor protection masks
are useless against it.

Lye, a biodiesel catalyst, is caustic and will cause nasty burns if you get it on your skin
and could blind you if you get it in your eye. Always wear chemical-proof gloves, eye
protection, and a dust mask when handling any catalyst and be careful.
The correct treatment for caustic burns is not to attempt to neutralize them but to wash
with copious amounts of water and seek medical attention immediately.

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 Fuel modification: making biodiesel

Vegetable oil may seem rather innocuous when compared to methanol and lye, but it is
dirty and containers of it are heavy. It will make floors and surfaces very slippery. Hot fat
and oils are the biggest cause of domestic fires and, while we are unlikely to be heating
much oil to that kind of temperature, it is worth being aware that vegetable oil is also a
fire hazard.

While small furry creatures might be man’s best friend most of the time, when it comes
to making biodiesel, they are a definate no-no. No pets anywhere near you when you are
working. Remember, while used cooking oil may seem repugnant to you, your dog and
other animals, even wild ones, will probably find it very attractive; even when it becomes
biodiesel, animals may still want to eat the potentially poisonous stuff.

All of the reactor designs in this chapter use electricity to power pumps or agitators. Ensure
that if you are constructing these designs, and you are using grid power you are competent
enough to understand what you are doing. If at any stage you feel unsure about wiring,
consult a qualified, experienced individual to check your work. Water, other chemicals,
and electricity aren’t the best playmates in the world, so ensure that your wiring is “ingress
protected” by using suitable fixtures and fittings that will not permit the ingress of liquids
or dust.

Where to obtain the chemicals

Catalyst or lye
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was once relatively easy to get as drain cleaner and was very
popular with biodiesel home brewers because of this. However, it is becoming hard to get in
small quantities; one of the reasons for this is because it is used in the manufacture of
methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant. Older biodiesel books recommend Red Devil drain
cleaner but it no longer contains NaOH and, while it may well still be good at clearing your
drain, it is no use at all for making biodiesel (or methamphetamine presumably).

If you can find NaOH, make sure you get powdered or granular, not the liquid type,
and make sure it is 99% pure NaOH and that it is in a sealed container and has not been
contaminated by air or water.

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Potassium hydroxide (KOH) was always the preferable catalyst when making biodiesel, as it
is both easier to use and more reliable. NaOH was only more common because of its easy
availability. Now it is no longer easy to find, there is little reason to continue using it. KOH
of purity 85% or more is usable for making biodiesel.
It is better to work with chemicals of a higher purity, as then you will need smaller amounts
of reactant. Higher-purity chemicals cost a little more though. You really want to be work-
ing with chemicals of at least 85–90% purity or better.
It is possible to compensate for chemicals that are less pure by using a little more. There is a
relatively simple method to allow you to judge how to compensate for chemicals of inferior
purity; e.g., if you need 10 g of chemical and you are using 80% pure chemical, you will actu-
ally need 12.5 g.
To do that we divide 10 by 80 (this tells us what 1% is), and then multiply by 100.
10/80 = 0.125
0.125 × 100 = 12.5 g
Sources of small quantities of catalyst include fellow biodieselers, soap makers and soap
maker suppliers, and leather tanners. Larger quantities can be bought from chemical suppli-
ers and manufacturers; look up your local one on the Internet.

The catalyst will react with the carbon dioxide in the air very quickly making it useless.
It is also very hydroscopic; it absorbs water. Always keep your catalyst in an airtight con-
tainer and don’t buy too much in one go. Keeping it in ziploc bags is very helpful as you
can squeeze almost all of the air out of the container even when it is half full.

Methanol is available in small quantities as antifreeze, model airplane fuel from model
shops, or stove or barbeque fuel. However, not all of these products are necessarily methanol.
Read the label to find out what it contains, and make sure it is at least 99% pure. Race car
shops and drag race tracks can be helpful in the USA. Fellow biodieselers everywhere may be
willing to help you. Larger quantities can be bought from chemical suppliers and manufac-
turers; again, look up your local one on the Internet.
Both small and large quantities of the chemicals required for making biodiesel have become
available on eBay. While usally expensive, this can be a very simple method of obtaining the
materials required, especially when you are just starting out; they can be ordered with a few
clicks of a mouse and delivered to your door in the mail.
eBay is also a good place to look for other chemical supplies, such as tri-balance scales.

Making biodiesel

When making your very first biodiesel you could do a lot worse than simply buying a liter of
new oil from the supermarket and using that. However, when making biodiesel in the real

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 Fuel modification: making biodiesel

world you are almost certainly going to be using used oil (grease or WVO or UCO or what-
ever you want to call it) as your feedstock, for both economic and ethical reasons. As
mentioned above, making biodiesel from used oil involves getting to grips with its varying
qualities. Repeated use and heating of the oil, sometimes the overuse and overheating of the
oil, will have introduced FFAs and water and these and their by-products will be a problem
unless you understand how to deal with them.

Titration

When you try to make biodiesel from used oil, the FFAs in it will react with your catalyst,
making soap. This not only introduces soap into your biodiesel, which may be a problem
during later processing stages, but also uses up the catalyst so it is not available to make
biodiesel, resulting in an incomplete reaction.
To compensate for this extra use of our catalyst, we have to test the WVO for FFAs so we can
add enough extra catalyst to neutralize them with enough left over for a good vegetable oil
to biodiesel reaction.

Check out Chapter 4 for additional information on how to carry out titration.

Very heavily used oils will titrate at higher values and require a greater amount of catalyst to
neutralize the FFAs. There comes a point where you will no longer easily yield decent
biodiesel, because of the amount of soap you will make, and you may get some very dis-
heartening failures and emulsions.
How high is too high a titration depends on which catalyst you are using, NaOH will start to
be unproductive at about 5, whereas if you are using KOH you may be able to go as high as
8. However, it is better to leave oil titrating higher than 4 alone and not to collect it in the
first place, at least not until you are a lot more experienced biodiesel maker and can consider
using the acid/base method (see at the end of this chapter).

Water in your WVO

Used cooking oil will contain some water and you want to remove it before you convert the
oil into biodiesel. The easiest way of dealing with this is by collecting only relatively dry
WVO in the first place (see Chapter 4); but in the real world you will need to dewater the oil
after it has been collected.
Testing for water is a simple procedure, if rather crude. Take a small sample of your oil in a
pan or a ladle and, well away from any flammable substance such as methanol, heat it up.
When the oil approaches the boiling point of water, it will spit and writhe if there is any

75
 WVO

Prefilter

Dewater

Titrate Catalyst Methanol

Heat Methoxide

Reaction

Separation

Biodiesel Glycerol

Wash

Remove Remove
Dry
methanol? methanol

Filter Compost Soap

Drive!

 Figure 6.1
Flowchart, from vegetable oil to biodiesel (simplified).
 Fuel modification: making biodiesel

water present. As to how wet the oil is up to you to decide. It is a matter of experience to
gauge, but whether you are planning on making biodiesel or using the WVO in your con-
verted engine you will want to remove just about all of this water.
Chapter 9 has a section on dewatering oil. Two procedures are described: One involves heating
up all the oil and boiling off the water; the other is to encourage the heavier water to sink under
the dryer oil. Follow these procedures if there is water in your oil, and then retest for water.

Test batches

Making a test batch is something you are going to be doing each time you get a fresh batch
of oil, as it will help you avoid all kinds of large-scale disasters. Even as a beginner, with no
large-scale reactor, this is something you should be doing regularly: deliberately making dif-
ferent mixtures of waste oil and new oil (to change the FFA ratio) and converting it to
biodiesel. There is no substitute here for experience; making mistakes, even deliberate ones,
and overcoming problems is time well spent and will pay off in the long run.
All the safety procedures and equipment apply here: gloves, goggles, long sleeves, good
ventilation, and good practice are a minimum.

Requirements

• Some used vegetable oil that has been dewatered.

• Some catalyst.
• Some methanol.
• Several glass jam jars or similar, clean and dry, with good fitting lids.
• Several plastic cola bottles – the 2-liter ones, clean and dry, with good fitting lids.
• A funnel to fit top of cola bottle.
• A small measuring jug.
• A teaspoon.
• A thermometer; jam or candy making ones are ideal, able to read from around
40–100∞C.
• Saucepan, plenty big enough to fit the oil in.
• Some way of heating the pan, preferably an electric hot ring rather than gas.
• A scale, accurate to 0.1 g. Digital ones can be suitable, a tri-balance is good.
• A titration kit (see titration above).
• Some way of labeling the containers. A biro and adhesive labels or a magic marker will
do. You will need to remember what the oil titrated at and what you put into the jars;
methanol looks just like methanol with 5 g of catalyst in it, which looks just like
methanol with 7 g of catalyst in it!

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You will also need:

• Some chemical-resistant gloves

• Some goggles
• A well-ventilated space
• Shoes on your feet
• An apron
• Long sleeves
Remember: Keep children and pets out of harm’s way.

Method
● Take a 1-liter sample of the oil.
● Put on your protective gear.
● Perform a titration test on the oil. Do it several times to ensure you got a good result.
● Gently heat the oil to around 45∞C (130∞F); check, using a thermometer. It won’t take
long; be careful not to overheat it or you may make more FFAs and you don’t want to be
adding methanol to oil over around 50∞C as it will begin to evaporate.
● Measure about 220 ml of methanol into a jar, being careful not to breathe in any fumes;
220 ml is 22% of a liter – recipes vary for biodiesel at between about 20% and 25%. Only
about 15% is used in the reaction; the rest drives the reaction forward and helps ensure a
good conversion rate.
● Now weigh out your catalyst. Close its container as soon as possible; remember the catalyst
will react with the air, making it useless. Use 5 g per liter of oil for NaOH and 7 g per liter of
oil when using KOH for unused oil, plus the titration number. So, if the oil tritrated at 2 and
you were using KOH, that would be 9 g of catalyst per liter of oil (7 g + 2 g). If it titrated at
3 and you were using NaOH, then that would be 8 g of catalyst per liter of oil (5 g + 3 g).
● Put the catalyst into the methanol immediately, being careful not to breathe in any of the
fumes, and put the lid on the container, labeling it with the amount of catalyst and
methanol as you go. Swirl the mixture gently in the jar until the catalyst is dissolved. You
may notice the mixture getting warm at this point; this is because an exothermic reaction
is taking place between the two. This is now “methoxide.”
● Check that your oil’s temperature is not above 50∞C (140∞F) and pour 1 liter of it into the
cola bottle, then add your “methoxide,” again being careful not to breath in any fumes.
● Put the cap on securely and shake the mixture vigorously for ≥10 minutes.
● Leave the mixture to stand for several hours.

If all went well

If you see clear separation, you have probably made some biodiesel, but only further testing
will show how good it is. The bottom layer should be roughly 20% of the total and dark

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 Fuel modification: making biodiesel

in color; this is generally referred to as “glycerol” but is more accurately called the by-product
as it is only about half glycerol, with the rest being most of the reaction’s leftover methanol
and soap.
If you appear to have successfully made biodiesel, then well done! Let’s proceed to the quality
testing stage and find out what you really made.

If all went not so well

If you don’t see the glycerol layer, or it is too small, then something has gone wrong some-
where. This is fine too; this is why we are doing a test batch and you will learn from your
mistakes. Go back over what you did and look for errors. If it did not separate or not enough

 Figure 6.2
Separation: a cloudy light-colored layer sits on top of a much darker layer. If you look
carefully, in this photograph you can also see an intermediate soapy layer.

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Chapter 6

glycerol settled out, then you have an incomplete reaction. Maybe you used too little catalyst:
check you titration and try again, or indeed reprocess the test batch.
If a third layer separates out, then you have made a lot of soap; most likely you used too
much catalyst or did not remove sufficient water or just used oil which was too full of FFAs.
If you appear to have made gloop, then you definitely made a lot of soap and the batch has
become an emulsion. This is again too much catalyst or water, or both. Aren’t you glad you
only made a test batch and did not jump straight into reacting all 100 liters!
Do not be disheartened. Do not slip into a state of morose melancholy. There’s always
tomorrow, and if there’s one thing we all learned from high-school chemistry, experiments
rarely go the way we want them the first time. Re-read this chapter and the previous chapter
on biodiesel chemistry and see if you can analyze what went wrong.

Ready to scale it up?

The small amount of biodiesel you’ve just made isn’t going to take you on a particularly mean
road trip; in fact, you’ll be lucky if you manage a few blocks, let alone into the next state or
all the way across the country … unless you live somewhere really small like Liechtenstein.
If it passes the quality testing below and you have still not made a scaled-up batch, time
spent here, going over the process several times with different samples of oil, is time very well
spent.
If you have run a few test batches, maybe it is time to try to scale things up a bit and see if
you can repeat the process on a larger scale. Read the scaling it up section of this chapter and
the building a biodiesel processor chapters. Remember, keep making test batches as you go,
and take samples at each stage and test them before you run the next stage on the whole
batch. You may regret it if you don’t and end up with 100 liters of gloop.

Is this not biodiesel then?

In years gone by, biodiesel homebrewers were happy at this point; some people go all misty
eyed when reminiscing about times gone by when standards were lower and folks were more
easily pleased – something had separated out so they had made “biodiesel.” As for its quality
or contamination, they were not all that concerned. Truth is, your biodiesel’s reaction may
well have only partially completed; it could still contain a large amount of triglycerides,
diglycerides, and monoglycerides; and is almost certainly contaminated by significant
amounts of methanol and soap. We want to test for good conversion and, if satisfied, clean
the product before using it. Bad biodiesel gives the technology a bad name; in the long run,
it’s not going to do your vehicle a world of good and it’s only going to destroy your faith in
what is a good system – spend the time to get it right, and your wallet will benefit from
reduced repair bills.

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Quality testing

Separate the glycerol layer from the biodiesel layer in your test batch bottle by gently pour-
ing off the biodiesel into a new clean container, leaving the glycerol at the bottom of the old
container. Think about pouring a layer of fat off the top of a jug of gravy that has been left
to settle: Do it nice and slow, and don’t let the liquids mix. If you are running a big batch,
not a test batch, then leave it to separate and settle for a good 12 hours before draining the
glycerol by-product, and then continue.

Visual inspection
Give it the eyeball. The first inspection of your fuel is a visual one: You have probably already
done this, and unfortunately it does not yield an awful lot of information. Biodiesel, good
and bad, has a fairly wide spectrum of colors. When we are talking about cloudiness, we are
not talking about its color, we are talking about your ability to see through it. Unwashed
cloudy fuel can indicate that you have soap in there; some soap is to be expected and can be
washed out. A third intermediate layer between the biodiesel and the glycerol is probably an
indication you have made more soap than was necessary, possibly by adding too much cat-
alyst to the reaction. Warm biodiesel that appeared to be clear can become cloudy when it
cools down. Nice clear biodiesel could be an indication you have made quality fuel, but could
also be an indication you had low conversion; you need to test it further.

Wash test

What you will need: access to clean water; a clean bottle or jar with a lid that fits; some litmus
paper or a pH meter.
You can predict a problem in the next stage: washing the biodiesel with a quick wash test.
Place a sample of your biodiesel in a clean jar and add a roughly equal amount of water. Put
on the lid and shake vigorously until the two form an emulsion, and then leave them to sep-
arate. They should separate into two distinct layers within about 10 minutes, biodiesel on top
and cloudy water underneath. However, if your reaction was incomplete (and you have a lot
of diglycerides and monoglycerides, which are emulsifiers) or you have a lot of soap (which
is also an emulsifier), the emulsion will hold for longer, maybe what seems to be permanently.
Washing will also remove any leftover methanol and catalyst from your reaction.
There is a myth that well-made, well-converted biodiesel will not form an emulsion and that
if you have an emulsion you have bad fuel. All biodiesel made from waste oil in a base/base
reaction will contain some soap and soap is an emulsifier. Enough soap in your biodiesel,
well converted or not, will potentially produce an emulsion. However, if you have used the
acid/base method (see at end of this chapter), you will not have any soap; if you have good
conversion using this method, you only have biodiesel, which should not form an emulsion
with water on its own.

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 Figure 6.3
Washed biodiesel. After several washes, clear, sparkling biodiesel sits on top of clear water.

Just soap or an incomplete reaction?

To see if it is an incomplete reaction or just soap that is causing your emulsion, first carry
out a wash on the sample several times (gently initially), each time waiting for separation,
removing the water, and washing again.
When the wash water remains clear after the wash, and its pH is neutral (pH = 7), you have
successfully washed out all the soap (along with the other water-soluble impurities). If you
wash it again and the emulsion holds for significantly longer than a few minutes, you prob-
ably have an incomplete reaction, but we can test further for this.

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Testing for diglycerides and monoglycerides in your biodiesel

Between being a triglyceride, with three fatty acid “arms,” and being a biodiesel molecule,
there are intermediate stages for the oil molecule: A “two-armed triglyceride” is a diglyceride,
and a “one-armed diglyceride,” is a monoglyceride (or more correctly, monoglycerine).
Commonly called the 3/27 test, the following procedure tests for the presence of diglycerides
and monoglycerides in your biodiesel; or to put it another way, this is a good test to check
how well converted your fuel is.
Measuring carefully, dissolve three parts biodiesel in 27 parts methanol in a clean jar and give
it a good shake. If no oil drops out of the solution, you probably have well-converted fuel. If
some oil drops out, these are triglycerides, which are not soluble in methanol, and it indicates
the likely presence of diglycerides and monoglycerides too.
If you have poor conversion and this is a large batch, you may want to reprocess it; if it is a
test batch, you will want to run the test again.

Testing the specific gravity of the fuel

A liquid’s specific gravity (SG) is its density, or how much 1 liter of it weighs: e.g., 1 liter of
pure water weighs exactly 1 kilogram; in fact that is its definition.
Biodiesel should have a density of about 887 g per liter, about 11% less dense than water, and
you can test for this in two ways: Either use a winemaker’s hydrometer or very carefully mea-
sure out liter of biodiesel and accurately weigh it.
Unfortunately, this does not tell you much about the quality of the fuel; unwashed biodiesel
contains any number of impurities that will throw off your measurements, and washed,
but poorly converted, biodiesel may well have an SG of around the right amount for well-
converted biodiesel despite it containing tri-, di-, and monoglycerides.

“Proper” quality testing

Ultimately, the only real way of testing the quality of your fuel is to get a laboratory to do it
for you, which is expensive and generally unnecessary for the home brewer. The techniques
described in this book ought to be sufficient. Tests cost from US $100 upwards using
machines such as a gas chromatograph. Other lab tests also exist but are usually even more
expensive. If you are interested in getting your fuel “properly” tested, you could do a lot
worse that asking chemist friends and university students for their help and see where this
takes you.

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Making usable batches of biodiesel – scaling up

There is a bit of a jump from making test batches in a bottle to making large batches in your
own processor, but everything you have learned so far still applies and you will still want to
make test batches as you go to check your titration and your recipe. (See Chapter 7 for more
information on making processors and reactors.)
Once you have checked your recipe by making a test batch, scale up your ingredients pro-
portionally. Read the instructions for your reactor and proceed. Your reaction should be
allowed to run for at least 1 hour for oil at 50∞C (120∞F) to ensure good conversion, longer
if the temperature is lower or your reactor is poorly insulated.
After you have finished the reaction, check and test for conversion; don’t assume that
because it worked in the test batch that it would be successful here.

Washing your biodiesel

Many old biodiesel books will tell you that the washing stage in biodiesel production is
unnecessary – they are very wrong. Washing out the impurities in your biodiesel is important;
the leftover catalyst is corrosive and will damage your engine. Methanol is a good fuel for drag-
race cars but not your diesel engine. Washing out these two will also stop any further reaction
taking place that would otherwise continue creating small amounts of glycerol in your fuel and
block filters and damage engines. Washing also removes any soap in your biodiesel that did not
settle out with the glycerol layer and that may also damage your engine if not removed.
Always perform a wash test on your fuel before washing your entire batch to test how it will
perform in the wash, and then a 3/27 conversion test. If your fuel appears to be poorly con-
verted, reprocess it before proceeding to washing.
Initial washing is usually a gentle mist or bubble wash in order to remove much of the soap
but with a lowered risk of making an emulsion.
Bubble washing occurs when a few gallons of water are added to the biodiesel. The water will
sink to the bottom of the container and the biodiesel will sit above it. An aquarium air-stone
(check the one you have chosen does not disintegrate in the biodiesel) and pump is used to
bubble air through the water and the biodiesel. Water is carried with the bubble through
biodiesel, dissolving impurities as it goes. When the bubble reaches the surface, it pops and
the water sinks back through the biodiesel, collecting more impurities as it goes back down.
Mist washing involves spraying a fine mist of water over the surface of the biodiesel. The tiny
water droplets sink through the fuel and dissolve impurities as they drop down. The water is
then either drained off or recirculated.
The advantages of bubble washing and mist washing are reduced complexity. They are easy
to make, and you reduce the risk of making an emulsion from your whole batch, especially
on your first wash when the soap concentration is highest.

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The main disadvantage is the time it takes to complete; you may need to run the bubble
washer for 8 hours or more (overnight is common), and you will need to change the water
and run it again several times until your wash water comes out clear and pH neutral.
With the mist washer you don’t generally change the water; it only does one pass and is
allowed to drain away. Although this is quicker than the bubble washer, where you have to
stop the process and change the water, it is also likely to use a lot more water.
Other washing methods exist for washing biodiesel. They are generally more aggressive, such
as vigorously stirring the water-biodiesel mix. These methods are much quicker than the
gentle approaches, which can take several days to complete, but unless you are very confident
of low or no soap content (i.e., you have used new oil, or your used oil titrated very low, or
you used the acid/base method described in this chapter), you run the very real risk or emul-
sifying your whole batch.
In addition, the equipment is generally more complex and expensive and therefore not so
appealing to some homebrewers.
There is probably room for using a combination: gentle washing methods first and more
aggressive methods when you are confident that the chance of emulsification is sufficiently
low. This will speed up overall washing times and reduce water consumption.

How to break an emulsion

This should not happen, if you have been taking samples and testing as you go, but occa-
sionally it happens anyway. Maybe your test results were unreliable, or you were just unlucky
this time. Whatever, don’t panic!
The easiest solution to emulsified fuel/water is time; given enough time, an emulsion will
often break of its own accord and settle into two distinct layers.
As you may recall from Chapter 5, glycerol is an alcohol. Alcohols can be used to break
emulsions. If you have an emulsion and you have given it time to break of its on accord, you
can use glycerol to break it.
First, ensure you have drained off all the water you can. Then add glycerol and, watching out
for methanol fumes, stir it in. If the emulsion does not break, mix in some more until it does.
Once it has broken, drain off the glycerol and retest. If you have good conversion, wash
again, only more gently this time!
Other ways of breaking an emulsion include simply continuing to mist wash the emulsion
until it breaks; this usually works but uses an enormous amount of water.
Some people add acids or salt to cause separation. These methods also work but acid in your
fuel will damage your engine and cause your fuel to be contaminated by FFAs. Salt can be
hard to wash out and is also not good for your engine.
Some people use heat to break the emulsion. This again works but needs to be done with
caution because the water in, or underneath, the emulsion may boil, causing dangerous

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pockets of steam. Also, the mixture will still contain methanol, which will vaporize and
poison you; be careful!

Drying your biodiesel

After washing your biodiesel, it will most likely have water suspended in it and will make
your previously clear but unwashed biodiesel appear disappointingly cloudy. Suspended
water is different from having water dissolved in the fuel; suspended water is relatively easy
to remove and will damage your engine if you skip this stage.
Leaving the fuel to stand in an open container is the simple method of removing the
suspended water: Given time, it will clear of its own accord. This process can be sped up by
pumping the fuel out from the bottom of the container and back in at the top, sometimes
by squirting it down and around the side of the container, while actively ventilating and
circulating air across the top of it with a fan.
The biodiesel is generally considered dry enough if you can hold a jar of it up to the light
and easily read newspaper print through it.

Filtering the biodiesel

After making your biodiesel, testing its conversion ratio, and washing and drying it, one final
stage of processing is needed before it is ready for use in your engine: It needs to be filtered.
Even if you filtered it before it was converted from oil to biodiesel, it is a very good idea to
filter it again to remove any particles of dirt it may have picked up from or during its
processing. Most engines come with a 10-micron filter, some lower, filtering your fuel to
10-microns (μm) before it goes into your fuel tank is essential.

Recovering methanol

In making your biodiesel, you added up to 250 ml of methanol for each liter of oil. Only
about 150 ml of this was used up in the reaction. The rest was there to ensure the reaction
went in the right direction, from oil to biodiesel, and to keep conversion rates high.
By leaving the glycerol to settle in the reactor for 12 hours or more, most of this excess
methanol will be in the glycerol layer, along with glycerol, catalyst, and soap. Recovering the
methanol from the biodiesel is generally not considered economical, since there is not much
there to recover; instead, what is there is washed out. However, recovering the methanol from
the glycerol is often considered worthwhile.
The process is to heat the glycerol up to around its boiling point of 65°C(149°F). The boil-
ing point of methanol-in-solution is not the same as pure methanol, however, and we don’t

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want to contaminate what we collect with water if we can avoid it, so methanol recovery stills
are usually run at around 55°C(131°F).
See Chapter 7 for how to make a methanol recovery still.

How to achieve high-quality biodiesel

Here is a quick checklist for making good biodiesel:

• Choose oil with low FFA content.

• Ensure the water content in your oil is very low, close to zero; remember, oil + catalyst
+ water = soap.
• Use the correct amount of catalyst: not too much and not too little.
• Use sufficient methanol.
• Ensure your oil is hot enough, and is mixed vigorously enough for long enough. Oil at
50°C should be mixed vigorously for at least 1 hour, preferably longer. For each drop
of 10°C you can add another 1 hour to this; 2 hours for 40°C, 3 hours for 30°C. If in
doubt, mix for longer: You can’t overmix, but you can underdo it.
• Don’t lose too much methanol during mixing. Reaction temperature should not go
above about 55°C as the methanol will begin to evaporate; it boils at around 65°C;
don’t overheat your reaction and think about methanol recovery.
• Check for good conversion.
• Wash the fuel thoroughly.
• Dry the fuel well.
• Filter to at least 10 μm.

Other methods of making biodiesel

Single-stage transesterification is not the only way to make biodiesel. There are a number of
methods of converting used oil to biodiesel, some breaking the reaction into multiple
stages and others using straight esterification. Other ideas are way beyond the scope of the
homebrewer, such as catalyst-free supercritical methods.

Two-stage reactions

Two-stage base/base
As discussed earlier, the relatively large quantities of methanol present in the reaction com-
pared to the amount used in the reaction (25% compared to 15% typically) is there to drive
the reaction in the right direction, from oil to biodiesel (the reaction is entirely reversible)
and to keep conversion rates high.

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Chapter 6

The relative proportions of methanol and glycerol to each other (they are both alcohols
remember) is what controls the direction of the reaction. When the glycerol and methanol
approach equilibrium, the reaction will slow and eventually stop. So long as there is a lot
more methanol than glycerol, the reaction goes in the right direction, and conversion rates
are high.
In a two-stage reaction, some of the glycerol is removed part way through the reaction; this helps
to push the reaction in the right direction, and generally conversion rates are higher. It also adds
the possibility of reducing the amount of methanol used – some people claim to have achieved
good conversion rates with significantly less than 20% methanol using this method.
The method is to split the methoxide into two equal parts and initially add only one-half to
the reaction. The process is carried out as normal, with the reaction run for 1 hour and the
glycerol allowed to settle out. The by-product is removed; the second half of the methoxide
is added to the reaction; and the reaction continued as normal.
This method produces better conversion most of the time and uses less methanol use.

Two-stage acid/base

In an acid/base two-stage process, the FFAs in the used cooking oil are converted into
biodiesel as well as the triglycerides.
An acid/base is used in the first stage to convert the FFAs to biodiesel. In the second stage,
the rest of the oil (the triglycerides) are converted to biodiesel as well using a lye catalyst.
Because the FFs have been used up in the first stage, there are none present in the second
stage to react with the catalyst, so there is no soap.
This is a superior reaction, creating more biodiesel and no soap. It is often very misleadingly
called the “foolproof” process. While not out of the reach of most homebrewers, it is a com-
plex procedure, as you are handling concentrated acid and a superior reactor needs to be built.

Buying biodiesel

You don’t have to make it of course, you can always just let someone else do the hard work
and you just buy it! It is available from your local biodiesel cooperative and even from garage
forecourts in some places.

Biodiesel blends

B5, B20, B100 refers to the biodiesel content of the fuel as a percentage: B5 is 5% biodiesel
and 95% mineral diesel; B20 is 20% biodiesel; B90 is, you’ve guessed it, 90% biodiesel; and,
finally, B100 is not a blend at all, it is 100% biodiesel with no mineral diesel added.

88
 Fuel modification: making biodiesel

 Figure 6.4
Buying biodiesel at the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, California.

Many vehicle manufactures permit a B5 blend so long as the biodiesel meets the necessary
standards; some manufactures allow a higher blend, and some even allow B100. It is very
common for homebrewers to add mineral diesel to their biodiesel in the winter to lower its
cloud point, the point at which it begins to freeze, to make a more winter-hardy fuel.
Biodiesel available in regular fuel station’s forecourts is often called green diesel or similar,
and is almost always a blend of mineral diesel and biodiesel: usually B5, a 5% biodiesel to
95% mineral blend. In addition, this forecourt biodiesel is usually made from virgin oil.

In early 2008 a biofuels trading scam was uncovered. Perfectly legally, companies were
importing biodiesel into the United States from Europe, a small amount of local biodiesel
was blended, and then the cargo was exported from the United States back to Europe. This
enabled a significant subsidy be claimed from the U.S. government, so the fuel was then
salable at below European prices; up to 10% of U.S. exports at the time were estimated to
be part of the scam. It was uncovered as part of an investigation into why, with biofuels
fetching high prices in Europe, European biofuel makers were struggling to make a profit.

89
Chapter 6

B5 blends have been the norm in France for many years, included in their fuel as a lubrication
replacement for the sulfur removed to make low-sulfur diesel. In the UK, the renewable fuels
obligation means that a percentage of all fuel sold at the pump must be composed of biofuels.

Buying biodiesel from the smaller producer

Buying biodiesel from the smaller guy is an excellent thing to be doing; keeping your money
local, supporting the local entrepreneur, minimizing transport miles, and doing the right
thing while not having to deal with any of the mess or hassle of making your own on con-
verting your engine to SVO.
However, it pays to be a little cautious. Armed with the information in this book, you should
be able to make informed choices, ask the right questions, maybe take a sample home with
you for testing (these tests work well on other people’s fuel as well as your own!) and don’t
take anecdotal evidence, “my engine runs fine on it,” as good enough.

 Figure 6.5
Private biodiesel storage
tank in California.

90
 Fuel modification: making biodiesel

When biodiesel is not biodiesel at all

In the first few years of the 21st century quite a number of small biodiesel outlets
appeared across the UK, claiming to be selling “biodiesel” to the public. When pressed as
to what exactly it was they were selling, it turned out to not be FAME biodiesel at all but
their own “secret recipe”; this subsequently turned out to be a mix of paint thinners, min-
eral diesel, and WVO. While the authors have no problem with you running your own
vehicle on whatever you like, these people were deliberately misleading well-meaning
members of the public into buying what they assumed was FAME biodiesel when it was,
at best, an experimental fuel and almost certainly not what the customer thought it was;
this may have done untold damage to thousands of innocent people’s engines, who knows.

For the last word on homebrew biodiesel, we’re big fans of Maria “Girl Mark” Alovert’s
homebrew book – the “Biodiesel Homebrew Guide.” Although self-published, this book is
a thorough guide to biodiesel production and is available online from www.localb100.com/
book.html.

91
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Chapter 7
Biodiesel reactors and processors

Once you have become familiar with making biodiesel in small batches and you have found
a good source of used oil, methanol, and catalyst you can think about scaling things up. This
is not to say you no longer need to make test batches; you should always run tests as you go
and double check before proceeding.
Biodiesel processors are as unique as the people who make them; even bought off-the-shelf
reactors soon become modified and personalized. Your design will depend on your budget,
what country you live in, what parts are available to you, what you find in the scrap yard,
how much space you have, how much oil you can get hold of, how much biodiesel you are
expecting to make, and how handy you are.
In the simplest terms, your processor and processing regimen will need to be designed to
achieve the following:
● Remove the larger bits from your used oil.
● Dewater the used oil.
● Heat the oil to around 50∞C (122∞F) and hold it there. Usually an electrical heating element
and insulation are needed.
● Fully dissolve the catalyst in the methanol, making methoxide, safely.
● Slowly and evenly add the methoxide to the heated used oil. Adding it too fast may cause
it to be not distributed throughout the oil and, in the worst case, form a separate layer on
top of the oil.
● Keep the methoxide evenly dispersed in the oil while the reaction is taking place.
● Mix and agitate the used oil while the reaction is taking place.
● Separate the glycerine and other by-products from the biodiesel after reaction has com-
pleted; use a settling tank, often the same tank as for the reaction.
● Remove the methanol from the biodiesel, usually water washing in a wash tank, but
sometimes by distillation.
● Removing the soap and catalyst from biodiesel: water washing in wash tank.
● Dry the biodiesel to remove its suspended water: usually done in the wash tank.
● Filter the biodiesel: down to 10 μm or better.

93
Chapter 7

Where to put the processor?

As you know, making biodiesel uses some dangerous chemicals, poisons, and flammable mate-
rials. Add to this heat and electricity, and you will see why you will probably want to choose to
put your reactor in a building not attached to your house, such as an outbuilding, shed, or barn.
The risk of fire is real with hot oil; in fact, chip pans are the number one cause of domestic
fires. In addition, “empty” tanks with methanol vapor in them are potentially explosive.
Methanol vapors are toxic. So long as you are careful, the chances of your reactor bursting
into flame is not likely, but the chances of burning your house down or poisoning your
family are still very real if you process biodiesel in your house. You will also probably be
making mistakes, maybe some funky smells, and possibly even a bit of a mess too.
The ideal space will need to be away from the house, reasonably sheltered from the elements;
it will need a mains electricity supply, a water supply, and lighting, and be well ventilated.

Electricity

Unless you are very creative, you will need electricity to heat the oil and to pump it about.
The size of your processor will determine how much amperage you need to allow for.

Electricity and fluids don’t make for an awesome party – unless your middle name is
“Danger.” You’re going to be sloshing fluids around, and the chances are, if your wiring is
not sealed, liquids are going to get in there. The first point is to make sure that all your
wiring is tip-top. Use junction boxes and switches with the correct “Ingress protection”
rating for dust and liquids. This will stop the chemicals you are using to make your
biodiesel from penetrating your wiring. Ensure that any work you do is checked over by
a competent person before you fire it up, and ensure that you check any local codes on
what electrical work you can legally carry out in your country/state/region.
A suitable earth-leak breaker MUST be installed to protect you from electrocution.

Electrical water heaters consume several thousand watts: In Europe this will be more than 10 A
at 230 V; in the USA this will be more like 20 A if you are using a 110 V supply. This is before
you have included the processor’s pump or the other electrical demands of your processing
shed such as lighting. You will need to ensure your shed’s electrical connection is up to the job.

Water

Water supply will usually come from your domestic connection, from your local water
supply company. This is fine, but do think about the cost, in both money and energy.

94
 Biodiesel reactors and processors

Water supply utility companies go to a great deal of effort and expense, in both money and
energy, cleaning dirty water to the point where it is consistently 100% safe to drink. Consider
using less of it when making biodiesel or maybe using collected rainwater.

Lighting

Unless you plan to make biodiesel in the summer months or the daytime only, chances
you will need lighting in your new biodiesel lab. Lots of lighting is good to help avoid accidents.
Refer to the above section on electrical work – ensure that your wiring is up to the job, and the
light fittings you are using are splash-proof, for when you have chemicals sloshing about.

Ventilation

Very good ventilation is absolutely essential; methanol is very toxic, very flammable, and
potentially explosive. Just having a window open is not good enough; you need active venti-
lation, fans to extract fumes away and out of your space. Remember, methanol vapor is
almost odorless, so you won’t smell it before it is too late, and it is heavy, so it will tend to
sink to the floor and collect in any hollows.

Bunding and spills

Managing and containing possible spills is always a good idea, and possibly essential in order
to meet local legislation, and yet is often overlooked. Bunding is a container large enough to
catch the largest possible spill. Take the biggest container you have and imagine if it leaked
overnight or, worse, fell over. What, if anything, would contain the spill? Where might it
end up? Polluting a watercourse or a storm drain with something as innocuous as vegetable
oil is a serious environmental matter which could result in a hefty bill or even you being
prosecuted.
Designs of spill basins vary greatly, from homemade buckets and drip trays under individ-
ual containers to purposely made interlocking floor tiles or low walls built around a concrete
floor to turn the whole workshop into one giant bund.

Reactor materials

The best material for building your reactor has got to be stainless steel; unfortunately, it is
very expensive, becomes “work hardened,” and requires a specialist to weld it.

95
Chapter 7

If you are going to use the acid/base method, stainless steel or plastics are just about your
only choices, as other materials will react and corrode rapidly when exposed to the acid.
Steel tanks and plumbing parts, “black iron” gas pipes, are plentiful, cheap, and relatively easy
to work with and can be welded by a semiskilled person.
Copper is also an option, although it can sometimes be expensive (the price of copper fluctu-
ates a lot). Copper plumbing parts and copper water tanks are very common, it can be soldered
and brazed by a semiskilled person, and is easy to work with. Some people worry that copper
and solder may interfere with your biodiesel reaction or reduce its shelf life; nevertheless, it is
a very common material because of its easy availability.
Plastic components are available; one can even buy ready-made HDPE (high-density poly-
ethylene) conical bottom tanks that seem ideal for making biodiesel processors because they
make good vessels for separating fluids cleanly; e.g., your glycerol from your biodiesel. Plastic
is also relatively inexpensive, easy to work with, and often semitransparent; however, it is
almost always best avoided for making biodiesel processors.

Plastic components are not very tolerant of heat; at best they become soft and at worst
they can melt entirely. They regularly suffer from annoying leaks (because you cannot get
the components as tight as you can with metal) and contribute an unnecessary additional
fire hazard. Plastic reactor tanks are common in some off-the-shelf reactors because they
are cheap; these are best avoided.

Sections of hose can be useful in your design, especially if it is transparent; however, ensure
the hose you use is sufficiently heat-proof and reinforced so that it will not go soft and
collapse on the vacuum side of your pump, or expand and split on the pressure side.
Secondhand hot water tanks have usually been discarded because there is something wrong
with them; they may be split or have damaged ports or simply be full of lime scale. However,
good ones do find their way into the recycler’s yards and can be picked up for their scrap
value. Other tanks can be found in the scrap yard; have a look and see what they have.
Occasionally, ideal stainless steel vessels can be bought for their scrap value; otherwise, new
tanks are ideal.

Simple processors

Possibly the simplest of home-built reactor consists of an old 205-liter (45 UK or 55 US

gallons) oil drum with some paddles driven by an electric motor. All the components are

96
 Biodiesel reactors and processors

cheap, or even free, and a conical bottom is sometimes welded onto the drum or its base,
simply beaten out a little to form a convex base.

It is not easy to make good-quality fuel in one of these. Plans for them are common in
older biodiesel books but the design is very crude and fundamentally dangerous for the
operator. It is easier to make a superior and safer reactor than to make one of these.

Large pulley
Small pulley
Mounting for
large pulley

Motor

Shaft

205 litre
oil drum

Heating element Right angle brackets

welded/bolted to
shaft agitate fluid

Drain valve

Wooden blocks
raise oil drum
to allow biodiesel
to be drained off

 Figure 7.1
An early simple design of reactor: not recommended.

Better designs

Better designs do not have an open top and use a powerful pump, rather than paddles, to
mix the reaction.

97
Chapter 7

Vent to outside

Premixed
methoxide

Tank part full of

reactants
Recirculation
control valve

Methoxide
Heating element control valve
Pump

Tank
control valve
Drain
control valve

 Figure 7.2
Basic design of a more sophisticated reactor.

The pump is multipurpose in this design; it is used to fill the reactor, to add the methoxide
to the reaction, and to mix the reaction. This is achieved using multiple values, which are
opened and closed to alter the route the oil takes. There is a heating element in the reaction
vessel and a vent in the top; the vent is essential to ensure there is no chance of the vessel
becoming pressurized or collapsing. It must terminate in a well-ventilated external space
away from the operator as singnificant quantities of methanol vapor will escape from it.

The US Appleseed biodiesel reactor

The Appleseed reactor is very popular in the USA because of its simplicity, cheapness, and
inbuilt safety. Developed by Maria Alovert (aka Girl Mark) from an array of predecessors, it is
designed around the flat top and bottomed type of domestic water heating tank common in the
USA and Canada; a typical 40-gallon water tank has space to make about 25 gallons of biodiesel.
The great thing about using a hot water tank, as opposed to other metal tanks or drums
is that all the inlets and outlet ports, the heating element, and the thermostat are
already there, as if designed for the job. The tools required to build it are only a screwdriver
and a pipe wrench and some PTFE tape. No welding or other specialist skills are required,
and you can buy just about all the pieces needed at any good plumbers or hardware store.

98
 Biodiesel reactors and processors

The methoxide mixing for this type of reactor is usually done using the carboy method,
described below.

Polypropylene “cam-lever couplings” or “quick connects” (Figure 7.5) are an inexpensive way
of making the process of swapping pipes about and connecting and disconnecting different
bits of your processor much easier and quicker. Swap the hose tails in the processor diagrams
for cam-leaver couplings, and put corresponding couplings on the ends of your hoses.

Using the illustrations you should be able to assemble a simple Appleseed, but there are
virtually limitless different versions and adaptations to be found on the Internet.
Heating the oil in an Appleseed is done with the water-heater’s built-in electrical heating
element. Typically, there are two elements and two thermostats on this type of water heater.
When used as a biodiesel processor, the top heater should be disconnected, as it may not be
submerged in the oil, and the bottom heater rewired so that both thermostats are used in
series, just in case one of them should fail.

3/ ”
4 Barb

3/ ” Ball valve
4

3/
4
” Nipple
3/
4
” Nipple
3/
4
” Ball valve
3/ ”
4 Equal tee 3/
4
” Barb

3/
4
” Nipple

1” × 3/4” Bush

3/ ” Long
4
pipe nipple 3/
4
” Cross fitting Centrifugal
3/ ” Ball valve pump
4 3/ ” Nipple
4 1” female
3/ ” Nipple 3/ ” Equal union
4 4 fittings
” 3/ ” Nipple
2 Swing check valve
1/ 4
(non-return valve) 3/ ” Ball valve
4
1/ ”
2
× 3/4” Bush
1/ ” Nipple 3/ ” Barb
2 4
1/ ”Barb
2
1/ ” Ball valve
2
1/ ” Barb
2

 Figure 7.3
Appleseed plumbing parts.

99
Chapter 7

 Figure 7.4
Appleseed processor. (Courtesy of b100
supply.com.)

Cam-lever couplings  Figure 7.5

Cam-lever couplings, or quick connects, speed up
and simplify the process considerably.

Male Female
connector connector

100
 Biodiesel reactors and processors

 Figure 7.6
Top of an Appleseed, note the pressure release and the condenser. (Courtesy of b100
supply.com.)

In early versions of the Appleseed, measuring the temperature of the contents of the reactor
was done using an electrical car’s engine temperature gauge; later versions use an analogue
rotary dial-type thermometer with a threaded end that screws into the plumbing fittings and
a probe that extends into the pipe work.
In early designs the tank was not vented, in order to stop valuable vaporized methanol
from escaping, and allowing it to become slightly pressurized. Primarily because of safety
concerns, it is now more common to have an open vent and to condense the vaporized
methanol before it escapes. Condensers can be as simple as a vertical section of metal pipe
a foot or two long, connecting the vent to the pipe leading to the outdoors, or more complex
coiled or water-cooled condensers. Vents always terminate outside of the space you are work-
ing, as some methanol vapor will escape, especially when filling from empty. In addition to
the open vent, it is also common to fit a pressure-relief valve, set to just a couple of bars, and
also terminating outside in case something should block the open vent.

Pumps

The electric pump for your reactor is going to need to be a fairly chunky one in order
to pump the heavy oil and ensure that enough mixing occurs. Beware of nonsparkproof
motors; these are a hazard when working with potentially flammable and explosive materi-
als like methanol (amazingly, some kits don’t supply sparkproof motors!).
Lists of suitable pumps can be found on the Internet; 1-inch “Clear Water” pumps are
popular, but your choice will depend on what country you live in, if you need a 110 V or
a 230 V pump, and how big your processor is.

101
Chapter 7

 Figure 7.7
Nonpriming electric pump. (Courtesy of
biodieselfilters.co.uk.)

 Figure 7.8
Self-priming electric pump. (Courtesy of
biodieselfilters.co.uk.)

Detailed information on how to build an Appleseed, its design variations, and a ton of
other very good biodiesel information can be found in Maria’s excellent self-published
book, The Biodiesel Homebrew Guide, available from www.localb100.com. While its con-
tent is aimed at a US audience, the vast majority of the information is very applicable to
anyone making biodiesel.

The best Appleseed tutorial on the web is on the Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial site:
www.biodieselcommunity.org/appleseedprocessor/
And the excellent Infopop forum has a lot of information on the Appleseed in its Biodiesel
Equipment section:
biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/frm/f/919605551
Or by searching Google for Appleseed.

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 Biodiesel reactors and processors

UK hot water tank

The British variation of the Appleseed design uses the domed-top domestic hot water tank,
very common in the UK, usually turned upside down so that the domed top becomes a
pseudoconical bottom, which is better for a clean separation when draining the glycerol
by-product layer from the biodiesel.
With this type of water heating tank, the electrical heating element is usually at the top of
the tank; however, it is always submerged as the tank should always be full of water. When
used as a biodiesel reactor, the tank is no longer used full. There is an air space at the top, but
because it has been inverted the heating element still is always submerged.
When used as a reactor vessel, this tank has many of the advantages of its American equivalent
but, unlike the US equivalent, the domed top tank, when inverted, does not come with an obvi-
ous port for use as a vent. It is essential that-one be included to stop the tank from becoming
overpressurized or from collapsing when cooling, and the vent terminated somewhere sensible.

 Figure 7.9
Example of a British-style tank
reactor. (Courtesy of Graham
Laming.)

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Chapter 7

Upside-down
 Figure 7.10
“British-style” British-style tank reactor.
Vent to outside domed copper
hot water cylinder

Premixed
methoxide

Recirculation
control valve

Immersion Methodized
heater control valve Pump

Tank
control valve
Drain
control valve

To add a vent, obtain a 15 mm copper tank connector and drill a hole in the center of the flat
end of the tank. Of course, the end of the tank is not actually flat; like the flat top and bottom
tank, it is actually “wine bottle bottom” shaped. Then, remove the electrical heater and, using
a broomstick and Blutak if necessary, put the tank connector through the hole and do up the
nut from the outside. For a very good seal, you could also braze it in place with a little solder.
Using either hose or some copper pipe, run this vent to somewhere sensible outside.

Graham Laming’s Eco-System

Graham Laming in the UK has developed the domed-top domestic hot water tank idea more
than anyone and has come up with numerous enhancements, some bordering on genius,
which could equally be adapted to work with any type of tank.
His “Eco-System” can dewater the WVO, process it into biodiesel, and recover the leftover
methanol from the biodiesel. It also avoids water washing altogether. The design incorporates a
venturi, which is used both to suck the methoxide into the reactor and to circulate all the vapor-
ized methanol and water through a condenser for the dewatering and methanol recovery stages.
Graham’s website has detailed information, helpful advice, and a load of other great ideas
and the Infopop Forum has a detailed discussion of Graham’s designs.

104
 Biodiesel reactors and processors

Vent

Vapor

Warm Venturi
water
out

Condenser
Biodiesel out
to filters
& settling
tanks
Heater
Cold
water
in

Methoxide
or water
Oil
in

Distillate Glycerol

 Figure 7.11
Diagram of Graham’s “Eco-System” processor.

Graham Laming’s website has detailed information and instructions on his processor and a
lot more too; very highly recommended: www.graham-laming.com
The Infopop Forum also has a lot of information and discussion on Graham’s Eco-System
processor in its Making Biodiesel section: biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/719605551/
m/9921000191

How Graham’s design works

Detailed instruction on how to build and run Graham’s design is available on his website,
graham-laming.com. A simplified description follows to aid understanding of his reactor design.
Initially, the tank is filled with prefiltered oil using the pump.

105
Chapter 7

The oil is then circulated around the tank with the heater on to dry the oil. The venturi sucks
in air, which first draws wet air through the condenser and dries the air before returning it
back to the tank via the venturi, where it comes into contact with the wet oil and takes some
of the moisture from it. This circulation carries on until the oil is hot and dry.
Next, the oil is allowed to cool, a sample is taken, and a titration is done to determine how
much catalyst is required. The methoxide is mixed using the carboy method and the carboy
attached to the reactor. With the pump running but the heater switched off, the valve is
opened slowly so that the venturi can suck the methoxide from the carboy slowly.
As the tank fills up with methoxide, vapor and air will escape, displaced by the methoxide. Any
methanol fumes will be caught in the distillate tank rather than escaping into the environment,
so you can use us it another time.
Once all the methoxide is added, at least 20 minutes, the reaction is underway and the pump
is left running, keeping it all well mixed. The venturi continues to circulate the vapor and catch
any methanol, which should be very little. The reaction is allowed to run for up to 2 hours.
After the reaction has finished, the pump is switched off. The methoxide container is filled
with water with about 1/20th of the oil you started with. Switch back on the pump and use
the venturi to suck up the water. It is not important this time for it to be gradually intro-
duced. Circulate it for about 15 minutes.
Turn everything off and allow the glycerine and by-products to settle out. Leave for about
90 minutes but not much longer or your glycerine may begin to turn solid in the pipes. Open
the bottom valve and drain the glycerine.
Now turn your heater back on and run the pump. The biodiesel in your reactor is heated and
circulated and any methanol and water it contains is evaporated and caught in the distillate trap.
The biodiesel is transferred to a settling tank, where, because we have removed the excess
methanol from the biodiesel and dried it, the soap and any remaining glycerol will readily
drop out.
Test the fuel before use, but it should be well converted, dry, and free from soap.

How to make a vapor condenser

Vapor condensers are easy to make. Water or methanol vapor enters the top of the condenser
and travels slowly down the inner pipe while cold water flows upwards in a jacket around the
inner pipe. As the vapor travels down, it comes into contact with the cold wall of the pipe,
where it condenses into a liquid and runs out of the bottom.
This is a simple design. Many slight design improvements are available on the Internet to
encourage a turbulent flow in the inner pipe and the outer pipe, increasing contact and,
therefore, more efficient heat transfer; see Graham Laming’s website or, indeed, moonshining
websites.

106
 Biodiesel reactors and processors

 Figure 7.12
Vapor condenser.
Warm
methanol
vapor

Warmed
water

Cool
water

Condensed
liquid
methanol

You will need:

● A length of 15 mm and 22 mm copper pipe
● Two 15-15-22 copper T’s
● Pipe cutter
● A blow lamp
● Some plumber’s solder
● A little plumber’s flux
Cut the 22 mm length shorter than the 15 mm length and solder the pieces together, as
shown in Figure 7.13.

How to make a venturi

A simple venturi can be made from some copper plumbing parts soldered together. More
complex designs can be found on the Internet, especially on Graham Laming’s website and
the Infopop Forum.

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22/15/12 mm tee  Figure 7.13

Homemade venturi.
22/15 reducer

22 mm pipe 22 mm pipe

You will need:

● Some 15 mm and some 22 mm copper pipes
● One 22-15-22 T connector
● One 22-15 reducer
● A pipe cutter
● A blow lamp
● Some plumber’s solder
● A little plumber’s flux
Solder the pieces together as shown in Figure 7.13; you may need to make some alterations
to the 22-15 reducer to get it all to fit together. With water flowing from left to right, you
should get suction on the top 15 mm pipe.

Methoxide mixers

Dissolving your catalyst into your methanol needs to be done with care. As you should know
by now, methanol is poisonous, almost odorless, and flammable, and the catalyst is caustic –
it will burn your skin and is especially nasty if you get it in your eye. Nevertheless, you will
need to measure significant quantities of both and devise a method of mixing them together
while not endangering yourself or anyone around you. In addition to the hazards presented
by these chemicals, the reaction between them is exothermic (it produces heat) and the cat-
alyst can be reluctant to dissolve. You must never add undissolved catalyst to your reaction.

Carboy method

The carboy method of adding methoxide to the reaction is very common because of its
simplicity. It uses any plastic carboy; 5 gallons Fort-Pak HDPE carboys sold by USA Plastics
are commonly used.

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 Biodiesel reactors and processors

It is usual to follow this procedure while your oil is heating inside the reactor.
● In a very well-ventilated area, preferably outside, you measure the methanol you need for
your reaction into an HDPE “carboy” and put its lid back on.
● Then, still following all the usual safety procedures, weigh out the catalyst you will need,
remembering to close the catalyst’s container as soon as possible to minimize its exposure
to the air.
● Back in the very well-ventilated area, take the carboy’s lid off and, using a wide-mouthed
funnel, add the catalyst to the methanol and put the lid back on.
● Label the carboy, so you know what it is it later.
● Check that the lid has sealed and gently rock the carboy for a few moments and then leave
it alone for a while.
● Notice how the methanol gets warm by putting your hand on the outside of the carboy.
● Every 10–20 minutes, return to the carboy and give it another gentle mix. You are trying
not to dissolve the catalyst too fast, which will cause the methanol to get very hot, while
ensuring it does all dissolve eventually. Do it slowly and carefully the first time, maybe
speeding up a little the next time round.
● Once all the catalyst has dissolved, and once the oil in the reactor is ready, you can add it
to your reaction. This is usually done by making a special lid for the carboy, with a valve
and a length of pipe to connect it to the reactor’s plumbing. By adjusting the valves slowly,
the reactor’s pump can be made to suck in the methoxide while circulating the oil.
To make a carboy methoxide mixer you will need to take its cap and make a hole in it so a
tank connector or similar can be attached through it so that a ball valve and a hose barb (or
even better than a hose barb, a cam-leaver coupling) can be attached; see Figure 7.14.
The cap is removed only to put the methanol and the catalyst in the carboy. Be careful to
avoid breathing in any fumes, especially if the carboy has been used before. Put the lid on as
soon as possible and ensure the valve is closed and the lid does not leak before gently agitat-
ing the mixture to dissolve the catalyst.
Other methods of mixing the catalyst into methanol safely are as numerous as there are
people to dream them up. Generally speaking, you are trying to ensure you have dissolved
one in the other with the minimal risk to the operator; you are looking to be able to mix
them in a sealed container by some means that won’t cause a spark (so no electric motors)
and that enables you check that it has all dissolved without opening the container.

Vents and methanol recovery

Having a vented reactor is very important. When filling the reactor, methanol fumes and
air will need to escape; when emptying the reactor, air will need to enter it to replace the
fuel that is leaving it. If the reactor was not vented then, while heating the oil, pressure
could build up and when it was allowed to cool the opposite would happen and it would
collapse.

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Chapter 7

Hose barb
 Figure 7.14
Diagram of a carboy methoxide mixer.
Ball valve

Short length of pipe

Carboy

In addition, empty tanks will contain a mixture of methanol vapor and air; if the heating ele-
ment was accidentally switched on at this time, pressure could build up, possibly resulting in
an explosion.
This said, many people open and close their vent at different points in the reaction process
to stop valuable methanol escaping, while others don’t like this as it is too easy to acciden-
tally leave it closed.
Your vent must always lead to somewhere where the methanol vapor can safely escape, typ-
ically via a hose to the outside. Remember, methanol is heavier than air and will sit on the
floor and collect in hollows.

Recovering leftover methanol

In the biodiesel reaction, methanol tends to be added at about 20–25% by volume. Only
about half of this is used up in the reaction, the other half is used to drive the reaction in the

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 Biodiesel reactors and processors

Soft
copper
Wire pipe
wool

Wide
pipe

Glycerol
by-product
Bucket of
cold water

Heating
element

 Figure 7.15
Simple methanol recovery still.

right direction, from triglyceride to FAME, and to keep conversion rates high. What we glibly
refer to as glycerine or the glycerine by-product will only be about 40% glycerine; roughly
25% of it is methanol, along with some catalyst and soap and other impurities.
The methanol in the glycerine by-product is recoverable in a still, and this may be worth
doing as methanol is likely to be the largest cost in your fuel’s production.
See Chapter 12 on what to do with your glycerine by-product.
Figure 7.15 is a diagram of a simple still; another one is described earlier in the chapter for
recovering methanol from the vapor escaping from your reaction; more complex still designs
can be found on the Internet, primarily on moonshine how-to websites! However, while the
apparatus is the same, methanol is one type of alcohol you do not want to be drinking!
Methanol boils at around 60∞C (140∞F). You will need to try to hold your still’s temperature
around 55∞C to (131∞F) to avoid also boiling off water or other impurities and reducing the
purity of your recovered methanol.
You can use a hydrometer to assess the purity of the methanol you produce.

Settlement tanks and wash tanks

Unless you are using new oil, you will want to do some prereaction processing to remove the
larger particles of food from your used oil in a settlement tank and dewater your oil before
it is made into biodiesel.

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After the reaction has completed, you will need to separate the biodiesel from the glycerol
by-product (this is more commonly done in the reaction vessel, but not always) and further
process it by washing and drying it before it is filtered, stored, and ultimately burned in your
engine.
Details on these processes can be found in Chapters 6 and 8 of this book.
There are many designs for settlement tanks and wash tanks from the off-the-shelf conical
bottomed plastic ones, to making your own metal conical bottom tank, to the supersimple
“standpipe” design.

How to make a standpipe tank

Standpipe tanks are simple to make, very common, and very effective as settlement tanks and
wash tanks. They can also be used to make dewatering tanks, drying tanks, and even storage
tanks.

Bottom of oil drum

removed
Upside – down
US55/UK45 gallon drum

Lighter liquids
drain through the
Denser liquids higher standpipe
drain through the
lower standpipe

Raised pipes
prevent
sediment Former top
entering pipe of drum
Biodiesel exits
Water here
exits
here
Ball
valves

 Figure 7.16
Diagram of standpipe tank.

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 Biodiesel reactors and processors

They are usually made from old 205 liter (45 UK or 55 US gallons) oil drums, the type with
two threaded ports in the top, not the ones with a removable top.
The drum is inverted and its bottom, now its top, since it is inverted, is cut out: a jigsaw is
ideal for this. Don’t forget to debur the edge with a file. It is not a good idea to leave the tanks
uncovered, however, as dirt or small mammals can easily fall in.
The two ports in the top, now the bottom since the tank is used upside down, are fitted with
off-the-shelf plumbing parts in such a way that one drains directly from the bottom of the
tank while the other drains from near the bottom. By selecting which you drain the tank
through, you can separate water from biodiesel or glycerol from biodiesel or whatever.
Once you have cut out the top, what used to be the bottom of the drum, you will need to
assemble the following using lots of pipe tape as you go:

● One 3/4-inch BSP to 2-inch BSP bush: Put this into the 2-inch hole; you now have
two 3/4-inch holes.
● Two 3/4-inch BSP nipples, about 2-inches long: Screw these into your two 3/4-inch holes.
● Two 3/4-inch BSP 45∞ elbows: Screw these to the nipples.
● Two 3/4-inch BSP pipes long enough to protrude from under the drum: Screw these into
your 45∞ elbows.
● Two 3/4-inch valves: Screw these into your protruding pieces of pipe.
● Two 3/4-inch hose barb adaptors: Screw these into the valves.
● Enough hose to get from your standpipe tank to wherever you want to drain the fluids to.
You probably want to use clear hose so you can see what is coming out.
● One piece of 3/4-inch pipe, about one-quarter of the height of your tank: See note below;
screw this into the inside of the 3/4-inch BSP to 2-inch BSP bush.
● A suitable stand that is strong enough to support several hundred kilos, while not putting
pressure on the plumbing, and high enough off the ground to be useful.
Note: The length of the standpipe depends on a few things but will typically be about one-
quarter the height of the tank. Obviously, in order to draw the less-dense liquid from the top
without also drawing the bottom liquid, the standpipe will need to pass all the way through
the bottom liquid and into the liquid above; you may need to adjust the length of the pipe
accordingly.
The parts for the standpipe tank can be bought from most hardware stores or plumbers’
merchants, or bought as a kit from many biodieselers’ suppliers.

Standpipe settlement tank

The standard standpipe tank makes an ideal settlement tank. Pour in your feedstock
and leave it to stand for as long as you can. The bigger particles will sink to the bottom and
the cleaner oil will sit above it. Cleaner oil can be drawn off using the standpipe valve while
dirtier oil can be drained off later using the other valve.

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Standpipe dewatering tank

If you are using the standpipe design as a dewatering tank you will need to add insulation and
a heater to the above design. The length of the standpipe will depend on how much wet oil you
are processing. Wetter oil will typically be about 15% of your oil. The procedure for dewater-
ing WVO is described in detail in Chapter 9. After leaving the oil to stand, the dryer oil can be
drawn off using the standpipe valve and afterwards the wetter oil drained using the other valve.

Standpipe wash tank

The standpipe tank makes an excellent wash tank. Fill your standpipe tank with your biodiesel
and then add enough water to nearly come over the standpipe. Pump the water from the
nonstandpipe valve and, using a mister or similar, spray it back over the top of the biodiesel.
Detailed instruction on mist washing can be found in Chapter 6. Afterwards, you can either
drain the water and replace it with more water for further washing, or drain the biodiesel
instead using the standpipe valve, leaving the last wash’s water still in the tank ready to be used
with your next biodiesel batch. As it was the water from the last batch’s last wash, it should not
be heavily contaminated and so completely usable for your next batch’s first wash.

Standpipe drying tanks as storage tanks

It is not necessary to use a standpipe tank as a drying tank or short-term storage tank, but
they do make adequate ones.
To dry your biodiesel in a standpipe tank, either simply leave your fuel to stand somewhere
well ventilated and the water will “dry” from it, or actively speed up the process by pumping
the fuel out of the bottom and into the top while actively ventilating with a fan.
Standpipe tanks can also be used to store your biodiesel for a short while, but they are not
suitable for long-term storage. Just make sure it is well covered and that your fuel is filtered
to 10μm or better before use in case it picked up dirt while it was in the tank.
The Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial site has information on Standpipe design:
www.biodieselcommunity.org/standpipewashtank/

Plans, kits, and readymade reactors

Of course you don’t have to design, source, and build your own processor. There are hundreds
of companies who will sell you anything from a set of plans to a fully assembled automated
reactor. Below are just a few of the reactors available to buy, either as plans or kits or fully
built machines, in the USA, UK, and across the world. As you would expect, not all are
created equal. The ones featured are examples, not necessarily endorsed or recommended.

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 Biodiesel reactors and processors

Off-the-shelf plans and kits

Some processor plans for sale are well-developed, well-thought through designs
based on real reactors with a well-researched and sourced parts list; others are simply
copied plans from the Internet that you could get for free from 5 minutes independent
research.

Off-the-shelf Appleseeds
Appleseed reactors can be purchased as a kit for not much more than the cost of the parts
and saving you the bother of sourcing them.
The Appleseed Biodiesel Processor Kit from B100 Supply: www.b100supply.com

Twyn Tub

 Figure 7.17
The Welsh company Goat Industries has its “Twyn Tub” 100 and 150 biodiesel processors
available as either plans, a kit, or an entirely built machine. (Courtesy of Patrick Whetman,
Goat Industries, www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/twyntub100.html.)

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Chapter 7

Dynadroit biodiesel
 Figure 7.18
Dynadroit steel biodiesel processors. (Courtesy of
Dynadroit Biodiesel: www.dynadroitbiodiesel.
com/biodiesel.html.)

Murphys machines

 Figure 7.19
All steel modular biodiesel processor from
Murphys Machines. (Courtesy of Murphys
Machines: www.murphysmachines.com.)

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 Biodiesel reactors and processors

Fully automated reactors

AGR Energy manufacture very high-quality reactors for the USA market that you simply fill
with raw ingredients and walk away while it makes biodiesel for you. Designed for minimal
operator interaction, they have a range of fully automated stainless steel reactors; it does it
all for you from used oil through dewatering, reacting, separating, washing, and drying, to
high-quality biodiesel; from start to finish, about 60 hours with minimal supervision. They
even offer a big discount when you trade in your old plastic reactor!

 Figure 7.20
AGR Energy’s BioPro 150. (Courtesy
of SpringBoard Biodiesel: www.
agrenergy.com.)

There are a number of cheap plastic reactors available, especially in the USA, marketed at
the novice biodieseler. Their price is very tempting but they have a terrible reputation in
the biodiesel community. Their instructions are often poor quality; they have a tendency
to produce low-quality incompletely reacted biodiesel; and they expose the operator to a
number of very significant dangers.
The choice of plastic components in their design appears to be motivated by price and profit.

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They use a similar principle of mixing the reaction with a pump, similar to other designs,
but they don’t include a heater as, obviously, heaters and plastic vessels don’t go together.
Instead you either have to process the oil cold or heat it away from the processor and then
transfer the hot oil into the reactor for processing, where it will cool quite rapidly.
When oil is added to some of these reactors above about 40∞C they have a tendency to leak.
It is possible to get a good conversion ratio at lower temperatures then 50∞C (the rule of
thumb is to increase the mixing/reaction time by 1 hour for every 10∞ below 50∞). But this
will increase your reaction time quite significantly.
Methanol and catalyst mixing in these reactors is also very crude and often results in the
catalyst dissolving incompletely. This means the operator has to open the methoxide tank,
exposing himself to and releasing the methanol fumes, and mix it by hand.
An alarming number of plastic reactors have caught fire, thus spilling burning fuel. While
usually because of operator error, this would have been avoided if the reaction vessel had
not been plastic.
While some plastic reactors are indeed not as bad as others, they all suffer from the same pri-
mary design flaw: They are built around a plastic tank. For less than the price of one of these
plastic reactors, you can buy a complete Appleseed kit, which is superior in every respect.

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Chapter 8
Engine modification – running
on SVO

So, you’ve read Chapter 6 on making biodiesel, and it all seems like a bit too much trouble – you’d
much rather just put the vegetable oil in your car and drive off? Read on! In this chapter,
we’re going to discuss converting your car to run on straight vegetable oil fuels that have not
gone through the process of any chemical wizardy. Oil in, drive off … simple!
As we have discussed previously, the principal issue with getting the diesel engine to run on
vegetable oil is viscosity.
In Chapter 6, we used transesterification to chemically modify the vegetable oil and make it
more like mineral diesel: we were modifying the fuel to make it more compatible with the
engine.
In this chapter we are talking about running diesel engines on straight vegetable oil, SVO
(or pure plant oil, PPO, or whatever you want to call it); unmodified, unblended, and unused
vegetable oil. In order to do this we will modify the engine to make it more compatible with
the fuel.
Some people take this one stage further and run their modified engines on waste vegetable
oil, WVO (often referred to as used cooking oil, UCO, or used vegetable oil, UVO). The
information in this chapter applies to this too; additional information on running on WVO
can be found in the other chapters.
Modern diesel engines are designed to run on mineral diesel; some are very intolerant of
other fuels. Some older diesel engines, most notably some 1980s Mercedes and older IDI
engines, are remarkably tolerant of a wider range of fuel types and viscosities and have been
known to run unmodified, supposedly without any problems, on other diesellike fuels,
including vegetable oil; however, for the vast majority of us, we need to either modify the fuel
or the engine.
There are also many people who claim to run their unconverted engines on all manner of
things. In the same way that we all know smoking cigarettes causes cancer and yet know of
a guy who smoked 40 a day and lived until he was 100 years old, running your unconverted
car on vegetable oil will damage it, even if some people appear to get away with it.

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Just about all diesel engines can be converted to run on vegetable oil. All types of injection
systems can be modified; it is just a case of choosing the best system for your engine. There
are far too many different engines and engine types for there to be a complete answer for
everyone here; you will need to do further research for your engine.

The basics

In this approach to running your diesel engine on biofuel, rather than modifying the fuel to
make it more compatible with the engine, as in biodiesel, the engine and fuel system are
modified to make them more compatible with the fuel.
Depending on the type of oil and the ambient temperature, vegetable oils are between 11 and
17 times more viscous than mineral diesel. If we heat the oil, it becomes runnier and there-
fore more diesellike. Try putting a little cold oil in a pan and gently heating it while rocking
the pan from side to side and you will get a feel for how the temperature of the oil affects its
viscosity.
If the oil is not sufficiently diesellike, it will greatly increase the strain on the engine’s fuel
system and when it is sprayed into the combustion chamber it may not atomize properly,
resulting in incomplete combustion, coking, poor performance, higher emissions, and ulti-
mately engine failure. At around 70∞C (160∞F) the viscosity of SVO becomes comparable to
mineral diesel and almost any diesel engine ought to run very happily on it.

100% straight
vegetable oil
Viscosity

Diesel

Temperature

 Figure 8.1
Graph illustrating the relationship between temperature and viscosity for mineral oil
diesel and SVO.

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

Besides viscosity, vegetable oils obviously have other different properties to mineral diesel.
They are chemically different and have different combustion characteristics in that vegetable
oils have a higher flash point and they ignite less readily and have a lower cetane number.

Heating the fuel

Internal combustion engines are inefficient things and the diesel engine is no exception. On
average even a very efficient engine will only achieve about 20% efficiency: i.e., 20% of the
fuel’s energy goes to the wheels to drive you forward and 80% is lost, primarily as heat. We
put some of this heat to useful work when the weather is cold to heat the vehicle’s cabin, but
most of it is just dumped into the engine’s cooling system.
Heat exchangers work by taking a little of this waste heat and using it to heat the fuel.
Purpose-built units designed for keeping mineral diesel flowing in cold climates can also be
used very effectively for getting SVO up to a temperature where its viscosity is similar to the
mineral diesel.

Coolant out

Engine Radiator

Coolant in

Cut cabin heater’s

hose & add two
tee pieces
Cold fuel in

Cabin
Hot fuel out heater
Heat
exchanger

Heat is exchanged
between coolant
system & fuel

 Figure 8.2
How a heat exchanger fits into existing cooling circuit.

121
  Figure 8.3
Heat exchanger from an
ATG kit. The ATG kit also
comes with a supplemen-
tary electrical heater to
ensure the oil is up to
temperature.

 Figure 8.4
Heat exchanger from an
Elsbett kit.

 Figure 8.5
Heat tee pieces and hose
clamps. These are used to
“tee into” the cabin heater’s
hoses. Ensure you buy the
correct size for your engine’s
hoses.

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

How to make a heat exchanger

Heat exchangers can be bought from SVO conversion suppliers and engineering suppliers
but you may want to have a go at making your own. It’s not a particularly difficult task if
you’ve got a smattering of knowledge regarding working with metal, or have ever done a bit
of household plumbing before.

 Figure 8.6
Homemade heat exchanger
from copper pipe.

You will need:

● A length of soft copper pipe, diameter to match your vehicle’s fuel pipe diameter, typically
8 mm
● A short length of wide copper pipe, 22 mm or larger
● Copper plumbing fittings to enable you to fit the wide copper pipe to your cabin heater
circuit
● Some fine sand
● Plumber’s solder
● Plumbing flux
● Wire wool
● Blow lamp

This simple design is made from some soft copper pipe wrapped around a larger piece of
copper pipe; the wide copper pipe is plumbed into the hoses leading to your vehicle’s cabin
heater while the narrower pipe goes into your SVO fuel line.
All copper parts must be thoroughly cleaned with wire wool before you start. First, fill a
length of the narrow soft copper pipe with sand; then, wrap it around the wider pipe. The
sand inside it will stop its walls collapsing or getting kinked. Take care to make a neat job of
it, with each turn sitting tightly up against the last and tightly around the wide copper pipe.
Once it is tightly curled around, pour out the sand and solder the two pieces together using
the flux, solder, and blow lamp.

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If you have never soldered copper before, we recommend getting someone to teach you and
have a few practice goes on bits of copper pipe before attempting to make the heat exchanger.
You can also make a hose-in-a-hose heat exchanger where the fuel pipe is run for a short
while inside a hose with hot water from the engine in it.

Tee piece

To fuel
filter At least
one meter
To engine
coolant
circuit
Tee piece

Cutaway
view

Pipe runs
within pipe

To fuel tank

 Figure 8.7
Hose-in-a-hose heat exchanger.

The antifreeze which is added to the coolant water in your engine is both poisonous and
sweet tasting. Don’t let it spill in the ground or collect in open containers, as dogs and
cats may well take it upon themselves to drink it, and it won’t do them any good at all.

Filters

Most vehicles have at least two separate stages of filtration: There is a screen in the
fuel tank to trap large pieces and stop them blocking the fuel lines, and then another
element, usually paper, to stop small particles entering the engine. They are rated, in
microns (μm), by the size of particle they stop; 1 micron is one-millionth of a meter,

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

1×10−6 m (1 μm). The final filtration on most engines is about 10 microns (μm), but some
go better.
It is also common for a water trap to be incorporated into the final filter, with a drain plug
at the bottom, and for the return lines from the engine to the tank to also pass through the
filter, which can be somewhat confusing.

 Figure 8.8
Filter and its bracket from
an Elsbett kit.

 Figure 8.9
Prefilter and main filter
from an ATG kit.

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Racor filters

Racor have been making filters, water separators, and fuel heaters for over 35 years. They
have established themselves with a reputation for making the best filters available and their
prices match. They make filters down to 2 microns, heated filter housings, and fuel heaters
for trucks and boats that are also very suitable for SVO use.

Cold weather
When SVO gets cold, it will freeze into a gel-like form that your engine’s pump won’t be able
to move; at what temperature that this happens is dependent on the oil. Adding 10% diesel
to your SVO is a very effective way of dealing with this problem: Just make sure you do it
before the cold weather arrives!

Keep a sample of your SVO in a small clear plastic bottle in your car, maybe in the driver’s
door pocket. That way you can assess how frozen the SVO in your tank probably is.

You will find that there is a narrow range of temperatures where your SVO (and biodiesel)
will begin to form little frozen crystals but will not completely freeze into a gel; while your
engine’s pump can probably still move it about, your fuel filter will become blocked by what
is otherwise perfectly good fuel.
Whereas the adding of 10% winter diesel trick still applies to this problem, there are
heat exchanger fuel-filter combinations available, both after market and fitted as standard
on some vehicles, which also solves this problem. There are electrical heater jackets
available especially designed to fit around the fuel filter and you could always make your own
(see below).

None of these should be used as the primary means of getting your SVO up to tempera-
ture. A proper heat exchanger should always be used, but all can be helpful in ensuring
frozen bits of fuel don’t block the filter.

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

 Figure 8.10
Electrical filter heater
jacket to fit around the
filter, supplied with an
Elsbett kit.

 Figure 8.11
Diagram of after-market
heated fuel filter.
Heat exchanger

Fuel filter

Homemade heated filter

A very similar method to the homemade heat exchanger can be used to make a heater for the
cartridge-type fuel filter. This time, using 12 mm soft copper pipe, fill it with sand and curl
it around an old filter cartridge the same diameter as the filter on your vehicle, again having
cleaned it before you started with wire wool and taking a great deal of care to make a neat

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job of it, with each turn sitting tightly up against the last and tightly around the filter. Slide
the spiral off the filter and, being very sparing with the solder, solder it into one piece by
attaching the turns together. This can be plumed into the cabin heater circuit along with the
main heat exchanger to warm the fuel as it passes through the filter.

Fuel in Fuel out

 Figure 8.12
Diagram of homemade
heated fuel filter.
Fuel filter mounting

Engine coolant in

Fuel filter

Engine coolant out

Heated fuel tanks

Some people, especially those in colder climates, build heated fuel lines all the way back to
the fuel tank and install a heater in the tank too. Some have experienced problems where
these systems have leaked coolant water into fuel tanks, but, if done carefully this, should not
happen.

Fuel filter
 Figure 8.13
Fuel tank Heated fuel all the way to the
heated tank.
Fuel return

Insulated sleeve

Coil in tank heats fuel

Connects to engine
Fuel feed
coolant circuit

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

Lift pumps

Lift pumps (also called supply pumps or feed pumps) are fitted between the fuel tank and
the injector pump on many engines; their purpose is to ensure a good supply of fuel to the
injector pump. Most are driven directly by the engine itself, but more recently vehicles come
fitted with electrical ones and many SVO kits come with an additional electric one.
Additional lift pumps can be added to SVO systems if required. Some kits are supplied with
them to help the vehicle’s existing lift pump with the extra strain of moving the more viscous
vegetable oil.

Injection systems

Indirect-injection engines (IDI) seem to be the most tolerant of SVO conversions.

Direct-injection engines (DI) are less tolerant but generally convertible. Modern engines
with common-rail injection systems should be converted to SVO with the utmost caution,
maybe only with a high-quality kit. However, biodiesel is a better option.
For more information on injection systems, see Chapter 3.

Injection pumps

Inline injection pumps such as most Bosch models are most suitable for SVO. Other suitable
manufactures include Diesel-Kiki, Nippon Denso, and Zexel.
There is considerable evidence to suggest that unsuitable engines include those with rotary
injector pumps, including many otherwise convertible engines. Injection pumps made by
CAV, Lucas, Stanadyne, RotoDiesel, or Delphi are particularly unreliable when used with
SVO. While there are numerous examples of exceptions to this, rotary injection pumps
should be avoided.

Engine oil

Under normal operating conditions a little diesel fuel can get into your engine’s sump, and
therefore the engine’s lubrication oil. Older engines tend to suffer from this more than newer
ones, but it does not matter as diesel fuel is volatile and so vaporizes in the hot engine and is
burned off. When running on SVO the same thing happens, the fuel gets into the sump oil,
but SVO is not as volatile as diesel and so tends to remains in the sump and this can cause
problems. Keep an eye on your engine’s oil level, especially when new to SVO, and watch for
unusual changes in its level, especially if it starts to increase! A lot of SVO users simply
change their engine’s oil more regularly, some as often as every 5,000 miles.

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Common rail

Today’s modern DI engines are very highly sophisticated machines. The pressures on
manufacturers to produce cleaner and more efficient vehicles have resulted in very clever
computer-controlled systems that use fuel pressures in excess of 1500 bar, far higher than in
more conventional engines. They inject precise quantities of fuel in droplets far smaller than
older engines, even controlling individual burns with multiple injections. Fuel viscosity
and combustion characteristics need to be well known for this type of technology to work
properly, and using SVO in it may be too risky. Owners of common rail engines are better
off looking only at the highest-quality kits designed specifically for your engine, or maybe
consider going the biodiesel route instead.

One tank or two?

There are two main approaches to running on SVO: the two-tank and the one-tank conversion.
In a one-tank system, the engine is converted to run directly on vegetable oil; in the two-tank
system, the engine is started on mineral diesel (or indeed biodiesel) and only runs on SVO
when the engine is hot. There is no “one solution fits all” approach; rather, each engine’s
conversion ought to be approached individually.
Common to both methods is the idea of heating the oil to reduce its viscosity, so a heater is
added in the fuel system (often two or more) that can be either electric or take waste heat
from the engine’s cooling system.

Most engines come with at least a 10-micron filter, many as small as 1 micron. The tiny
frozen particles in cold fuel can block your filter. One solution to this problem is swap-
ping the original filter for one that allows the cloudy fuel through; some kits come
supplied like this. This will certainly cure the problem, but will also allow particles of dirt
through, which are sufficiently large to damage your engine. Fit a heater to your filter or
use an antifreezing additive instead.

Both DI and IDI engines can be converted using the twin-tank method. Some engines may
also be suitable for a single-tank conversion.

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

Two-tank systems

The usual approach to running on SVO is the two-tank or twin-tank system. This is where a
second fuel tank is fitted to the vehicle along with a way of switching between the two. The
engine is started on mineral diesel, or indeed biodiesel, and allowed to run for a while on this
until it has heated up sufficiently for the heat in the engine’s cooling system to be used to
heat the vegetable oil.
At this point, either automatically or manually, the engine is switched over to the second
fuel tank, which contains the vegetable oil. The heat of the engine is used to keep the
fuel flowing and arriving at the engine sufficiently diesel-like and runny. When the driver
begins to approach his destination, he switches from the vegetable oil tank back to
the diesel tank and the engine is run for a while on the diesel so that, when it is switched
off, and subsequently restarted from the cold, the engine is full of diesel and not cold
vegetable oil.
It is a good idea to incorporate an alarm or buzzer that sounds when you switch the engine
off to tell you if you have forgotten to switch back from SVO to diesel.
In some systems the vegetable oil is heated in the tank and in the fuel lines all the way to the
engine. In other systems the fuel is heated only immediately prior to entering the injection
pump. Some systems rely entirely on the engine’s cooling fluid to be hot enough, whereas
others use additional electrical heaters controlled by the temperature of the fuel.

Return
 Figure 8.14
Normal diesel fuel injection
Petrodiesel system.
tank High pressure
Return

Flow Flow
Filter Fuel
injection Fuel injectors
pump

In the standard diesel fuel system, fuel is pumped from the fuel tank to the injector
pump, where it is delivered to the injectors. The injector pump supplies a little more fuel
than is required by the injectors, so small amounts of fuel are left over and fed back to
the tank.

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Chapter 8


Figure 8.15
How to read these diagrams.

On pages 135 and 136 we look at the mechanical operation of a solenoid valve; however,
engineering convention dictates that we write symbols out in a shorter, annotated form,
to make things quicker.
In this book, we’ve tried to use the standard symbols for solenoid valve gear, as they provide
a bit more information than just a “black box” drawing of the valve. However, if you’re unfa-
miliar with these symbols, or have never encountered them before, here is a quick guide, so
you know what to expect. Solenoid valve symbols consist of two or more adjacent “blocks.”
The “block” indicates the position that a valve can be in – i.e., “activated” and “deactivated”
– you may encounter a symbol with “three” blocks; in this case, the middle block usually
indicates the position that the valve “passes through” while switching from one mode to the
other.
You will notice inside the block that there is a combination or “arrows” and “tees.” The
little “tee” that looks as if it is “capping off ” a line, is doing exactly that; it tells you that
when the valve is in this position, that particular route is sealed off, and no fluid can flow
through it.
The arrow inside the valve indicates what port the opposite port is connected to, forming
a path between one side of the block and the other.

132
 Engine modification – running on SVO

You will notice around the perimeter of the blocks that there are some small “black
triangles” that indicate that the port is an “output” for fluid (in this case vegetable oil or
biodiesel). Note that if you see a diagram and these squares are white, shown in outline
only with no fill, the valve has been designed as a pneumatic valve to carry air not fluid.
On either side of the block, you will see a small zig-zag shape, and a rectangle with a line
through on the opposite end of the symbol. This indicates the position of the solenoid
and the return spring. Imagine the solenoid pressing against the spring when the valve is
activated, “pushing” the block that sits next to the ports out of the way, and pushing the
“alternative” block into its position. If you look to Figure 8.15, you can see the key points
from this box highlighted.

Petrodiesel Vegetable
tank Engine oil tank
cooling
system

Flow Heat Flow

Return Filter Filter exchanger Return

6-port
solenoid
valve

Return High pressure

Flow
Fuel
injection Fuel injectors
pump
 Figure 8.16
Open-loop two-tank system with single six-port solenoid valve.

The open-loop two-tank system with single three-port solenoid valve is similar to the
normal fuel system, but has been modified to include a second tank. Both flow and return
are kept separate, but the driver can switch between the two fuel tanks; excess fuel is returned
to the same tank it was drawn from.
It uses a single three-port solenoid valve.
As in the open-loop two-tank system, in the closed-loop two-tank system with six-port solenoid
valve fuel is pumped from either one of two tanks selected by the driver. However, the system
has been modified so that excess fuel from the injectors is not returned to a tank but straight
back into the injection pump. This has the advantage of not wasting heat by dumping hot oil

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Chapter 8

Petrodiesel Vegetable
 Figure 8.17
tank Engine oil tank Closed-loop two-tank
cooling
system system with three-port
solenoid valve.

Heat
Filter Filter exchanger

3-port
solenoid
valve

Return
High pressure
Flow

Fuel injection Fuel injectors

pump

Petrodiesel Vegetable
 Figure 8.18
tank Engine oil tank
cooling
Closed-loop two-tank
system system with purge,
double three-port sol-
Flow Heat Flow enoid valve.
Filter Filter exchanger
Return

Return

Return
High pressure
Flow

Fuel injection Fuel injectors

pump

134
 Engine modification – running on SVO

back into the tank, increasing the chances of oil being supplied to the engine being of the desired
temperature, and lessening the strain on the lift pump. Unfortunately, this system does not allow
trapped air to escape from the system.
The closed-loop two-tank system with purge, three-port solenoid valve is a combination
of the open-loop and the closed-loop systems, the best of both worlds. It functions
exactly as the closed-loop system, except that when the driver switches from the SVO tank
back to the diesel tank, the second, return valve is automatically actuated for a few
seconds, turning the system from a closed-loop into an open-loop system for a few
moments. This both allows any trapped air to escape and purges the injector pump of
most of its vegetable oil.

Valves

Switching between tanks is done using electrical valves, either solenoid or motorized,
connected to a switch on the dashboard usually via some fuses and relays. The solenoid
valve is a simple affair. An electrical actuator, usually a solenoid, acts against a spring. In
the solenoid valves that we are using, we don’t simply want to stop and start the flow of a
fluid, but we want to switch between two alternative paths (in this case, fuel to or from the
vegetable oil tank, or diesel tank). In the case of the six-port valve, we want to make two
changes – both from either tank, with the return going back to either tank. In this case, we
use a solenoid valve that is either mechanically coupled – where there is a physical linkage
between two separate valves operated by the same actuator – or, alternatively, we can use
two separate three-port valves that are coupled electrically to achieve the same effect.

 Figure 8.19
Diagram of a 6-port valve
with unenergized solenoid.

Spring Coil
uncompressed unenergized

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Chapter 8

 Figure 8.20
Diagram of a 6-port valve
with energized solenoid.

Spring Coil
uncompressed energized

 Figure 8.21
Pollak six-port solenoid valve.

Pollak makes very popular and relatively inexpensive valves in either 3-port or 6-port
configurations, especially designed for switching between fuel tanks.
You can find Pollak valves here:
pollak.thomasnet.com/category/fuel-tank-selector-valves
www.stoneridge.com/

136
 Engine modification – running on SVO

To +12 V ignition enabled feed

 Figure 8.22
How to wire up a Pollak
All wires to be 18 6-port valve to switch-on
gauge, 1 mm or
10 A fuse
greater thickness
dash. Note, optional elec-
Dash mounted
DPDT switch trical feeds to separate lift
F pumps from each tank.
E
D
C
B
A

Pollak 6-port
solenoid valve
Tank 1* Tank 2*

*Optional electrical lift pumps for low-pressure fuel pumping from tank to injector pump

Existing gauge
 Figure 8.23
+12 V feed How to wire up a Pollak 6-port valve to feed
the fuel gauge from the tank in use. Note that
unless your fuel tanks and fuel tank senders
are identical, you may need some additional
components to make it read accurately for
both tanks.

Fuel
gauge

F
E
D
C
B
A

Tank 1 Tank 2
sender sender

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Chapter 8

 Figure 8.24
The two solenoid valves
that come with the ATG
two-tank kits are of excep-
tionally high quality.
Note also the temperature
sensor and supplementary
“Dieseltherm” electrical
heater visible in this pic-
ture, which come as part of
the ATG kit.

Bleeding

Unlike a conventional petrol engine, diesel engines are not at all tolerant of having air in the
fuel system. Making any alterations to the fuel system, even just changing a fuel filter, will
inevitably cause some air to enter the system and you will need to get it out.
Unlike fuel oil, air is easily compressible; if there is any in the injector pump or the injectors,
it will absorb all the pressure exerted on the fuel and the injector will not open.
You have to pump fuel through the system and loosen some of the parts of the fuel supply
and then the injection system to get all the air out. The procedure for this is referred to as
bleeding, and varies from engine to engine, and from vehicle to vehicle. If you don’t know
how to do this, you will either need to refer to a workshop manual or get some help.

The injection pump produces some very high pressures. While bleeding your engine, you
may need to release some of the high pressure unions, potentially exposing you to fuel
that is under enough pressure to penetrate your skin. Many mechanics have oily tattoos
due to this, and it can cause blood poisoning.
Never be tempted to bleed your engine by towing it about while in gear. This will damage
your engine. Bleed your fuel system properly to avoid irreparable damage.

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

For a two-tank system you will have to bleed both tanks. If you have modified your fuel
system to a closed-loop system it will be especially hard to get the air out. If you have a
closed-loop-with-purge you will need to hold the purge valve open while you bleed.

Advantages and disadvantages of the twin tank

The main advantage of this system is clear: You have the best of all worlds – the choice of
mineral diesel, biodiesel, new vegetable oil, and waste oil – in just about any diesel engine.
The kits tend to be a little cheaper, and the conversion a little easier than a one-tank kit, as
you are only altering the engine’s fuel system and not the engine itself. The conversion is
reversible and the kit can generally be transferred to another vehicle.
The main disadvantages of this system is that you have two tanks to worry about. You have
to remember to switch over to the vegetable oil and remember to switch back to diesel again
before you reach your destination. You can only switch to the vegetable oil tank when the
engine is warm, which means that for around-town driving you may not use the vegetable
oil as much as you might like.
You lose some space in the vehicle to the additional tank. Some people install a small
additional tank for the diesel which does not take up too much room and can be fitted in a
corner or even in the spare wheel well (though we have never worked out what you are then
supposed to do with the spare wheel) and put the vegetable oil in the original tank.
In larger vehicles, the second tank can be as large as, or indeed larger than, the original tank,
but a small one is still an option too. Which tank you then decide to put the SVO in is up to
you, but it is an important decision to make before you carry out the conversion, as chang-
ing your mind later may involve a significant amount of work. From a refilling point of view,
it is often easier to keep the original tank for diesel and the new tank for the vegetable oil.
 Figure 8.25
Large plastic tank being
installed into a van. To
finish the installation, the
tank must be securely
retained with some straps.

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Chapter 8

 Figure 8.26
Small plastic fuel tank.

Putting together your own two-tank system

Buying a quality commercial two-tank kit is the easy option but it is possible to put together
your own kit, and most people who do use a preassembled kit end up modifying or improv-
ing it. For the time-rich, money-poor, engineering-minded SVO enthusiast, assembling one’s
own kit is an exciting and challenging project.
You will need to put together a list of components. Beware, there are a lot of very substan-
dard kits and bits of kits on the market; remember, generally you get what you pay for. Also,
beware of DIY plans that may be nothing more than what you could find on the Internet
yourself.
At the very least, you will need to gather together:
● A second fuel tank: bought, from an old boat or made-to-measure?
● A heat exchanger: bought, from junk yard or made yourself ?
● A second filter: heated?
● Valves/solenoids: bought or from a junk yard? Trucks often have them.
● All the wiring, fuses, plumbing, hose, hose-clips, and so on, that you will need. Plastic
pneumatic pipe works well for long runs, with little metal inserts to stop the pipe
collapsing when hose clips are tightened. Use fuel-resistant rubber for short distances.
Always ensure all parts are resistant to diesel, biodiesel, and SVO.

140
Hose clamp
 Figure 8.27
Rubber hose
Diagram showing how to connect
pneumatic pipe to hose.

Metal insert


8 mm clear plastic tube

Figure 8.28
Hose clips and pneumatic
pipe inserts.

 Figure 8.29
Pneumatic pipe run alongside existing
fuel pipes on one of the authors’ van.

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Chapter 8

Commercially available two-tank systems

There are dozens of commercially available two-tank systems on the market. Many of them
are of excellent quality; however, some of them are not so good, and some of them are
appalling – you get what you pay for. The German kits seem to lead the way, but there are
also some excellent and popular UK and US products.
Most manufacturers sell a range of similar designs, which vary depending on your engine’s size
(larger engines will need larger heat exchangers and wider pipes), the amount of space you have
available for your second tank, and whether your vehicle is 12 V or 24 V. Other two-tank kits are
engine- or vehicle-specific, with components designed to fit and made-to-measure fuel tanks.
A typical good-quality two-tank kit will consist of a second fuel tank (which you will need
to select depending on your vehicle and how much space is available), a second fuel filter, a
heat exchanger to plumb into your engine’s cooling system, solenoid-actuated valves to
switch between tanks, and all the cabling, hoses, relays, and switches you will need. Some
two-tank kits also come with special new glow plugs, temperature sensors, and “computers”
to manage the system. All should come with full and easy-to-understand fitting instructions
and operator’s instructions.

In terms of vegetable oil conversion kits, it really is a case of “The Good, The Bad, and
The Ugly.” There are some fabulously good kits available as well as some astoundingly bad
ones. The following represent a few, but certainly not all, of the better conversion kits on
the market; just remember that you tend to get what you pay for:

Elsbett

High-quality German kits designed to fit specific vehicles. There is a list of their interna-
tional resellers on their website.
www.elsbett.com

ATG/Diesel-Therm

ATG’s Vegetable Oil-Kit, utilizes their Diesel-Therm electric heater, along with a heat
exchanger, to ensure SVO is up to temperature. There is a list of their international
resellers on their website.
www.diesel-therm.com/vegetable-oil-kit.htm

Smartveg

Smartveg are U.K.-based, they produce two-tank SVO systems with computer-controlled
fuel switching.
www.smartveg.com

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

Golden Fuel Systems (formally Greasel)

Golden Fuel Systems (not to be confused with Golden Fuels in the U.K.) are U.S.-based
and produce coolant-heated two-tank SVO kits.
www.goldenfuelsystems.com

Frybrid

Frybrid is a U.S.-based maker of two-tank SVO systems with computer-controlled fuel

switching.
www.frybrid.com

One-tank systems

In one-tank or single-tank systems the engine is started and stopped on vegetable oil alone.
There is no need to switch between fuels, no waiting for the engine to heat up, and no need
to remember to switch back again before you arrive; you just fill the existing tank with veg-
etable oil (or indeed mineral diesel or biodiesel or any combination of them) and drive just
like any other vehicle.
In addition to modifications to the fuel system similar to the two-tank method, this solution
relies on the modification of the injection system to better suit the characteristics of veg-
etable oil. Typically, the injectors spray pattern are modified and “cracking” pressure is
increased (typically by 5–20 bar) and larger, hotter glow plugs are installed which stay on for
a while after the engine has started.

 Figure 8.30
Two Elsbett converted VW
vans, and Tinker, one of the
authors’ dog, in Wales.

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Heat exchanger
 Figure 8.31
Water temperature sensor
not visible in
this picture Elsbett converted Mercedes
“Tee piece” engine.
Additional electrics

Existing heater hose

Additional filter

Return from heat exchanger

Advantages and disadvantages of single-tank conversions

Only specific engines can be converted using a one-tank kit and “DIY kits” are not are really
an option. The conversion is a little more expensive and a little more complex than a two-
tank conversion, as you have to make minor alterations to the engine as well as the fuel
system. Many kits also require the injectors to be sent off to be altered, but this is a very quick
process and the kit should include a prepaid envelope for this. Once installed, conversion is
not so easily reversible and the kit cannot be transferred to another vehicle unless it is of the
same type.
The advantages are clear: only one tank to worry about, no waiting for the engine to heat
up, no switching over and switching back, fill up with SVO or diesel or biodiesel or any
combination of them, all in the one tank.

One-tank DIY

Attempting a do-it-yourself single-tank conversion should only be done with extreme

caution. It can be done, and indeed has been done successfully, but generally only by very
keen, very competent enthusiasts.
Unlike twin-tank conversions, when done properly single-tank conversions involve
modifications not only to the fuel system but also to the engine’s fuel delivery system. The
injectors themselves are modified and the glow plugs upgraded. In kits such as the Elsbett
kit, the injector nozzles are specifically made; they cannot be easily made by the average SVO
enthusiast.

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

List of things to think about:

● Increase the diameter of the fuel lines

● Heat exchanger
● Electrical fuel heater
● New injector tips
● Increase injector’s crack pressure
● Change glow plugs for longer hotter ones
● Alter glow plug’s relay so they stay on after start-up, typically 3 minutes
If in doubt, consider a one-tank kit or the other options in this book.

Commercially available one-tank systems

The one-tank conversion kit market is dominated by Elsbett, and less so by one or two less
well-known companies. There are also a number of Elsbett imitators, too, who are selling
rather substandard copies of the Elsbett kits, some of which leave out vital bits such as the
modified injectors.

Elsbett

Elsbett has more than 30 years at the forefront of using vegetable oil fuel in diesel engines.
In 1979 Ludwig Elsbett developed a three-cylinder air/oil-cooled diesel engine specifically
for vegetable oil; in many ways it showed the way for all modern DI engines. Elsbett now
makes a range of single-tank and twin-tank conversion kits for specific engines and vehicles;
check their website to see if yours is one.
If an auxiliary heating system or night heater is desired, then a small secondary tank should
be fitted for diesel, as these heaters do not run on vegetable oil.
www.elsbett.com

VWP, Vereinigte Werkstätten für Pflanzenöltechnologie

Combined workshops for vegetable oil technology: provides advanced single-tank SVO systems.
www.vwp-europe.com

WOLF Pflanzenöltechnik

WOLF vegetable oil technology: provides advanced single-tank SVO systems.

www.wolf-pflanzenoel-technik.de

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Other single-tank kits

There are many other single-tank conversion kit manufacturers, worldwide. As ever, do your
homework: Don’t believe everything you are told!

Single-tank conversion installation example

Fitting the Elsbett one-tank kit into a VW Transporter, type 4/T4 with a
2.5 Tdi engine
This Elsbett single-tank conversion kit uses the heat from the engine’s coolant water to heat
the SVO up to a temperature where it is of a similar viscosity to mineral diesel. It also uses

Heat New 10mm pipe

 Figure 8.32
exchanger Original
tank Schematic of the modified fuel
New
Flow system.
heated Tee piece
filter Bulb primer
Return
Original
filter

Isolating
valve
Return
High pressure

Flow

Fuel injection Fuel injectors

pump

 Figure 8.33
The engine on a WV Type 4 is
accessible as the radiator can
easily be swung out of the way.
(Courtesy of Robert Starbuck.)

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

wider fuel pipes, modified injectors, an additional heated fuel filter, and upgraded glow plugs
that are kept energized for longer after the engine is started.
Accessing the engine on these VWs is a breeze, as the radiator can be swung out of the way.
This done, the engine is checked for problems, cleaned, the battery disconnected, and the
water drained.

 Figure 8.34
Close-up of fuel injection
system. (Courtesy of Robert
Starbuck.)

 Figure 8.35
Close-up of fuel injection
system with high-pressure
pipes removed. Note the
tape preventing dirt gett-
ing into the injection
pump. (Courtesy of Robert
Starbuck.)

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Chapter 8

 Figure 8.36
The five injectors removed
from the engine. (Courtesy
of Robert Starbuck.)

The injectors are removed from the engine and packaged up in a prepaid envelope and sent
to Elsbett for modification. It is a good idea to do this first, as, while they are quick in return-
ing them, it will nevertheless take some time. While they are doing this, it is important to
keep the injection system clean: Cover exposed parts with tape, and block the holes where
the injectors came out to ensure you don’t drop anything in there. When you are ready to
put the injectors back into the engine, be sure to use the new seating washers supplied by
Elsbett, not the old ones or new standard ones.

 Figure 8.37
Old glow plug (top) and
new glow plug (bottom).
(Courtesy of Robert
Starbuck.)

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

Replace the old glow plugs with the new ones supplied. They are slightly longer and heavier
duty. They will be held on for up to several minutes, rather than just a few seconds, in the
converted engine.

 Figure 8.38
Heat exchanger and auxil-
iary fuel filter are mounted
in engine bay. (Courtesy of
Robert Starbuck.)

Choose carefully where you want to mount the heat exchanger and the second fuel filter. You
may need to make up some new brackets for this. They must be mounted away from heat
sources, such as the exhaust system, and away from places they may get wet or damaged. It
is important to mount the heat exchanger the correct way up, so that any air in it is not
trapped. Also consider how easily it can be accessed in the future, as you will need to change
the filter at some point.

 Figure 8.39
Connecting the new fuel
pipe to the existing fuel
tank. (Courtesy of Robert
Starbuck.)

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Chapter 8

The fuel pipes in this conversion are swapped from the standard 8 mm to a larger 10 mm;
this has to be done all the way from the engine back to the fuel tank.
 Figure 8.40
Plumbing finished on the
injection pump. (Courtesy of
Robert Starbuck.)

Plumb the new components onto the fuel pump: There are now two fuel feeds, one from
each filter. These are attached together, one on top of the other, so that they both now feed
the pump. Compare Figures 8.34 and 8.40. In Figure 8.40 notice how the twin fuel supply
pipes (bottom right) and the fuel return pipes – one from the injectors and one from the fuel
pump – differ from Figure 8.34.
 Figure 8.41
Close-up of coolant water temperature
sensor.

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

 Figure 8.42
Coolant water temperature sensor in
heat exchanger’s hose (near center).
Also visible are the T-pieces into the
van’s cabin heater (near top right
and near bottom left). (Courtesy of
Robert Starbuck.)

 Figure 8.43
Heat exchanger and second
filter installed and plumbed
in. Also visible is the filter
isolator valve. (Courtesy of
Robert Starbuck.)

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Chapter 8

 Figure 8.44
Existing fuel filter plumbed
back in. (Courtesy of Robert
Starbuck.)

 Figure 8.45
Wiring loom exposed under vehicle’s
dashboard. (Courtesy of Robert
Starbuck.)

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 Engine modification – running on SVO

The heat exchanger is plumbed into the cabin heater circuit in parallel using T-pieces along
with a temperature sensor.
The second fuel filter is run in parallel with the existing fuel filter and an isolating valve is
added to the existing filter; this acts as a backup filter. The other filter is also equipped with
an electrical heating jacket to ensure the fuel in it is sufficiently liquid to pass through it.
The kit also comes with a priming bulb, which makes bleeding the system very much
simpler.
There are a number of electrical components and relays in the kit that need to be carefully
wired into the existing wiring loom. These sense the engine’s temperature and control the
glow plugs and the fuel filter heater jacket. A wiring diagram comes with the kit with stan-
dardized numbering (such as 15 = 12 V ignition, 30 = 12 V positive permanent, 31 = chassis,
ground, and so on) but you will need to find an accurate wiring diagram for your vehicle
yourself.

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Chapter 9
Using WVO in your SVO engine

Introduction

Collecting waste or used oil, WVO or UCO (see Chapter 4) and using it directly in your SVO
converted engine is a very attractive prospect; your fuel is practically free and you are find-
ing a use for what is often a waste product, possibly destined for landfill or illegal dumping.
However, as with many things in life that seem too good to be true, this could be too.
Elsbett, for example, is quite specific: You must only use vegetable oil that meets the required
standard with their kits, which definitely excludes used oil. Many people ignore their advice
and use cleaned-up WVO, but it is important to understand the issues and manage the risks.
You have to weigh up the pros and cons of running on used oil over new oil. Obviously, there
is the price of the fuel to consider. Used oil is going to be very cheap when compared with
new oil, but it is not going to be free, as you are going to have to invest in apparatus to clean
it and it could reduce the life of your engine significantly. Consider the age of your engine.
How much it will cost to replace? What is the cost of new vegetable oil and the cost and space
implications of cleaning used oil? Ask yourself if you are a practical minded person who
loves to tinker with his or her older car? Or are you simply trying to save money or green
your new and expensive SUV?
Using poor-quality WVO or not filtering and dewatering it is very likely to be very much more
expensive in the long run than just doing it right in the first place.
At the same time, new oil, SVO, comes with a lot of social and environmental baggage; it is not
as green or as ethical as many people would like you to believe (see Chapter 14 for more on this.)

Processing waste oil

Whether your intention is to make biodiesel or just use your WVO straight, you will still
need to clean your oil. In the case of making biodiesel, other than prefiltering most of the

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filtration is normally done after the reaction. If you intend to use WVO as a fuel in an SVO-
converted vehicle, you will need to clean it up first. Various levels of filtration, dewatering,
and testing for acidity need to be done to convert dirty waste oil into usable fuel, and even
this is not necessarily great-quality fuel.

Test first, WVO or biodiesel?

The quality and condition of the used oil you collect is much more important when you are
thinking about using it in an SVO system than if you’re going to convert it into biodiesel. The
differences between new food-grade oil and heavily used oil can be large.
All but the least-used waste oil will contain significant concentrations of free fatty acids
(FFAs), acidic components that your engine is not designed to resist. Slowly, over time,
these acids may corrode internal components of your fuel system and engine, possibly
causing them to eventually fail.
As well as FFAs, there will probably be significant amounts of water in your WVO that will
not boil off easily and, if there is enough of it, will inhibit combustion and damage your
engine. There is a relationship between FFA content and water content; if you have a lot of
FFAs, you probably have a lot of water, and vice versa.
Test the WVO you have collected (or even better test it before you collect it – that way you
can leave it alone) for FFAs using the titration test in Chapter 4: the lower the titration value
the better-quality fuel it is.
There is no clear rule as to what is a too high titration value, but a rule-of-thumb is that it
may be best to avoid WVO titrating at more than 3 or 4 in an SVO system. However, just how
acidic you feel is OK and is ultimately up to you. If the oil titrates higher than you would like,
don’t despair. It does not make it useless: maybe you could always process it into biodiesel
instead (see Chapter 6).

What is filtering?

To filter means to separate two or more things. The sense that we mean it here is to take dirty,
used cooking oil and to separate the solid particles, which we don’t want, from the waste oil,
which we do.
Unfiltered or badly filtered oil put directly into the fuel tank will quickly block the vehicle’s
own filter; we need to remove all the muck before we put it into the tank. Don’t think of your
engine’s built-in filter as a fuel cleaner; think of it as the engine’s last line of defense against
the rubbish in the fuel.
If particles do get into the engine, they will cause damage. The larger particles may block
fuel lines, whereas the smaller ones will block the tiny holes the fuel has to pass through,

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such as the injectors, and damage parts of the injector pump that require the fuel to
lubricate them.
A micron, or micrometer (μm), is one-millionth of a meter, a very short distance indeed;
e.g., human hair is roughly 50 microns across. Engines typically come with filters that
remove particles down to 10 microns, often better, so we need to get the WVO at least this
clean and preferably cleaner before we can even think about putting it into the tank.

Some SVO kits come with worrisome high-gauge filters of more that 10 microns, some
as high as 40 microns. Putting a high-value filter as your final filtration is not a good idea;
engine manufacturers put filters of certain values on their engines for good reasons, and
not following their lead will inevitably cause damage to your engine. If you find your
filter is becoming blocked by your fuel, fitting a larger-gauge filter is not addressing the
problem. Depending on what is causing the blockage, you may need to fit a filter heater
or re-examine your WVO cleaning regimen or check your vehicle’s tank and fuel lines for
contamination.

Commercial biodiesel makers often heat the oil prior to filtering and use pumps for speed,
whereas the small-scale operator will tend to prefer the slow methods and get gravity to do
most of the work.

Prefiltering

First you will need to remove the big bits: the French fries, insects, and dead rodents. Any
kind of mesh will do, from a special screen that fits on the end of the hose you suck the dirty
WVO up with to pouring it through an old mesh satellite dish. There are also strainers avail-
able at 200 and 100 microns that fit the top of 20-liter buckets and 205-liter drums.

Settling

If you have the time and the space, leaving your collected oil to settle is a very good idea:
Simply let the oil stand, undisturbed, for as long as possible. After a few days, but preferably
weeks, the heavy particles will tend to sink to the bottom of the container and you can
siphon or pump the cleaner oil from the top of the container, ready for filtering properly, and
drain the dirtier stuff from the bottom.
Standpipe tanks are ideal for this: See Chapter 7 for how to make one.
This is also a very effective way of getting rainwater from the oil but does not get all of the
water out.

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Bag filters

Bag filters are a popular, simple, and cheap solution. A bag filter is a sock-shaped bag about
70-cm long with a 10-cm wide opening at one end, and can cost as little as $5. Bag filters
come in a variety of filtration sizes.
 Figure 9.1
Bag or sock filters. (Courtesy
of biodieselfilters.co.uk.)

Bag filters can be mounted in specially made enclosures, but these are rather expensive, so
most people either make their own enclosure from PVC pipe fittings or even simply cut
some holes in the top of a 205-liter oil drum and pour the oil in.

Dirty oil
 Figure 9.2
poured Sock filters in a converted
in here
205-liter barrel: labor inten-
sive, but simple and cheap.
Sight tube
support clip Oil drum

Sight tube

Transparent
sight tube
allows the
level of fluid
in the tank Sock filters
to be gauged
Clean filtered oil
Elbow
connects
sight tube
to drum Drain valve

Clean oil out

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 Using WVO in your SVO engine

In some cases bag filtering is the only cleaning done to the oil, but further processing is
preferable, especially since your oil will almost certainly have water in it.

Cartage filters

Cartage filters are a popular option, often in combination with a pump, but sometimes in
gravity-fed systems. They come in a vast number of shapes and sizes, some with paper ele-
ments like the ones you get in cars, but usually bigger, and some with polypropylene or nylon
elements.

 Figure 9.3
Polypropylene filter housings.
(Courtesy of biodieselfilters.
co.uk.)

It is a good idea to use several filters in series, starting with the coarsest and going down to
progressively finer filters. This stops the finer filters getting blocked with large bits of debris.
Start with maybe a 100 or 200 micron, then about a 50 micron, and then a 10 micron and
possibly finer.
In Figures 9.5 and 9.6 pressure gauges (one on each filter) indicate the pressure in each hous-
ing as the oil is pushed through by the electric pump. They enable the operator to determine
which filter needs to be changed as the pressure in the housing will rise as it becomes
blocked. The design shown would be greatly improved with the addition of valves before,
between, and after the filters to enable the elements to be removed and replaced as they
became blocked without the need to drain down the entire system.

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 Figure 9.4
One of the authors’ early
experiments in gravity-fed
filtration. On the left is a
water-cooler bottle feeding
into a polypropylene cartage
filter and on the right is a
plastic carboy feeding into
an old engine’s fuel filter.

www.biodieselfilters.co.uk stock a wide variety of filters.

Dewatering your WVO

There are two principal ways that water can get into your WVO: from cooking and from the
rain. The former is inevitable, whereas the latter is avoidable. Water is bad. If you are making
biodiesel it will upset your reaction and if you are using the oil directly in an SVO system it
will damage your engine and it won’t help the fuel burn at all.
As described in the Chapter 5, vegetable oil is made of triglycerides or fats, a subgroup of
molecules called lipids. A triglyceride can be thought of as a glycerine molecule with three
arms: These arms are fatty acids.

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 Using WVO in your SVO engine

 Figure 9.5
One of the authors’ more
advanced WVO setup, with
settling tank, pump
(bottom left), and three
levels of filtration.

Using the oil for cooking causes damage to the triglyceride molecules: Their arms break off;
they become free fatty acids (FFAs). If one arm breaks off the triglyceride, you have a
two-armed triglyceride, now called a diglyceride, and an FFA molecule. If two arms get
broken off the triglyceride, you have a one-armed triglyceride, a monoglyceride (more
correctly a monoacylglycerol), and two FFA molecules. Break all three arms off and you have
a glycerine molecule and three loose FFAs.
The bond between the FFA and the glyceride is called an ester. When making biodiesel the
three fatty acid legs of the triglyceride are detached from the glycerol molecule and attached
to the methanol molecule, making a fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) or biodiesel, and glycerol
as the by-product.
Monoglycerides, diglycerides, and FFAs are all amphipathic lipids; like triglycerides they are
mostly hydrophobic or water-repellent, but unlike triglycerides they have a region that is
polar, hydrophilic, or water-loving.

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 Figure 9.6
Close-up of filters and their
pressure gauges.

Monoglycerides and diglycerides are used in the food industry as emulsifiers: i.e., they are
used to make fatty foods mix with watery foods. such as mayonnaise, where a watery food,
in this case egg, is mixed with an oily food, oil.

So what does all this mean?

While water mixed in with new oil will separate easily because its triglyceride molecules
are hydrophobic or water-repellent, used oil, with its monoglycerides and diglycerides,
will not give up its water so readily because some of its molecules are partly hydrophilic or
water-loving.
As we have discussed in the biodiesel chapters, well-reacted biodiesel will not have many
FFAs, monoglycerides, and diglycerides, only fatty acid methyl esters, and it gives up any
water in it quite readily. However, your WVO is not biodiesel. It may want to hang on to its
water: They may be hard to separate.
When using WVO in an SVO system, the FFAs, monoglycerides, and diglycerides in the
WVO may also come with significant amounts of water. In addition, the FFAs are acids
(hence the name), and these may slowly damage your engine and fuel system.

Testing for FFAs

Use a titration test (see BoxOut in Chapter 4) to determine the FFA content, and hence
estimate the monoglyceride and diglyceride content.

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Testing for water

This section is repeated in Chapter 4.

Testing for water in your WVO is simple, if rather crude. Take a small cupful of your oil in a
pan and gently heat it to around 100∞C (212∞F). If there is bubbling or spitting, you have
water present. How much is usually a matter of guesswork and experience.

Quantitative test for water

You know you have water present, but how much? Calculating how much water is in your
WVO is not difficult. Take a representative sample from your WVO by first ensuring it is well
mixed. Take a few hundred milliliters, measured quite carefully, and weigh it accurately. Put
it into a pan and heat it gently; let the water in it boil, but not so much as it spits out of the
pan. Careful here: Hot oil is the number one cause of household fires and can give you nasty
burns. When it has stopped spitting, turn off the heat, allow it to cool, and weigh it again.
The difference between the two numbers is how much water you had, 1 ml of water weighs
exactly 1 g, so if you know how many milliliters of wet oil you started with, you can calculate
how wet the oil was as a percentage.
However, a quantitative test is of limited use because, whether you’re making biodiesel or
using the WVO straight, anything more than the tiniest amount of water is not acceptable.

Dewatering

By prefiltering first
A lot of the water in your WVO is attached to the particles of food in it. Simply removing the
particles, by mecanical filtration and settling, will remove a lot of the water too. If you stand
the oil in settling tanks, as described earlier, along with the bigger solid bits of rubbish in the
WVO, some of the water will sink to the bottom of the settling tank and can be drained off.
If you have water in your WVO, use this method first and then retest for water, as described
above, to gauge how much, if any, you have left to remove.

Dewatering your WVO further

To dewater your oil further, you can heat it all to a temperature higher than the boiling point
of water (100∞C, 212∞F) and hold it there until it all the water has boiled off. However, for
any significant quantity of oil, this is slow, requires a very significant amount of energy and
is somewhat dangerous and a fire hazard.

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A safer and less energy-hungry method is to heat the oil to around 60∞C (140∞F), put it
in an insulated container, such as a hot water tank or a 205-liter drum surrounded by
insulation, and leave it overnight. At this temperature, the water is significantly denser than
the oil and will sink to the bottom more readily than with just a cold settling. Do not be
tempted to keep the oil warm overnight by leaving the heater on, as this will cause the oil to
circulate; the oil needs to be free to stratify. In the morning, drain off the bottom 15% or so
and do not use it; retest the top portion for water, using the test above, as it may well still
have significant amounts of water in it; if it does, dewater again, and consider getting some
better WVO next time.
For additional ideas on dewatering, see Graham Laming’s biodiesel processor in Chapter 7.

WVO in the cold weather

SVO is less winter-hardy than biodiesel, which itself isn’t very winter-hardy. Vegetable oils
have higher cloud points at which they start to gel (turn solid) than biodiesel made from the
same oil, and this is even truer for used oils. As the weather gets colder, your WVO fuel will
begin to freeze. Initially, it will become more viscous, and then little crystals of frozen fuel
will appear. As it gets colder still, all the WVO will freeze to a thick jellylike state. At what
temperature this happens is entirely dependent on your oil.
As with SVO, the addition of about 10% diesel to your WVO will probably do the trick, but
do it before the weather gets cold, not after, or you will have a tank of usable fuel while the
engine’s pipes and filters will remain blocked. See Chapter 8 for more ideas such as heated
fuel tanks, pipes, and filters.

Summary

To summarize this chapter, using WVO in an SVO system is a great idea because you are
turning waste into a cheap fuel; once you are set up to process it, it is a very cheap fuel. What
is more, you don’t have to worry about the environmental and ethical concerns over using
new oil as fuel.
However, there is a significant amount of work involved in turning WVO into fuel suitable
for an SVO converted engine; it must be thoroughly cleaned, filtered to at least 10 microns,
and properly dewatered.
Even then, it may not be such great fuel. It may be sufficiently acidic to damage your engine.
You need to test its FFA content: If it titrates higher than about 3 or 4, then you maybe
should be thinking about turning it into biodiesel instead.

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Other options and solutions

This is the weird chapter in this book – included as an attempt to be complete but not
necessarily to recommend. As we have seen, the basic difficulty when getting a diesel engine
to happily run on a vegetable oil is viscosity. We need to reduce the fuel’s viscosity to some-
thing similar to the viscosity of mineral diesel fuel; with biodiesel, we chemically modify the
fuel to be more compatible with the engine; with SVO, we modify the engine to be more
compatible with the fuel.
However, this is not the end of the story; there are a few diesel engines which are remarkably
tolerant of a wide range of fuels and most diesel engines (especially the older ones, less so
the most modern ones) are at least a little tolerant of fuels that they were not entirely
designed for.
Many people claim to have found a variety of different “wonder solutions” to making differ-
ent fuels work in a diesel engine. Some of these solutions will work, but it is more a credit to
the fuel-tolerant nature of the diesel engine than any particular technical mastery on the part
of the inventors. Many will work for a while but could ultimately result in long-term damage
to your engine.
It is important to bear in mind your motivation for running your engine on alternative fuels.
If you are doing it in the pursuit of being “more sustainable,” think carefully about the
solution that you adopt. Many of these additives are derived from petrochemicals and,
furthermore, may cause unwanted emissions from the exhaust of your vehicle.

Cetane number

The cetane number measures how well a fuel will autoignite under compression –
something you want in a diesel fuel especially in the winter. The octane number of a fuel
is the measure of how much it resists autoignition under compression. It is the opposite
of the cetane number; this is something you want in a gasoline engine but not in a diesel
one and not vice versa.
About 40–50 is a typical cetane number for normal diesel fuel.

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Diesel, kerosene, and heating oil

Some people run their diesel engines on fractions of crude oil that are similar to diesel oil,
such as heating oil, kerosene (paraffin), or blends of these and other oils, with varying rates
of success.
In the hierarchy of fractions of crude oil, diesel is somewhere in the middle. At one end you
have very low-viscosity fuels such as aviation fuels and gasoline and at the other end you
have the heavy viscous fractions such as waxes and asphalt. In the middle you have diesel
fuel, with slightly lighter kerosene on one side, which oil lamps burn, and the heavier indus-
trial (bunker) fuel oil, which big ships run on.
Diesel fuel itself is refined into a number of finer grades: number one diesel, number two
diesel, and number four diesel; number three diesel is no longer made. Number one diesel is
the least viscous, number four the most viscous, but there is not a great deal of difference
between them.
You will find number 4 diesel in lower-speed diesel engines such as generators and railway
train locomotives, where the engine’s speed is fairly constant; numbers 1 and 2 are common
as “normal” diesel for road use, number 1 being premium diesel, with better winter charac-
teristics, number 2 diesel being not so good in the winter but better at lubricating
the engine. In addition, the diesel that you buy at the filling station will have any number of
additional additives and improvers:
No. 1 diesel = Cetane number of about 45–50
No. 2 diesel = Cetane number of about 40–45
Kerosene is slightly thinner than diesel and, while it combusts similarly to diesel, it is too
poor at lubricating for use as fuel in a diesel engine. Heating oil is probably the closest to
number 2 diesel in both ignition and lubricating qualities and is often used as a diesel
substitute; however, while it does seem to work for some people, it is not diesel and your
engine was not designed to run on it.
Some people do use kerosene in blends with vegetable oils, and often other ingredients such
as mineral spirits and even gasoline, as a substitute for diesel fuel. You can see why too:
Kerosene is too thin for a diesel engine and vegetable oil too thick, but perhaps a blend of
the two would make a good substitute? Generally, it does work, at least for a while, but there
has been very little research done beyond anecdotal reports into what ratios of oil make a
good blend or, in fact, whether it makes a good fuel at all.

Not only is running on kerosene or heating oil potentially risky to your engine, it is
often illegal. Depending on the country you are in, heating oil and kerosene attract
lower rates of tax or duty than road fuels and they are often marked with a color

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indicator to stop you using the wrong one. For example, in the UK, industrial diesel
not intended for road use (red diesel, used in farm machinery and generators) is taxed
at a lower rate from road diesel (DERV, diesel engined road vehicle); in just about
every other respect the two are identical and clearly there is a temptation to run your
road vechicle on the cheaper, offroad, fuel. The two are distinguished from each other
by dyeing the red-diesel red, hence the name; use the wrong one and when your tank
is “dipped” by officials they can see what you have been up to and the penalties are
heavy. The same often applies to heating oils and kerosene; they often have color,
indicators added and show the tax man you have been evading tax.

Solvent thinning and blending

There are many thousands of advocates across the world of blending vegetable oil with any
number of solvents with the intention of lowering the viscosity, and altering the cetane
number.
Search the Internet for recipes but be very cautious and don’t believe everything you are told.
The option is very attractive when compared with biodiesel or SVO conversions, with no
complicated chemistry or processors or by-products or expensive engine conversion; all you
have to do is obtain some vegetable oil and mix it with some solvents and you have a biofuel
diesel substitute. However, there are so many variations and recipes and nonsense misinfor-
mation out there that it should be approached with extreme caution; please treat these fuels
as, at best, experimental.

White spirit

White spirit is an example of a thinning agent used with vegetable oil to make a diesel
substitute. It is used as another petroleum distillate. If you remember back to the diagram of
the fractional distillation column in Chapter 1, you will realize that lighter fuels are tapped
off high in the column. The hydrocarbons in white spirit generally have chains in the range
of C7 – C12. In addition to straight hydrocarbons, which we have discussed in this book, white
spirit also contains alicyclic components, where the carbon atoms form a ring.
White spirit is available in several types. The most basic type contains a fair amount of sulfur,
which gives it a low flash point. This is known as “type 1” or T1. Type 2 white spirit has some
of the more volatile solvents removed, whereas type 3 white spirit, which has the highest
flash point, is hydrogenated (explained in Chapter 5).

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If your interest in finding substitutes for fossil diesel is to be green then don’t forget
that kerosene and heating oil are just as much fossil fuels as diesel and gasoline, and
that many gasoline solvents are derived from petroleum; e.g., white spirit (mineral
spirits) and terps substitute (mineral turpentine) are both made from petroleum.
Burning gasoline, diesel, or vegetable oil in your engine is not excatly clean, but
many of the solvents suggested as ingredients for blended biofuels may make some
additional, very nasty or toxic, compounds.

The Infopop forum has a whole section on experimental thinning of vegetable oil with
solvents as alternatives to biodiesel and SVO engine conversions:
biodiesel.infopop.cc

Open source, not secret sauce

The biodiesel community, especially with the advent of the Internet, is almost entirely an open-
source community information that is freely available, noncommercial, and in the public domain.
Whereas there is certainly much debate about making or using biodiesel or converting your
engine to SVO, none of it is a secret being withheld from anyone, anywhere.
Indeed, there is nothing in this book that you can’t find for free on the Internet. However, we
think this book is more concise, easier to read, technically sound, clearly illustrated, and,
most importantly, more objective and more accurate than most of what we’ve come across
online. That said, there are a number of companies who will, for a price, sell you their “secret
recipe” for their biofuel, which is usually not biodiesel or SVO but their own secret blend.
There are also plenty of secret additives on sale that will, allegedly, “improve your fuel” or
turn your vegetable oil into biodiesel with no “complicated chemistry.”

2-Ethylhexyl nitrate

2-Ethylhexyl nitrate (2EHN) is a common additive to mineral diesel as a cetane improver. Some
people add it to biodiesel and vegetable oil and claim it improves things, especially cold starts.
It is also added by people who make vegetable oil blends for diesel engines with gasoline or alco-
hol, which reduce the cetane number, as a “cetane restorer,” and it is almost certainly helpful.

That is too good to be true!

When something seems too good to be true, then chances are it is sadly just that: It is not true.
According to numerous sites on the Internet, you can buy all sorts of miracle products or

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 Other options and solutions

plans to improve your mileage and reduce your fuel bills. Don’t believe everything you are
told. Question everything and don’t take anyone’s word for anything.

Anecdotal evidence is not good evidence

In the same way that we all know smoking causes cancer and yet we all also know of a smoker
who lived until he was 110 years old, you will come across people who will claim to have run
their unconverted car on used oil with no problems – just because they had no trouble does
not mean you won’t.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof

If I told you that I drink one cup of my special tea each day you would probably believe me;
after all it is not unlikely and even if I were lying it does not mean that tea and drinking don’t
exist. However, if I told you that drinking one cup of my special tea each day meant I would
never suffer from heart problems you would be sensible to want more proof than to take my
word for it, and before you invested your savings into my tea-drinking regime you would
want to see independent double-blind peer-reviewed medical studies backing up my claims.
Nevertheless, every day people are duped by charlatans and con artists into parting with
their cash in exchange for some ludicrous invention or theory that has only the flimsiest
evidence to back it up. In short, don’t believe everything you are told and demand to see
real evidence, not just anecdotal; remember, the more outlandish the claims the better the
evidence needs to be.

Magnets

There are special magnets made which attach around your fuel lines and align the fuel
molecules, resulting in better combustion, better mileage, and lower fuel bills. Sounds like
nonsense to me, but thousands of people buy them every year; some even claim they work!
The suppliers offer vaguely convincing sounding, pseudoscientific language to back up their
claims but the words are usually meaningless. Think about it: If these things work, in these
days of demand for high-mileage, fuel-efficient, and greener cars, they would be fitted as
standard. Indeed, politicians would pass laws making them compulsory.

HHO and water-powered cars

There are machines available, often called “HHO Technology,” that convert water into its
component parts (hydrogen and oxygen) and introduce these into your engine’s air intake

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and drastically reduce the frequency that you need to buy fuel because now your car runs, at
least partly, on water. Does this sound too good to be true to you? Of course, but people
still fall for it all the time! It takes a lot of energy to separate water into H and O, a lot
more energy than there is available in the H and O when it is burned. And the energy it takes
to do the separating is coming from somewhere; it is coming from your engine and
therefore from your fuel. Indeed, if this “technology” did work it would be a perpetual
motion machine, your engine would be starting its cycle with water (as fuel) and ending it
with water (as exhaust) while extracting energy from the water, and this violates the first law
of thermodynamics.
HHO, and several other fuel-saving scams, are neatly dealt with at New Zealand’s Aardvark
Daily where there is an unclaimed one-million dollar prize available for anyone who can
show their HHO system saves them fuel:
www.aardvark.co.nz/fuelsaverscams.shtml
www.aardvark.co.nz/hho.shtml

Acetone

Acetone (known to your mum and sister as nail varnish remover) is added by some to either
gasoline or diesel at about 1 part acetone to 500 parts fuel. Proponents talk of big oil com-
pany cover-ups and a dramatic improvement in fuel economy and engine life; however, the
authors are unaware of any evidence to support this and, in fact, a little evidence to suggest
that it has no measurable effect on performance and degrades engine parts.

Adding engine oil or automatic transmission fluid to diesel

The authors have seen many references to adding engine oil or automatic transmission
fuel (ATF) to your diesel to increase its engine lubricating qualities; however, we can find no
evidence whatever that it has any beneficial effect.

The great gas conspiracy

The great gas conspiracy is a theory that the big oil companies and the big car makers have
a deal whereby, despite having technology to the contrary, they will continue to sell us fuel-
inefficient vehicles and split the profits between them. We’ve never seen any evidence to
support this! The fact is, vehicle manufacturers make big ol’ trucks, because they are cheap
to make and profitable to sell and people buy them, and the oil barons aren’t going to do
much to stop them; however, that doesn’t mean they are in cahoots. Independently, though,

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the oil companies and the gas companies aren’t doing a lot to change the status quo.
However, with growing consumer awareness of issues of sustainability, and in the knowledge
that oil isn’t going to last forever, this is more a result of ensuring continuity of business (and
hence profits) than any real social goal. It is always the early adopters of a technology who
innovate and drive things forward – waiting for the status quo won’t encourage change, but
being part of the change will.

Pogue’s carburetor

Between 1928 and 1935 Charles Pogue applied for several patents for his carburetor that
supposedly completely vaporized the fuel before introducing it to the cylinders, which would
supposedly enable a great deal more energy to be extracted from the fuel. There were several
reports at the time of people driving seemingly miraculous distances on small amounts
of fuel, including a 1936 issue of a Canadian magazine that claimed that a trip of about
1800 miles was completed on 15 gallons of fuel using a Pogue carburetor. However, when
credible people, scientists and engineers and the like, tried to see one of these carburetors or
measure its performance they were not granted access; this nonsense went on for a few years
until some articles were published rubbishing Pogue’s claims. Basically, he was told to produce
the carburetor or shut up, and he shut up. Lots more on this bizarre story can be found on
the Internet: Both arguments claiming that the carburetor never existed and arguments
claiming that the fact the world has never seen one is proof that it has been covered up.

Not a diesel engine?

Then why are you reading this book? Petrol or gas engines have several options to petroleum
such as alcohol blends, and can be converted to run on compressed natural gas (CNG),
liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and so on. Then there are also electric and electric hybrids,
hydrogen, wood gas, propane, methane, and fuel cells. We’re not going to cover these tech-
nologies comprehensively – there are other books on these topics, but we’ll at least indulge
you by giving you an introduction to these technologies, so you know what they are about
when you come across them.

Wood gas

Those looking for a very quirky project should take a look at wood power. A machine called
a wood gasifier can be built, and people do, to turn wood or other biomass into a gas that
can be burned in a fairly standard petrol engine. Just fill up on logs and off you go! Wood
gasification works by heating biomass (wood) in a sealed container in the absence of oxygen.

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This heat source can be provided by burning more wood. Wood contains lots of chemicals
in the resins and sap and cell structures of the wood fiber. The process is effectively “making
charcoal”; but in the process of doing this, all the volatile chemicals in the wood are driven
off and can be collected and burned. Wood gas is predominantly a combination of hydrogen
and carbon monoxide. This probably isn’t a technology that is going to change the world –
the world has moved on from this technology – so bear in mind that while technically
possible, it is quite an impractical solution and definitely falls into the category of “esoteric.”

Bioethanol

In a similar manner to growing crops, to extract oil, to run in a compression-ignition engine,

there are alternatives for spark-ignition engines too. Bioethanol represents one alternative
for the many gasoline engines on our roads. Crops are grown, which can then be processed
to produce alcohol. These crops are rich in sugar content: e. g., sugar beets. Brazil has been
doing this for more than 30 years, growing sugar cane and turning it into ethanol for use as
a road fuel. The rest of the word is catching onto this idea and, good or bad, a lot of gas sold
in the UK and the USA is partly ethanol from biomass and it is increasing rapidly. As we
explore in Chapter 14, ethanol has acquired a somewhat dubious reputation. Government
subsidies for farmers and the rapid price increases of bioethanol feedstock have made
ethanol somewhat a free-for-all for producers wanting to make a quick buck, but the
sustainability of “ethanol production” remains very much in question.

 Figure 10.1
Saab BioPower 9-3.

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 Other options and solutions

 Figure 10.2
Ford Focus Bio-Ethanol.

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or Autogas)

Liquefied petroleum gas is some of the lighter fractions that are produced when crude oil is
extracted from the ground. Usually consisting of a mixture of propane and/or butane, LPG
is a gas at atmospheric pressure; therefore, it is stored in strong steel containers. If we look at
the chemical model of propane, way back in Chapter 5, Figures 5.5 and 5.6 (butane is in the
same series but with an additional carbon), and compare it to say “octane” which has eight
carbon atoms, we can see that propane is a relatively “hydrogen-rich” fuel. When we think
about all the bonds that will break, releasing energy, contrasted to the amount of carbon
(which will then react with the oxygen to form carbon dioxide), we can see clearly that
propane contains less carbon for the same amount of energy output. However, it is still
important to note that burning propane does still, at the end of the day, result in carbon
emissions. However, propane is a very clean burning fuel, free from sulfur or other nasties
such as tetraethyl lead (the lead in leaded fuel). It also has the advantage of being nontoxic
and noncorrosive.
LPG has a very high octane number of 108 (compared to 95/97 for regular gasoline/petrol)
and can run in an ordinary spark-ignition internal combustion engine, with some modifi-
cation of the fueling system. Cars can be bought that run on LPG “out of the box” or
conversions can be done to existing vehicles to “retrofit” them with an additional LPG tank.
This takes up boot space, however, and gives the car the flexibility to run on dual fuels.

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Because LPG is gasified by the time it reaches the engine, a special manifold must be installed
which gives the choice between a standard carburetor or fuel injection for running on gaso-
line/petrol or a “vaporizer/regulator” for running on LPG. In the same way that we use the
engine coolant in an SVO conversion to heat the vegetable oil gently to reduce its viscosity,
the vaporizer/regulator heats the LPG gently to allow it to turn from a liquid into a gas. If
your car is fuel injected, a device called an “emulator” plugs into the engine control unit – it
“fakes” the signals that the car would normally receive from the fuel injectors when the vapor-
izer is in operation – because the injectors are redundant, but the ECU expects pulses from
them; this stops your “check engine” light from coming on.

 Figure 10.3
SMART LPG ForTwo.

Electric vehicles

Electric vehicles have come out of the days of the sluggish utility-style vehicles, and with
modern battery technology, a new generation of electric vehicles is emerging that demon-
strates that the technology is capable of generating very capable performance, with a range
to suit most consumer’s needs. In the past, one of the problems with electric vehicles has
been the battery technology. Lead-acid batteries have been used in a lot of early electric vehi-
cles; however, while it is a cheap technology that automobile manufacturers are familiar with
(it’s the same one used in the batteries of your car today), it isn’t the solution required for
vehicles with a performance to meet most consumer’s needs. However, change is afoot! With
the rapid development of battery storage technology, in order to support our ever more

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 Other options and solutions

demanding compact electronic devices, battery technology has made rapid advances.
Modern lithium-ion batteries are capable of storing a greater amount of electricity for a
given weight than older battery technologies such as nickel cadmium, or nickel metal
hydride technologies. There is also great potential for battery technology to make significant
strides in the future, with nanotechnology opening up some interesting branches of materials
science that could lead to ever greater storage densities.
One of the benefits of electric car technology is known as braking regeneration. When
undergoing braking, the vehicle’s brakes attempt to dissipate some of the energy of the car’s
forward momentum, slowing the car down. Standard brakes work by friction – a pair of
pads contacts a drum or disk, providing high friction. The energy embodied in the vehicle’s
motion is thus converted to heat, which is why race car manufacturers spend a lot of money
developing vented and drilled disc brakes in an effort to dissipate heat quicker and allow
more braking to occur faster, more effectively.
Under urban driving conditions, your car is constantly stop–start–stop–start: Each time you
need to brake gently, power is wasted to heat. Furthermore, having to rev your engine every
minute or so as the traffic inches forward doesn’t make the best use of your engine. Internal
combustion engines are efficient within a relatively small “power band,” where they produce
optimum power and efficiency. Having to “blip” the throttle every now and again, and run the
engine up to that power band where fuel is used most efficiently, does not make the best use
of your fuel.

 Figure 10.4
NICE Electric Car.

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Hybrid vehicles

Hybrid cars take the concept that when an internal combustion engine (ICE) runs, it should
do so at the best possible efficiency. It allows the engine to work within its optimum power
band, by trying to “match” the load that the vehicle places on the motor more effectively,
courtesy of an electric motor and battery pack. Say you are driving slowly: A hybrid car will
take a small amount of power from its electric motor to drive the wheels. Electric motors
provide large amounts of torque when they start, relatively efficiently, unlike a gasoline
engine that has to be accelerated slightly for optimum pulling power. Now imagine you
speed up. The vehicle’s engine will start up and take up the load. If you’re going slower than
suits the engines optimum rpm, then the additional power will be used to charge the battery
bank while the ICE is running.

 Figure 10.5
Hybrid vehicle – Toyota
Prius.

In addition, a hybrid drive train can do “clever things” like capturing the energy that would
normally be wasted by braking and storing it in batteries for later use. The vehicle does this
by using the electric motors to create a “mechanical load” (which produces electrical power)
to slow the car, rather than conventional brakes, which create a mechanical load by creating
friction between a brake pad or shoe and a brake disc or drum.
There are different types of hybrid drive trains: In some, the engine drives the wheels “directly”
through the drive train with the electric motor as part of this drive train providing resistance
(when generating) or assistance (when driving) as required. As the technology has developed,
there are a greater number of different approaches to this problem, some using a combined
“starter motor generator” in what could be considered a “mild” version of the hybrid.
Plug-in hybrids offer an interesting option that is being pursued vigorously by many
automakers. In a plug-in hybrid, the vehicle connects to the grid at night to charge a larger
set of batteries than would be found in a normal hybrid vehicle. The vehicle will run initially

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on electrical power - the idea that if you make short journeys, you might not need to start
the gasoline engine at all! However, if you need to travel a longer distance, the ICE kicks in
and the car operates like a “standard” hybrid.

Hydrogen as a future energy vector

Hydrogen has the potential to radically transform the way that we look at energy. At the
moment we live in a “carbon-based” economy - our power comes largely from fossil fuels,
which are based on a high carbon content - large amounts of coal, oil, and gas go into making
the wheels of our industry and civilization turn. However, as we have discussed already, there
are problems with carbon-based fuels, in that their emissions from burning could lead to a
climate catastrophe. One solution advocated by many, is a transition to hydrogen as a fuel.
The thing is, when you burn hydrogen, you don’t create carbon dioxide – the only product is
dihydrogen monoxide – H2O, water. This isn’t bad news – no nasty nitrogen oxides
creating smog, sulphur to create acid rain, or carbon dioxide to cause the world to heat up –
just plain old agua.
The problem comes, like with electricity above, with producing the energy to produce the
energy carrier. See, this is the key distinction, unlike biodiesel, vegetable oil, mineral diesel or
gasoline – hydrogen isn’t a fuel. We can’t go drilling for hydrogen and find a big pocket of it
underground; we have to create it by breaking down other compounds. This isn’t bad news,
as there is so much hydrogen in the world, trapped in the seas as water … all we need to do
is liberate it. One way to do this is through using large amounts of electricity. Unfortunately,
there has to be somewhere to get this electricity from in the first place. One solution is to
produce clean, renewable energy from the sun, wind, waves, and tide, and produce benign
electricity with minimal environmental impact; unfortunately, the other ways of generating
electricity – fossil fuels and nuclear power, entail large amounts of carbon emissions and a
legacy of toxic waste. So by using “dirty” power, all you are doing is extending the tailpipe of
your vehicle to a centralized location.
There is another way to produce hydrogen, one that is championed by the oil industry; that
is to produce hydrogen from a process called steam reformation. High-temperature steam
and fossil fuels can combine in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen; however,
there is an unfortunate by-product of large amounts of carbon dioxide. Technology has been
developed to sequester CO2 – this entails injecting it into deep wells where it becomes
trapped in geological formations. Unfortunately, it is also used in a process called “EOR” or
enhanced oil recovery. Here it is injected into old oil wells, which are nearing the end of their
useful life. Forcing carbon dioxide down a hole, results in large amounts of oil coming up
another hole somewhere else. While this makes sense from a monetary perspective, it isn’t
really doing the environment any great favors when that oil is burned.
There are some problems at the moment with storing hydrogen that need to be addressed
in order to increase performance; however, technologies are steadily being refined, to allow
a greater amount of hydrogen to be stored in a smaller space.

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However, there are exciting possibilities when it comes to extracting energy from the
hydrogen.

Hydrogen internal combustion engine technology

 Figure 10.6
BMW Hydrogen7 (hydro-
gen ICE vehicle).

When it comes to the point of use, we can burn hydrogen in an ICE. This approach is being
used by BMW in their BMW Hydrogen7 vehicle. A large hydrogen cylinder in the boot of
the car provides a large engine with hydrogen, which is burned in a spark-ignition engine.
This option is attractive to manufacturers, because it allows them to work with a large
amount of technology that is existing and they are familiar with. It is also good news to the
consumer, because it means that as well as running an ICE engine on hydrogen, a second
tank for gasoline can also be engaged, which facilitates filling at conventional gas stations,
and extended range. It saves “betting the farm” on one particular type of technology.
However, there are some disadvantages. As a heat engine, there is inherently a relatively poor
efficiency to the system and, furthermore, because nitrogen from the air reaches high
temperatures in the combustion chamber, there are still issues with nitrogen oxides.

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 Other options and solutions

Hydrogen fuel cell technology

 Figure 10.7
Vauxhall (General Motors)
HydroGen3 vehicle.

However, there are alternatives. The fuel cell is one device that could revolutionize transport
technology. Fuels cells operate in a manner that is fundamentally different to combustion
engines, which burn fuel. A fuel cell doesn’t “burn” fuel in a conventional sense; however, it
reacts hydrogen with oxygen, using a special membrane, capturing the energy that is released
from that reaction in electrical form. The process used to produce electricity from hydrogen
is “more efficient” than energy capture from an internal combustion engine, so there is poten-
tial to use less energy to do the same amount of work. However, there are some issues with the
amount of energy needed to produce and store hydrogen, so this should be borne in mind.
One of the other challenges with moving to a hydrogen economy is that it will require a rad-
ical rethink of infrastructure: It will entail the construction of hydrogen filling stations. This
is a challenge. No one wants to build a hydrogen filling station unless there are hydrogen cars
available to consume the hydrogen, and no one wants to buy a hydrogen car unless there are
filling stations available. Undoubtedly, as the questions surrounding this technology are
solved, more hydrogen filling stations will be built.

Human-powered vehicles

There is a great case to be made for bicycles (bikes), tricycles(trikes), and other human-powered
vehicles (HPVs). A bike can help you get about quickly and cheaply, without the pollution
that motorized transport produces. Bikes also take up less footprint on the roads, which

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means smaller parking spaces for them and less infrastructure. Also, cycling keeps you fit
and healthy.
However, there is more to bicycles than just mountain bikes or uprights; there are a variety
of vehicles such as recumbent tricycles, which allow you to lie back and relax while cycling,
as well as enclosed human-powered vehicles, such as “Velomobiles,” which encase the rider
in an aerodynamic fiberglass shroud, allowing him to cut through the air more easily. In
addition, bicycle rickshaws are becoming a feature of the trendy downtowns of many cities.
HPVs also sometimes provide an electrical or petrol assist with a small engine or motor, to
produce a vehicle that is human-powered until you reach a large hill, when the assistance will
be used to help the rider.
The problem with HPVs is also one of infrastructure. However, they require nothing more
sophisticated than a shower and changing rooms at either end of the journey, to allow the
rider to freshen up before going on his way.

 Figure 10.8
Human-powered vehicle (with electric assist).

If you are interested in finding more about human-powered vehicles, some good sites to
check out are: www.bhpc.org.uk; www.velomobiling.net; www.ihpva.org.

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Engine conversion or fuel
conversion?

The choice between going the biodiesel route or the SVO route is basically a choice
between converting your engine or converting your fuel; however, the decision is not
as simple as that. Running on SVO means you will need to secure a good supply of new oil;
running on UCO requires a good supply of used oil and a way of processing it into fuel.
Biodiesel does not require any engine conversion but, unless you choose to simply buy it,
requires a reaction vessel to make it in, and the storing and handling of some hazardous
chemicals.
Of course none of these options are necessary mutually exclusive. You could always have an
SVO converted engine that you also run on biodiesel, dinodiesel, SVO, or UCO.
The biodiesel vs SVO argument is a little like the never-ending argument about which are
better, dogs or cats. There is no right answer, some people prefer cats, some dogs, it is just
personal choice; below are a few questions to ask yourself to help you choose between
biodiesel and SVO.

How many vehicles are you running?

If the answer is more than one or two, the expense of converting them all to run on SVO is
probably greater than the cost of building, or buying, one reactor to supply all of them with
biodiesel. The cost of a kit to convert to SVO is going to be more than US $1000, plus the
cost of installation, per vehicle. If you regularly replace your vehicle, you will need to add in
the cost of converting each of them to run on SVO to the price you pay for them. Some SVO
kits are adaptable to different vehicles, whereas some are very engine-specific, if you are
thinking of selling the vehicle as standard, with no conversion, then also consider how
reversible the SVO kit you are thinking of installing is and how much it will cost you to
change it back.

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Case study: Dulas Ltd

Dulas Ltd, a UK firm specializing in sustainable technologies and renewable energy,

wanted to ensure that the way that its operatives traveled about to different sites was con-
gruent with its mission of being a firm that treads lightly on the earth, with the minimum
possible impact. Because Dulas is fueling a fleet of vehicles biodiesel makes more sense
than individual vegetable oil conversions — the business sources biodiesel locally, and
stores it on-site in a large storage container (Figure 11.1).

 Figure 11.1
Biodiesel storage facility at Dulas Ltd.

The container is fitted with an integral pump, and dispensing equipment, which allows
the firm to manage fuel consumption – by keeping regular records and checking they tally
with vehicle mileage – and also helps with reporting fuel consumption when it comes to
tax and deductions at the end of the year (Figure 11.2).

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 Engine conversion or fuel conversion?

 Figure 11.2
Dispenser allows Dulas
to keep track of biodiesel
usage for fleet man-
agement and taxation
purposes.

When an employee wants to use a fleet car, it’s a simple job of filling it up on-site using
biodiesel (Figure 11.3).

 Figure 11.3
Running Dulas’ fleet vehicle on
biodiesel.

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What is your location?

What SVO and UCO do you have available locally and how cold is it where you live? If you
live in a cold climate, fuels with a higher gel point are less suitable to biodiesel production
because the gel point of your feedstock will determine the gel point of the biodiesel you
make from it. However, these fuels are potentially more suitable for an SVO system, because
the fuel is heated. However, this all depends on what the gel point is and just how cold it is
where you live. Cold filtration can separate SVO/UCO into parts with higher melting points
and lower melting points and different feedstocks can be selected at different times of the year.

How are you going to dispose of the waste?

One thing to consider when choosing which technology to go with is what you are going to
do with your fuel plant’s waste products. Biodiesel production tends to produce a significantly
larger quantity of waste than SVO and UCO. With SVO all you have to dispose of are the
oily containers that arrived with your oil; but short of throwing them into land-fill, it is a
problem hard to find a solution to.
With UCO you will, in addition to oily containers, also have some, maybe quite a bit, of
unusable wet or dirty oil to dispose of, along with whatever rubbish you filter out of the oil.
Putting this down the drain is not an option. It will put a massive strain on sewerage systems.
You are going to need to find a better way of disposing of it, such as composting or getting
your local waste oil disposal company to collect it. You could even consider converting it to
biodiesel.
Making biodiesel produces a number of waste streams in addition to those mentioned
above. You will also have soapy water and methanol-laden glycerol (glycerin); they need to
be disposed of. Putting the soapy water down the drain may be an option, but putting the
glycerol there too is almost certanly not. See Chapter 12 for further information.

What is your typical journey duration?

If you tend to drive short trips, say of 10 miles or less, your engine is unlikely to get up to
temperature to run on SVO/UCO regularly, so you will tend to run it on the dinodiesel/
biodiesel tank most of the time, unless you happen to have a vehicle suitable for a single-tank
conversion. A lot of two-tank conversions use a small second tank. If you are not using the
SVO side of the system, your little tank is going to need refilling very regularly. Still, if you
are regularly driving less than 10 miles, then maybe you should reconsider your vehicle
use all together: Maybe walking or cycling some of these trips would be a better solution
altogether?

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 Engine conversion or fuel conversion?

Who else uses your car?

Biodiesel is much less of an issue if your car is being used by people other than yourself than
an SVO converted one, as they don’t have to worry about if the engine is hot enough or
switching between tanks. Biodiesel can be used in any ratio with dinodiesel, so fill-ups ought
not to be an issue for the other drivers of the car.

Which is greenest?
Arguably, depending on where it was grown, new vegetable oil has a significant environmental
and social impact. It is most certainly neither as green nor as ethical as you may be told or
want to believe (see Chapter 14).
Biodiesel, when made from used oil, has a lower environmental impact than most other
options but is still far from totally green. It is made using caustic chemicals and methanol, a
fossil fuel. Some people make biodiesel from ethanol and it is possible to make ethanol from
nonfossil fuel sources, but this is not realistic for small-scale home production; if you make
biodiesel, it is going to be about 20% fossil fuel.
Running on UCO in an SVO converted vehicle is arguably the greenest solution, as there is
a lot less in the way of waste to dispose of and no fossil fuel use; however, it may be damaging
to your engine, which in itself is not very green.
Don’t forget that it is almost always going to be greener and cheaper and better for your
health to use your bike or walk or catch a train or a bus.

How proven is the technology?

Running on SVO, and especially on UCO, brings with it a greater risk of engine damage than
just running on well-made biodiesel. The risks are not generally large and are easily managed
with careful consideration, high-quality engine conversion, and high-quality fuels. While a
large amount of anecdotal evidence suggests that, when done properly, SVO conversion is
safe and reliable, no formal long-term studies have been carried out on SVO or UCO usage
in a wide variety of engines.
As for some of the other solutions mentioned in this book, such as mixing your UCO
with thinners to lower the viscosity, you must consider these solutions to be at best
experiential. Even if in the end no damage occurs, you would have been wiser in the
first place to have assumed that you are likely to damage your engine. In addition, you
should also consider what exhaust products are produced when your chosen thinning agent
is burned.

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Chapter 12
Waste streams

We’re doing this to save the world right? So what good is it to spend time and effort trying
to produce an environmentally benign fuel for your vehicle, if when it comes to tidying
up, you tip chemicals down the drain, leave a trail of destruction, empty carboys, and
half-junked plumbing fittings in your wake. Biodiesel, if done properly, can help with
waste management, by reducing the amount of vegetable oil going to landfill – but if
done badly, you can pollute watercourses with toxic chemicals, clog up drains, overload
sewerage systems, and end up creating ecomayhem. We urge you to make biodiesel
responsibly, and keep the planet tidy.

Glycerol

This is the other half of the reaction when we make biodiesel, the by-product. Glycerol is the
raw ingredient for soap and all sorts of everyday household items, but unfortunately the stuff
we have made is at least 50% not glycerol at all, but a mixture of methanol and lye and soap
and water.
Strangely enough, your typical soap maker will not thank you for this smelly mixture. Soap
makers are used to getting their glycerol in a nice, pure, clear, odorless, and expensive form.
In order for our smelly glycerol to become the stuff the soap makers want, we need to distill
it several times under conditions that are just not achievable at home; we need to find other
uses for it.
It is very common to be unsure of what to do with the glycerol by-product and so you end
up stockpiling it to deal with when you have worked it out. Don’t forget it probably has quite
a lot of methanol in it and so any partly full containers of by-product will also be partly full
of methanol fumes and that is dangerous. It is probably better that you take it to a landfill
rather than accumulating too much of it, but this is a pity as well.

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Methanol is, as we know, poisonous to humans, and just about everything else too. Before
passing on your biodiesel by-product you must make sure it is methanol-free: Just because
we know how to handle the stuff, does not mean we should assume other people do too.
Some books suggest just leaving the by-product outside and the methanol will simply
evaporate, but this seems not to be very effective in practice, so you need to boil it off. You
can either boil off the methanol in a big cooking pot (well away from you and your house)
or you can recover the methanol in some sort of still (see Chapter 7 for more ideas on
making a methanol recovery still).
Your biodiesel by-product is a good degreaser on its own; it is good for cleaning up spills and
cleaning oily engines and paint brushes. You could turn it into perfectly usable, but funny-
looking and funny-smelling soap yourself by first removing the methanol and then looking
up soap-making recipes on the Internet. Though what you are going to do with this much
soap yourself is another thing, and you may have trouble giving it away to your friends
and family.
As we have repeatedly remarked, methanol is poisonous. However, certain critters love eating
biodiesel by-product: methanol-munching bacteria and glycerol-munching bacteria. The
simplest way to get them to do this is to simply compost the by-product; mixed with card or
paper or straw or woodchips, bacteria will break it down and make compost out of it. The
problem is that you may end up with a rather large compost heap. Also, some methane
digesters can take glycerol (but not methanol) and turn it into burnable gas.
Chemical purification is possible at home using acids; you can obtain up to about 90% pure
glycerol at home using this technique. Search the Internet for “acidulating glycerol” for infor-
mation on using hydrochloric or phosphoric acids.
Glycerol does burn, but if not done at a sufficiently high temperature it will produce
acrolein, a very nasty gas.

Soapy water
The water from your biodiesel washes should be reused as far as possible. The water from the
last wash is not very soapy and so can be used for the first wash of your next batch of
biodiesel. Ultimately, you will still have to get rid of it, however. It is primarily water, then
soap, and a bit of methanol and catalyst. Although this solution is not very hazardous, you
should not let it escape into the environment down storm drains or onto the ground. Many
home brewers put it into the sewerage, claiming that alcohol and lye and soapy water is no
more hazardous than vodka and drain cleaner and washing machine water. Methanol is
not vodka of course but there are bacteria in the sewer that love to eat it, and disposing of
your wash water in this way is not as nasty as a lot of the chemicals your typical Western
household routinely puts down the drain.

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 Waste streams

Methanol recovery is possible with your wash water but not worth the effort; most of your
leftover methanol is in the glycerol layer.
If you have space, a gray water system could be considered, such as gravel and reed beds, to
clean the water for you before disposal – see The Center for Alternative Technology (UK),
www.cat.org.uk, or the solar Living Institute, www.solarliving.org, for books and courses on this.

Oily empties

Carboys, metal cans, or whatever your SVO or WVO came in will start to pile up and
can become a major problem to get rid of. Even if the container is recyclable, the recyclers
usually don’t want to take them because they are all oily. Watch out for anything that used to
have methanol or glycerol by-product in it, as these may contain significant amounts of
methanol vapor in them. One way of disposing of oily containers is to simply landfill them,
which is a pity when they are recyclable. You will have to clean them before recycling them
that is not easy either.
Remember your three R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Reduce your need to dispose of the
containers by not collecting them at all. If you can’t do that, then reuse the containers next
time or find another use for them. If you can’t do, that, then recycle them … and landfill
them only as a last resort.

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Chapter 13
Health and safety

Boring–boring–boring, yawn … “Health and safety – Health and shmafety.” We can hear you
now … skip this section and get on with the good stuff? However, this is possibly the most
important section of the book!
Life is full of risks and a risk-free life would be a pretty dull one (ask an insurance salesman
what he does during the weekend?). However, most of us don’t like to expose ourselves, our
friends or pets or homes or the wider environment to unnecessary or extreme danger.
Biofuel production, and in particular biodiesel, is no exception. Although some of the
processes and materials are potentially very dangerous, if we are sensible, careful, and
thoughtful about what we are doing, the risks can be managed.
It is not about removing the risks – that is both impossible and impractical – but we can seek
to minimize them and implement simple control measures where possible to ensure that the
risk to ourselves and others is minimized.

Heavy things and manual handling

The construction of biodiesel processing equipment can involve the manipulation of some
large and bulky things: it’s easy to underestimate the weight of tanks, with only a little oil in
them, not to mention when they are full. Even a 5-gallon container full of oil could put your
back out if not lifted carefully.
Humans may consider themselves the most highly evolved creature going, but it was not so
long ago, in evolution terms, that we started walking about on two legs. It was a great
moment for us, as it freed up our hands to make biofuels, but our backs have not quite
caught up, they are still better suited to walking about on all fours and are easily damaged.
Ensure that you maintain a good posture when moving large items, and also that you are
capable of moving the item in question. Bend your legs, not your back, and don’t twist or
turn sharply.

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When lifting large or heavy objects, keep your feet facing straight and shoulders wide apart,
to give you a broad, stable base – this will ensure that you are less likely to slip.
Seek assistance from a friend, or consider using lifting equipment, such as a hoist or engine
crane, if you are not capable of lifting tanks yourself. Remember, there’s always another day
to move a tank, but you’re only going to get one spine, so don’t damage it in the pursuit of
green fuel.

Working with/under vehicles

If you decide to perform a vegetable oil conversion on your vehicle, you are going to require
access to part of your car that you just can’t reach easily. This may involve getting under your
vehicle or jacking your vehicle up. If you are going to jack your vehicle, ensure that you invest
in a proper set of axle stands, rated to support the weight of your vehicle. Piles of paving
slabs or bricks are not the solution; if they crack, the car will fall on you, and it will hurt like
hell if you’re lucky and kill you if you’re not. Ensure if you are just jacking the front or rear
of your vehicle that the other wheels are braked, and adequately supported with chocks to
prevent the vehicle from rolling. If you’re going to work in a confined space under your
vehicle, ensure that there is someone there to watch and ensure your safety. It’s always good
to have a buddy there when something goes wrong.
Ensure that you can slide in and out from under the vehicle easily. If your joints creak a bit
and shimmying yourself in and out is a bit of a chore, consider investing in a roller skid to
allow you to slide under your vehicle easily. It will raise your back off the floor, preventing
the cold garage floor from making it stiff, and will ensure that you can get in and out from
under the vehicle quickly.

Good housekeeping
Many accidents can be avoided by tidying up, ensuring a clean working environment, and
just general good housekeeping – a pile of oily rags can soon turn into a fire; loose tools
and sockets on the floor can soon turn into a slipping hazard, causing you to trip or fall.
Ensuring that you work in a tidy space will prevent a lot of accidents.

Biodiesel risks

Biodiesel production involves some nasty chemicals, but none of them need to be feared.
Simply treat them with respect: Methanol is flammable and poisonous; lye/catalyst is caustic.

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 Health and safety

Methanol has two forms that we need to worry about: It can be liquid or a vapor; both states
are poisonous and flammable. It is both colorless and odorless and, as a vapor, it is heavier
than air and will collect on the floor or in hollows. Most methanol accidents occur as a result
of carelessness or storage; be careful and thoughtful when handling it; try not to buy more
than you need; and try not to store it.

Poison

You don’t want to be getting methanol on your skin, in your eyes, or in your mouth, and you
don’t want to be breathing it in:

● Whenever handling it, wear sufficient clothing, long sleeves, long trousers, proper shoes,
an apron, gloves, and goggles.
● Remember, even expensive vapor masks offer no protection against methanol fumes.
● Always have adequate ventilation, active ventilation (fans and extractors) are preferable.
● Vent your reactor to outside your workspace.
● Don’t lean over any open containers.
● Don’t leave any containers open.

Flammable

Methanol burns with an almost invisible flame and, if in a confined space like a tank, is explosive:
● Never smoke anywhere near methanol.
● Try not to buy more methanol than you need; try not to store it.
● If you do have to store methanol, be very careful where you store it – not near your house
and not in the sun.
● Vapor will accumulate in “empty” containers, like your methoxide mixer or your reactor
or containers half full of your biodiesel’s by-product/glycerin.
● Sparks from electrical switches and motors will ignite fumes; don’t allow fumes to collect
and only use explosion-proof equipment.
If you get methanol or methoxide on your clothes, you will need to get the clothes off as
quickly as you can. However, pulling a methanol-soaked shirt over your head and face is not
a good idea: Cut it off instead. Wash any methanol spills with plenty of water.
Methoxide, methanol, and lye should be treated as a caustic burn and washed down with
copious amounts of water for at least 1 hour; see the caustic burns section below.

Fire

Obviously methanol is flammable! The fact that it becomes a vapor at a relatively low
temperature means that you need to be especially careful with naked flames or other sources
of ignition around methanol.

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Oil, especially hot oil, is flammable. We’ve all seen the videos of chip-pan fires, and the
damage that they can cause – remember in our biodiesel processing operations, we are using
a considerably greater quantity of oil than is found in a conventional chip pan. Make sure
you are familiar with the correct methods of putting out different types of fire. Make sure
that there is a selection of fire extinguishers around, and that you are familiar with the
different types of extinguisher: Know which one to select, depending on the type of fire, and
know how to operate them in an emergency. Ensure that you also have some buckets of sand
and a fire blanket around – all are necessary if the proverbial hits the fan.
Rags soaked in oils can spontaneously combust; it is rare, but it does happen. Don’t leave
them lying around. Ensure that you dispose of any soiled or oily rags correctly and store
them away from sources of heat and ignition.

Fire extinguishers are a good thing to have about: Foam or water ones are not very useful
to you; use CO2 or powder ones. Keep one by the door, so it is accessible when you’re arriv-
ing or leaving the building, and don’t use it as a door stop, which is illegal in a lot of places!
A Class F-type fire extinguisher for dealing with wet chemical fires is the best one to have
around for homebrew biodiesel. This fire extinguisher uses a heavy alkaline solution to
“saponify” the oil (turn it into soap!) Make sure you use an extinguisher designed for
Class F fires. Other fire extinguishers not designed for oil fires will tend to just spread the
oil around and make the problem worse.

Practical safety hints for biodiesel production

On a practical note, there are a lot of things you can do when making your biodiesel to keep
risks to a minimum and ensure that if things do go wrong, you’ve got the correct gear around
to help you sort out the problem.
Some tips:

● Always have eyewash and running water available.

● Don’t use plastic reactors.
● Deal with leaks promptly. They are a fire hazard, and a slip hazard, and may be a sign the
equipment is failing.
● Don’t use blenders to make test batches; despite what it says in some books, they are not
designed to cope with the chemicals and don’t have spark-proof motors.
● Watch out for plastics in your reactor degrading, especially any hoses. They tend not to
be chemical resistant and may spring a leak, possibly spraying you with hot oil and
methoxide. Try not to use plastic hoses; replace with metal if you can, and if you do use
them, then replace them before they become discolored and hard.

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● Biodiesel or waste oil itself is not very hazardous, not very flammable, and not very
poisonous. Nevertheless, it is not a good idea to drink it and you should be careful where you
store it and what you store it in and make sure it does not escape into the environment.

The Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial has excellent healthy and safety information about
making biodiesel, especially with regard to the Appleseed and similar reactors:
www.biodieselcommunity.org/safety/

Electrical safety

You will be connecting pumps and heaters to a mains electrical supply. When mains
electricity mixes with fluids and people, the results are seldom a laughing matter, so it is
important to make sure that you are competent to perform the wiring that you are going to
take, and if you do not feel confident you seek appropriate assistance.
It is important that the fixtures and fittings that you are using to wire the motors and heaters
of your biodiesel processor are correctly rated for the task in hand. Immersion heaters draw
a large current, so it is important that you use the correctly sized wires to connect them up,
else the cables will overheat and you are at risk of creating a fire hazard.
Also, you need to ensure that all of the fixtures that you are using are “ingress protected,”
also known as “IP sealed.” Ingress protected fixtures are ones that are designed with special
grommets, gaskets, and seals to prevent the ingress of solid matter (dust and chemicals)
or moisture from fluids. Where a cable enters or exits the enclosure, suitable hardware is
provided to ensure that a watertight seal is created.

When working with mains voltage, it is sensible to use a circuit breaker rather than an
“old school” fuse. Circuit breakers react faster to a faulty condition. When a fault is
created, the chances are the current will return to earth through you, or if you’re unlucky
the kids or pets. In this situation, fractions of a second are vital. A miniature circuit
breaker (MCB) will react quickly, protecting people, pets, and property, whereas a fuse
will take a longer time to blow or may not blow at all.
There are different types of circuit breakers, that serve different functions. An MCB
operates on the principle of overcurrent – once a certain current has been exceeded, the
breaker will trip – whereas an RCD – a residual current device – operates on a slightly dif-
ferent principle, monitoring the live and neutral (or hot and ground) to see if any current
is going “missing” while traveling round the circuit. If the RCD senses more current going
“in than out,” then it will trip – this is what happens when an earth fault arises.
It is best to have both kinds of protection on the circuit you use to power you biodiesel
reactors. Overcurrent will protect against short circuits, whereas RCDs will protect
against any live component making a circuit to earth, which may well be via you.

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Slippery oils

Oil is slippery stuff. Oil on the floor can cause you to slip over, whereas oil on your hand or
on a container can cause you to lose grip of it. Making biodiesel and processing waste oils is
going to be a messy occupation and it is essential that you clear up after yourself by soaking
up any spills with rags or sawdust or even special oil-absorbing granules.

Heat
Whether just dewatering waste oil or making biodiesel, heat is usually required. Making
biofuels we often end up heating large quantities of oil to around 50∞C (122∞F), maybe more,
and care needs to be taken to avoid burns and scalds and fires.

● Never ever (ever!) use a flame to heat your oil; electrical heaters controlled by a thermo-
stat or an indirect heating method must always be used.
● Never leave your oil while the heater is on, even just for a moment.
● Have a fire extinguisher handy, and make sure it is the right type; water is no good for
oil fires.
● Have running water available in case of burns and scalds.

Chemical burns

Lye, NaOH, or KOH is nasty stuff; it is caustic, which means that it burns. It will take mois-
ture from around it, from your skin or from the air, and will do you some nasty damage.
What is more, you may not feel it as it kills the nerves as it goes; some of the nastiest caustic
burns are on the feet where the person thought the problem had gone away and could not
see the damage as it continued inside their shoes.

Vinegar is not effective against caustic burns. The idea that it is stems from the theory that
one needs to neutralize the alkali, the lye, with an acid, the vinegar; but vinegar is a very
weak acid and lye a very strong alkali. The correct treatment for alkali/lye burns is to flush
the area with copious amounts of water, see below.

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Preventing caustic burns

Prevention is always better than cure, right! Keep caustic chemicals out of harms way; keep
them in a locked cabinet if necessary. Wear protective clothing whenever handling lye or
methoxide: always use your goggles and your chemical-proof gloves, proper shoes (no
sandals, hippie), a dust mask, long sleeves, long trousers, maybe an apron.

Treating caustic burns

The first thing when tackling any emergency is not to become a victim yourself. Before
helping someone else, put on adequate protective clothing yourself.
If you have spilled lye on your shirt, don’t pull it over your head; cut the shirt off, otherwise
you could transfer caustic chemicals to your face or eyes, making things much worse.

● Flush the affected area with copious running water for at least an hour and seek
medical attention.
● If the eyes have been affected, continue irrigating the eyes until medical help arrives.
● Do not use vinegar (see above).
● Do not apply any ointments to the burn area.

Graham Laming’s page on caustic burns is excellent and thoroughly explains why vinegar is
not a good treatment for caustic burns: www.graham-laming.com/bd/first_aid_caustic_
burn.htm

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Chapter 14
Biofuel ethics

Introduction

Biodiesel is a subject that currently polarizes the renewable energy community; some hate it
while others love it. Initially viewed as a “magic bullet” solution to overcome the problems
with the carbon emissions from fossil fuels, the tide has quickly turned against biofuels as a
sustainable solution.
There are good arguments on both sides of the fence, but at a time where we desperately
need solutions to the impending crisis we face, brought about by resource scarcity and climate
change, there are tough questions to be asked about whether it is appropriate to look to tech-
nologies to provide mobility, which compromise our collective ability to feed ourselves.

The carbon cycle – the bike with the wonky chain

We explored briefly in Chapter 1 the fact that the “carbon cycle” with biofuel production isn’t
perfectly circular as some would like you to believe; but instead has inputs of additional
carbon at every stage of the supply chain. It is often hard to quantify the “carbon content” of
biofuel; you have to know the carbon intensity of the processes used to grow, harvest, and
process the crops, and to produce pesticides and agricultural chemicals used at each stage of
the process.
The main thing to remember, is that the more “inputs” to the process that you can remove,
the less carbon you are inputting into the process. However, this can have consequences too.
If for example, you manufacture your crop organically you will be omitting or reducing
inputs of agrichemicals, but the result of this is that farming to produce the same amount
of yield may require an increase in work and labor. If you are making your biofuel from
something that would otherwise be disposed of as waste, such as used cooking oil, then
you are reducing the burden on “waste sinks,” the embodied carbon in the used oil would
otherwise be wasted.

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Interdependence, not independence

Many sources have cited how biofuels are great for national “fuel security” by reducing
dependence on other nations for oil. While they can help the problem, at our present levels
of fuel consumption we cannot hope to produce enough biofuels using current generation
technologies, even if we diverted all our agricultural resources into producing biofuels – as
we would then have to find some other way of feeding ourselves, presumably trading “fuel
security” for “food insecurity.”
In a globalized world where your clothes are made in Italy, your TV made in Japan, your food
grown in South America, and your trainers made in Africa, we need to accept the reality that
with globalization, we are more dependent on each other than ever before, and that notions
of “energy independence” are a little misleading.

Can we grow enough biofuels?

In short, no. There is not enough global land area for us to grow enough biofuels to meet
our present volume of fuel consumption. Ultimately, this means that in the long term we
need to look for solutions above and beyond what liquid hydrocarbon fuels provide for us.
There is some possibility that biofuels can help ease the transition as oil supplies dwindle
and we develop alternatives; however, in the long run biofuels are not going to power us into
the future. They are, at best, part of a stop-gap solution while we ease our dependence on
fossil fuels.

 Figure 14.1
Oilseed rape crop. Courtesy: CNH UK Ltd.

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 Biofuel ethics

However, current methods of producing biofuels, known as “first-generation biofuels,” could

be superseded by new improved methods of production, second- and third-generation,
which have the potential to produce far greater yields of fuel.

Biofuels, global warming, and big business

For a long time we thought that biofuel production was going to produce less net carbon
emissions than burning the equivalent fossil fuel, but it turns out that this was both optimistic
and naive.
One of the big problems with the hasty growth of the biofuels sector, driven by the high
value of biofuels crops, is that unscrupulous companies are clear-felling large areas of
tropical rainforest in order to grow oil crops like the oil palm, partly to supply us with
biofuels. In September 2005, Friends of the Earth published a report into the impacts
of palm oil production. “Between 1985 and 2000 º the development of oil-palm plantations
was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia.” 1 In Sumatra,
Borneo, Malaysia, and Indonesia tens-of-millions of hectares of forest have been converted
to palm farms and thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands,
as George Monbiot points out “The entire region is being turned into a gigantic vegetable
oil field.” 2
It is not just lost rainforest, its species and its people who are suffering; deforestation
accounts for 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions,3 the loss of biodiversity and the loss of
some of the world’s most valuable carbon-sinks is very bad news for the environment; it is
no exaggeration to say that this method of biofuel production is actually worsening
the effects of global warming and climate change, all in order to produce biofuels that well-
meaning consumers buy at the pump thinking they are doing the good thing by choosing a
“sustainable alternative.”

Food vs fuel
If we accept that there is a finite amount of land dedicated to agriculture, and we do not
encroach on virgin habitats or environmentally sensitive areas, then we are faced with a stark
choice of food vs fuel. Even if we start devoting a proportion of agricultural production to
energy crop and biofuel production, we are competing with food production and causing
the price of food to rise.
While rich Western consumers are cushioned from this price increase by their affluent
lifestyles and high wages (the average Westerner spends around 16% of their income on
food), the hardest hit are the poorest, where prices of basic food commodities increasing by
only a small margin can mean life or death to those living on less than a dollar a day.

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Professor John Beddington, the UK government’s chief scientist, has called food shortage as
a result of biodiesel production the “elephant in the room”4 and seriously questioned both
the ability to produce any meaningful amount of fuel using this technology and the British
Government’s current stance on biofuels.
It’s not just the land that biofuels compete for, it is also agricultural subsidies, fertilizers,
and agricultural chemicals (which are usually made from fossil fuels anyway); investment,
infrastructure, water, and labor are also put under increased strain.
However, some argue that this is an oversimplification and that we need to view the world
food situation in the context of the ever-growing demand for food to provide feed for
animals and to meet the growing demand for meat in countries like India and China, which
in turn is also driving the surge in prices of arable crops. Furthermore, the rising price of
crude oil is impacting both the cost of production of food, and price of transporting it.
In the context of a world where 854 million people have insufficient food to eat5 the
enormity of the problem cannot be underestimated, rising population will necessitate a 50%
increase in food production by 2030,6 we must not allow our desire for fuel to come before
others’ need for food.

Biofuel from waste oils

As we have seen, biodiesel can be produced from waste vegetable oils from the food industry.
Fast food and other catering outlets provide used “grease,” which up until recently has been
used in the manufacture of animal feed. However, since BSE (mad cow disease), used cook-
ing oils have been banned from use in the production of feed, this changed the “grease” from
a valuable resource into a waste product, which had to be disposed of by land-fill.
Unfortunately, there are limits to the quantities of used oil available, the British Association
for Biofuels and Oils state that biofuels produced from used oils could only meet 1/380th of
the diesel fuel requirements in the UK.

Biofuel from agricultural waste

Second-generation biofuels, production of fuel from lignocelluloses (the woody part of the
cell walls of plants), has the potential to produce more than twice as much fuel as is currently
being produced from the waste products of the agri-food industry. Where grain might be
used for making flour, the stems and the chaff could be processed to produce liquid hydro-
carbon fuels. Furthermore, the overall impact of producing the fuel is vastly reduced, as it is
making use of the waste products from the production process, rather than the “prime” food
component of the crop.

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 Biofuel ethics

Fuel from algae

Often called “third-generation biofuels,” algaeculture can produce vastly more biofuel
per hectare than conventional crops. The technology is still in its infancy but, despite a few
worries, appears to have great potential, with dozens of new companies currently promising
great things; see the Epilogue for more on this.

Other alternative transport technologies

When considering the optimum technology to deliver our (auto)mobility needs, we need
to consider the amount of energy that we can produce from any given land area. Biofuel pro-
duction from conventional methods results in a meagre production of energy and a small
number of “miles driven” produced from any given land area. Technologies such as wind
power coupled with electric vehicles and a variety of solar technologies have the potential to
deliver a much greater return of miles for any given land area.

Biodiesel (Soybean)

Biodiesel (Canola/Rape)

Ethanol (Corn)

Biodiesel (Palm oil)

Ethanol (Switchgrass)

Biodiesel (Algae)

Wind

Solar concentrating

Solar photovoltaics

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Miles driven / Acre per year (000’s miles)

 Figure 14.2
Comparison of some alternative transport technologies by acres/mile.

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One criticism often levied at alternative vehicle technologies is that they cannot produce the
same “range” of travel as internal combustion engine vehicles that use liquid hydrocarbon
fuels. At present, to some extent, this is true; the range of even the best electric vehicle is sig-
nificantly less than that of even a modest gasoline or diesel vehicle. However, when we
compare our needs with our expectations, we find that for the average driver alternative
vehicles can meet the needs of most of our everyday journeys.
Part of the problem is societal, we have come to expect that a single vehicle will meet all of
our transport needs; however, if we consider using one vehicle for our day-to-day driving,
and then, for example, renting a truck when furniture needs moving, walking or cycling
short distances, travelling long-distance by public modes of transport, or renting a tradi-
tional long-range vehicle when special needs occur; then we can overcome the majority of
these problems. The solution here is not a more efficient fuel technology but a more efficient
way of thinking!

100

90

80

70 80% of drivers
drive under
% of Drivers

60 50 miles/day
50

40 Half of drivers
drive under
30 25 miles/day
20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160
Miles/day

Data source: US dept. of transportation,

Fed. highway admin.
Nationwide personal transportation survey

 Figure 14.3
Miles/day vs percentile of drivers.

Conclusions

As a transitional technology away from fossil fuels, biofuels offer limited potential to
produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels for applications where a transition to other technologies

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 Biofuel ethics

is not yet possible. However, large-scale production of biofuels is already having, and will
continue to cause, enormous impacts affecting issues of food supply, equity, deforestation,
and climate change.
There are strong arguments in favor of making biofuels from waste oil but there is also an
irony in that in doing so we stimulate interest in biofuels and so create a demand for them.
This in turn creates a new market for big business to exploit, and business is of course moti-
vated by profit. Big business will find, indeed already is finding, cheaper, less ethical, supplies
of the materials it needs.
While the arguments currently raging in the media are somewhat oversimplified, and to
some degree biofuels are being made a scapegoat for the increase in world food prices (which
are influenced by a much more complex combination of factors), first-generation biofuels
are no panacea for global warming, climate change, or the rising cost of fuel. Second- and
third-generation biofuels may hold some hope, and in the Epilogue you can read about some
future directions for biofuel.

References

1. “Friends of the Earth.” The oil for ape scandal: How palm oil is threatening orangutan
survival. Research report, September 2005. www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/oil_for_ape_
full.pdf
2. Monbiot, G. “Worse than fossil fuel.” Guardian, December 6, 2005. Accessed online:
www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/06/worse-than-fossil-fuel/
3. Rainforest Action Network. Call for an Immediate moratorium on US incentives for
agrofuels, US agroenergy monocultures and global trade in agrofuels. Accessed online:
ga3.org/campaign/agrofuelsmoratorium
4. Smith, L., Elliott, F. “Biofuels threaten ‘billions of lives.’ ” The Australian, 2008.
5. WFP (World Food Programme). “FAO & the state of food insecurity.” Accessed online:
www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/facts/hunger_facts.asp.
6. Smith, K., Edwards, R. “The year of global food crisis.” Sunday Herald, 2008.

Further reading

Adam, D. “To bio or not to bio – are ‘green’ fuels really good for the earth?,” The Guardian,
Saturday, January 26, 2008.
AFP. WFP chief warns EU about biofuels, 2008.

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“British Association for Biofuels and Oils.” Memorandum to the Royal Commission on
Environmental Pollution. Accessed online: www.biodiesel.co.uk/press_release/royal_
commission_on_environment.htm.
“Greenpeace.” A bad day for the climate as biofuel legislation kicks in. Accessed online:
www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/biofuels.
Neal-Stewart, C. Jr. To the editor: “Biofuels & biocontainment.” Nature Biotechnology,
2007; 25(3).
Marvey, B. B. “Fats & oils: why all the fuss?.” Science in Africa, 2002.
Monbiot, G. “Feeding cars not people,” Guardian, November 22, 2004. Accessed online:
www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/.
“Union of Concerned Scientists.” Biodiesel basics. Accessed online: www.ucsusa.org/clean_
vehicles/big_rig_cleanup/biodiesel.html.
WFP (World Food Programme). “Food as aid: trends, needs and challenges in the 21st
century.” Accessed online: www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/facts/hunger_facts.asp.

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Chapter 15
Biodiesel and vegetable oil are not
just for cars!

Introduction

Diesel engines are ubiquitous in many applications, cars, trucks, buses, and commercial
vehicles, all of which make use of the diesel engine’s high torque and superb reliability. We’re
going to explore some different applications where biodiesel or SVO can be successfully
employed.
There are lots of things we “can” do, but not all of them are desirable. In a post-oil society,
liquid hydrocarbon fuels will be very scarce. In Chapter 14 we explored why we can’t
produce enough biofuels to meet all our transport needs.
Some vehicle applications will benefit from Battery electric vehicle and fuel cell technologies,
reducing the need for liquid hydrocarbons; however, in applications such as aviation, for
example, the unique energy-dense properties of the fuels we have grown used to makes them
hard to replace. It is hard to envisage an airliner powered by batteries because of fundamental
limitations of the technologies – they are just too heavy.
What comes out of this is the realization that we have a “hierarchy of energy needs;”
some applications can be met by a wide range of fuels, whereas others require an energy
source that fits a specific set of criteria.
At the other end of the scale, we can make heat relatively easily from burning wood and solid
fuel, so generating “heat” from burning biodiesel is a waste of a scarce fuel for a specialized
application.
We all have different worldviews regarding what is important to us to maintain an appropriate
standard of living. We need to reconcile our needs against our wants, and find suitable
technologies for suitable applications, if we are to develop lasting solutions that will take us
beyond the end of oil.

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Motorbikes

EcoRider supplies off-road diesel motorbikes, which obviously can be run on biodiesel too.
Made in Scotland, they have a tiny 230 cc diesel engine, 10-inch wide tires – and can travel
at up to 25 mph. Such a small compact solution is very frugal with the amount of fuel it
uses – reducing the amount of fuel needed in the first place.
www.ecorider.com
Royal Enfield of India produces the classic British motorbike but sadly it no longer produces
the diesel version. Hayes Diversified Technologies produce the M1030M1, the world’s first
diesel-powered motorcycle designed specifically for military use. And there are others too,
some made in the Ukraine, some still in development. The following websites have more
information on diesel-powered motorbikes:
www.journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_bikes.html
www.dieselbike.net

Boats

New Zealander Pete Bethune circumnavigated the globe in his 78-foot Earthrace
trimaran. The boat, designed by Craig Loome Design, uses two 540 hp Cummins diesel
engines fueled by biofuel produced from a range of feedstocks. Pete decided to show that
biodiesel could be produced from a versatile range of feedstocks by having a pound of fat
removed from his own backside and used in his vehicle fuel. The boat aimed to usurp the
British Boat “Cable and Wireless” from its record-breaking time; however, the team ran into
a number of difficulties and had to abandon the record attempt.

Airplanes

The emissions from the aviation sector globally are one of the faster growing areas of CO2
emissions and, unless you never fly anywhere, almost certainly form the greatest proportion
of your climate-changing-gas emissions. To put this another way, the chances are that cut-
ting out flying altogether is, for most people, both an incredibly effective and a very simple
method of massively reducing your carbon footprint.
Green Flight International started by conducting tests on blends of aviation fuel and
biodiesel, eventually working up to blends of 100% biodiesel fuel in their jet aircraft. They
proved successfully that biodiesel is good to go at 17,000 feet. In terms of performance, the
biodiesel was found to perform as well as traditional aviation fuel.
Green Flight International
www.greenflightinternational.com/

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 Biodiesel and vegetable oil are not just for cars!

A Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet also proved that biofuel could work in commercial-size jets, when
Virgin flew a 747 jumbo jet, with one of the jet engines connected to an exclusive biofuel feed,
contributing 20% of the engine’s power. The fuel used was made from a combination of
coconut oils and oil from the babusso nut from Brazil. There are concerns that biofuels are more
likely to freeze at high altitudes.

Portable generators

If you are trying to live an off-grid lifestyle, the chances are you have considered an array of
renewables options for your land. For places where the grid is inaccessible, an off-grid setup
of renewable devices – microwind, microhydro, and solar power – can meet many modest
electricity needs. Battery back-up is a good way to ensure that energy you generate in times
of plenty can be saved for times when the sun is hidden behind the clouds and the wind is
still; however, there will always be times when you need to run a bigger load, or need some
supplementary power. A biodiesel or SVO conversion fired generator provides a perfect
solution for back-up power.

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Chapter 16
Epilogue

In this book, we’ve attempted to cover the current state-of-the art for the “home” biodiesel
producer or SVO converter. If we look to the past couple of years of hobbyist biodiesel
production as any sort of indication for the future, one thing is clear: As time goes on,
hobbyists have become more professional, and improved their processes. In the very early
days it was all open tanks and simple devices; now more sophisticated home reactor designs
are evolving, more sophisticated control processes, and the hobby itself is moving forward as
we collectively learn and share information.
There are some interesting directions for commercial biodiesel that could yield more
sustainable ways of making fuel from biological matter; however, it is unclear at the moment
as to whether any of these processes will be in the reach of the home hobbyist. Things that
sound crazy today may very well start to look viable as the price of oil begins to soar.

The kids from NERD?

Next-generation biofuels are set to deliver fuels that can produce greater yields of biodiesel
per hectare, and potentially offer a more sustainable alternative to the present methods used
for making biofuel (FAME). Where FAME stands for fatty acid methyl esters (for an explanation
of this acronym, see Chapter 5), NERD stands for non ester renewable diesel. If you’ve read
the stuff in Chapter 5, you will know that esters are the bedrock of homebrew biodiesel, so
second-generation biodiesels will employ fundamentally different technology.
The industry is currently struggling to get to grips with next-generation biofuel technologies.
There are still challenges ahead; however, the technology shows a lot of promise. The first
NERD refinery was opened by Neste Oil in Porvoo, Finland, in summer 2007.

Algae

For some time, biofuel produced from algae has been seen as something that is on the
horizon; however, a number of companies have made significant inroads to commercializing

211
Chapter 16

this technology. Petrosun switched their plant over to commercial operation on April 1, 2007,
with over 1100 acres of open ponds. In Texas it is a cheap method of producing algae; however,
open ponds afford less control over how the aquatic ecosystem develops. Meanwhile Green
Fuel Technologies have announced that they are ready to build a commercial-scale plant.
PetroSun: www.petrosuninc.com
Green Fuel Technologies: www.greenfuelonline.com
Algael biodiesel offers a number of exciting opportunities. First, algae is very cheap to grow:
It just multiplies in water with little encouragement, and is a very efficient means of coverting
solar power into “energy.” Unlike expensive “engineered” solutions to automobility, like solar
photovoltaics powering advanced electric cars, algael biodiesel has the possibility of being a
very cheap means of providing transport fuel, using relatively basic technology.
There is also the possibiliy of using algae to capture carbon dioxide from existing power
plants, as algae takes in carbon dioxide for its growth. Sure this CO2 gets released straight
back into the atmosphere when the fuel is burned, but the ability to capture it makes the
process of growing algae more efficient and sequesters the carbon (albeit very temporarily)
before it is released back into the atmosphere.
However, aquaculture does not differ from agriculture when we look at the impacts of
large-scale monoculture cultivation.

Nanotechnology in the production of biodiesel

Nanotechnology is a word that is firmly rooted in the futurologist’s lexicon. By engineering

on a small scale, we can make much more efficient use of materials and do things with
less energy (which is good for efficiency, and good for the environmental impact of our
processes).
Victor Lin from Iowa State University, is hoping to revolutionize biodiesel production, by
using nanotechnology to make the process more efficient and less environmentally damaging.
Victor has chosen to focus on the catalysts used in the process of making biodiesel, rather
than using the simple lye (base/alkaline) catalyst that we focus on in this book (which is the
current industry-standard method); Victor plans to use “nanospheres.”
If you look back to Chapters 5 and 6, you’ll see that free fatty acids (FFAs) are a big problem
in biodiesel production. Victor’s nanospheres are loaded with a basic catalyst, which
performs the same function as the lye in our simple reaction, and acidic catalysts to react
with the FFAs.
This takes methoxide out of the equation entirely, and removes a number of processes from
biodiesel production, potentially making the process more efficient. It also makes handling
the catalyst much easier, as the nanospheres are solid, meaning that the catalyst can be easily
recovered from the solution.

212
 Epilogue

The process also results in cleaner, more uniforn output products, with better-quality
glycerol as a by-product, and better-quality biodiesel.
The technology currently works in the lab, and with investment from venture capital, Victor
hopes to scale up the process to 300 gallons per day.

Final remarks

Our hope for the future of biodiesel and renewable fuels is that the debate and argument
around them grows in sophistication. It’s not black and white, and in a world that is facing
dwindling reserves of oil, it is far too early to throw any sustainable technologies out of the
pram and discount them.
Biodiesel is one of a range of solutions that need to be considered: Each has its pros and
cons, and each technology will reach maturity at a different time. To stabilize the level of
atmospheric carbon dioxide and work within the constraints of resource limitations, it is
clear that there is going to be a need for a lot of innovative thinking and room for a range of
solutions in the years ahead.
Technology will undoubtedly advance, and the hobbyist community, as ever, shows its
amazing adaptability to change, innovative thinking, and collective creating problem
community. What differentiates hobbyists from big business is that, by-and-large, hobbyists
are motivated by trying to do the right thing, and achieving concrete change, through
small steps. It’s the people (the names in the Acknowledgments are a good place to start)
who advance the state of the hobby step by step that make the biodiesel community
really special.
It’s an exciting journey, but recapping our thoughts in Chapter 1, it’s not where you’re
going, or what route you take, but the sustainability of the fuel you put in your tank to get
you there.

213
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Appendix

Abbreviations and acronyms

B5 a mixture of 5% biodiesel and HC hydrocarbons
95% petrodiesel
MeOH methoxide (an abbreviation –
B20 a mixture of 20% biodiesel NOT a proper chemical formula)
80% petrodiesel
MVO modified vegetable oil
B100 100% biodiesel (0% petrodiesel)
NOx various oxides of nitrogen
CNG compressed natural gas
OSR oil seed rape
CO carbon monoxide
PPC pollution prevention control
DERV diesel engine road vehicle; normal
RME rapeseed methyl ester
UK, duty/tax paid, road diesel fuel,
as opposed to “red diesel” SVO straight vegetable oil
DfT Department of Transport ULSD ultra low sulfur diesel
DOE Department of Energy UVO used vegetable oil
EPA Environmental Protection Agency WVO waste vegetable oil
FAME fatty acid methyl ester

Biodiesel courses and classes and workshops

In the UK, there are many courses to teach you how to make biodiesel; unfortunately,
most of them are thinly veiled promotional exercises designed to teach you how to use their
product. Below are a few we recommend:

Courses in North America

Maria “Girl Mark” Alovert’s excellent courses
www.girlmark.com
Solar Living Institute, Hopland, CA
www.solarliving.org/workshops/

215
Appendix

Courses in Europe

The Centre for Alternative Technology runs biodiesel and SVO courses:
Convert your engine to vegetable oil (3 days)
Make your own biodiesel (3 days)
www.cat.org.uk/courses/
Low-Impact Living Initiative
www.lowimpact.org

Sundance Renewables
A worker-owned not-for-profit cooperative in South Wales that does an excellent course for
groups entitled “Biodiesel Production as a Community Enterprise” for those wanting to set
up their own plant:
www.sundancerenewables.org.uk/biodp/training%20course.htm

Warranty statements from engine/vehicle manufacturers

If you are interested in converting or running your vehicle on biodiesel, it is wise to have a
look at your vehicle manufacturer’s warranty statement first of all. Here, we provide web
links to vehicle manufacturers’ warranty statements concerning the use of biodiesel in their
vehicles and engines.
Be aware that the manufacturers listed will be warranting their engines for use with
commercial-quality biodiesel, produced and tested to exacting standards. The biodiesel that
you produce at home is unlikely to conform to these standards, so any concession on the
warranty should serve as an “indicator” as to the suitability of your engine for use with
biodiesel, not a guarantee that the manufacturer will pick up the pieces if all goes wrong.
Under US Federal law, the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act, your engine’s warranty cannot be
invalidated simply because of the use of biodiesel, even if the manufacturer does not
recommend its use. That is to say that they cannot void the warranty simply because you
used biodiesel; they have to prove that any problem is down to the fuel, whether that be
biodiesel or anything else, at which point it becomes the responsibility of the fuel supplier.
If any problem is down to faulty parts or bad workmanship then they must honor the
warranty regardless of what fuel you have been using.

Case IH
● w w w. c a s e i h . c o m / h i g h l i g h t s / h i g h l i g h t s . a s p x ? & n av i d = 1 2 1 & R L = E N NA &
typeid=6471803&recordid=151
● www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/20060724_Case_IH.pdf

216
 Appendix

Caterpillar (CAT)
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2005_OEM_CatVersion9.pdf.

Cummins
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2004_OEM_cummins.pdf.

Detroit Diesel
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2005_DDC_Statement.pdf.

Ford
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2004_OEM_ford.pdf.

General Motors
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2004_OEM_gm.pdf.

International
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2005_May_OEM_International.pdf.

John Deere
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2004_OEM_john_deere.pdf.

Mercedes Benz
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/20060608_Mercedes_Benz_bio_
position.pdf.

New Holland
www.newhollandmediakit.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=newsreleases.DisplayNewsReleases&
NewsID=166.

UD Trucks/Nissan Diesel
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2006_Nissan.pdf.

Volkswagen
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2005_OEM_VW%20US%20Biodiesel_
Statement_5_16_05.pdf.

Volvo
www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/OEM%20Statements/2005_Volvo_Truck_Corporation.pdf.

217
Appendix

Biodiesel data sheet

BATCH DETAILS
Batch # Date: Water % Volume Feedstock Source
….. /….. /….. % L/Gal* …………………………………………
TRANSESTERIFICATION
In: ………………… L/Gal* Methanol In: ………………… kg/lb* KOH
Out: ………………… L/Gal* Glycerine
In: ………………… L/Gal* Methanol In: ………………… kg/lb* KOH
Out: ………………… L/Gal* Glycerine
In: ………………… L/Gal* Methanol In: ………………… kg/lb* KOH
Out: ………………… L/Gal* Glycerine
AGITATION / MIXING
Start: Time: …. …. : …. …. AM/PM Temperature: …………….. °C/°F
Finish: Time: …. …. : …. …. AM/PM Temperature: …………….. °C/°F
Start: Time: …. …. : …. …. AM/PM Temperature: …………….. °C/°F
Finish: Time: …. …. : …. …. AM/PM Temperature: …………….. °C/°F
DEHYDRATION
Start: Time: …. …. : …. …. AM/PM Date: ….. /….. /…..
Finish: Time: …. …. : …. …. AM/PM Date: ….. /….. /…..
Start: Water Content Before Dehydrator ………………… %
Finish: Water Content Before Dehydrator ………………… %
Start: % Atmospheric Humidity ………………… %
Finish: % Atmospheric Humidity ………………… %
Date In Finished Tank ….. /….. /…..
WATER WASH
Wash No. Wash Type Date Volume
Wash (1) Mist/Light Heavy Agitation/With Acid* ….. /….. /….. L/Gal*
Wash (2) Mist/Light Heavy Agitation/With Acid* ….. /….. /….. L/Gal*
Wash (3) Mist/Light Heavy Agitation/With Acid* ….. /….. /….. L/Gal*
Wash (4) Mist/Light Heavy Agitation/With Acid* ….. /….. /….. L/Gal*
*Delete As Applicable
OTHER OBSERVATIONS

Photocopyable Resource from 'Run Your Diesel Vehicle On Biofuels' - Mc Graw Hill, New York
© Jon Starbuck & Gavin D. J. Harper 2008

218
 Appendix

Biodiesel and tax

Different countries have different procedures for taxing biodiesel and for charging excise on
vegetable oils used as fuel. Ensure that you are familiar with the relevant legislation in your
locale, to ensure that you are up-to-date. The information contained below, is subject to
change: Check current rulings in your area; however, it serves as a guide to the procedures
for declaring biodiesel production in various countries at the time of print.

United States
If you live in the United States, and you want to produce biodiesel, you must register with
the IRS as a biodiesel producer using Form 637. Form 720 is then used to file a quarterly
return on all Biodiesel produced. These forms can be downloaded from www.irs.gov.

United Kingdom

Until 2007 the law in the UK with regard to biodiesel, vegetable oil, and tax (duty) was
confusing to say the least. One used to have to be registered as a fuel producer and return
monthly reports to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) declaring how much biofuels one “set
aside” (what constituted a “biofuel” and what constituted a “fuel substitute,” which has a
different rate of duty on it, was not at all clear) and enclose a check for the duty on it.
Now, so long as you don’t produce more than 2500 liters in any rolling 12-month period you
no longer need to do this. However, you are still required by law to keep a full and accurate
record of fuels put into your vehicle and the mileage at the time.
More information can be found on the HMRC website:
www.hmrc.gov.uk

Australia

In Australia, the leaflet that gives you up-to-date information on paying excise for fuel is
“Meeting Your Biodiesel Obligations NAT9885.” However, there is also a scheme in Australia, the
“cleaner fuel scheme,” which offsets the duty payable, so that effectively, no excise is paid.
This should operate until 2011, when it will be progressively phased out until 2015.
Information can be found in leaflet, “The Cleaner Fuels Grants Scheme NAT9886,” More
information can be found at: www.atogov.au/excise or you can call 1-300-657-162.

219
Appendix

Further reading

“How to make biodiesel.”

Dan M. Carter, Jon Halle
Low-Impact Living Initiative
2005
“Biodiesel homebrew guide.”
Maria “Girl Mark” Alovert
Local B100
localb100.com/book.html
“Biodiesel basics and beyond: a comprehensive guide to production and use for the home
and farm.”
William H. Kemp
Aztext Press
2006
“From the fryer to the fuel tank: the complete guide to using vegetable oil as an alternative
fuel.”
Joshua Tickell, Kaia Tickell, Kaia Roman
Tickell Energy Consultants
2000
“Biodiesel: growing a new energy economy,” 2d ed.
Greg Pahl
Chelsea Green Publishing
2008
“Do it yourself guide to biodiesel: your alternative fuel solution for saving money, reducing
oil dependency, and helping the planet.”
Guy Purcella
Ulysses Press
2007
“Biodiesel power: the passion, the people, and the politics of the next renewable fuel.”
Lyle Estill
New Society Publishers
2005
“Biodiesel America: how to achieve energy security, free America from Middle-East oil
dependence and make money growing fuel.”
Josh Tickell
Yorkshire Press
2006

220
Index
This page intentionally left blank
Page numbers for figures are given in bold

acetone, 170 biodiesel, making (Cont.)

acetylenes. See alkynes nanotechnology and, 212–213
acid, 52 quality testing process in, 81–83
adiabatic heating, 26 safety and, 47, 72, 191–197
agricultural waste, 202 sequence of steps for, 76
airplanes, biodiesel, 208–209 test batches, 77–80
alcohols, 57–58, 57, 58 two-stage acid/base process for, 88
algae, as biofuel source, 203, 211–212 two-stage base/base process for, 87–88
alkanes, 53–54, 53, 54 washing process in, 84–85 (see also standpipe
alkenes, 54–56, 55, 56 tank)
alkynes, 56, 56 waste from, 187–189
Alovert, Maria, 98 See also biodiesel, chemistry of; biodiesel
The Biodiesel Homebrew Guide, 91 reactor
Appleseed biodiesel reactor, 98–101, 99, 100, Biodiesel Homebrew Guide, The (Alovert),
101, 115 91, 102
biodiesel reactor
base/alkali, 52 Appleseed (US), 98–101, 99, 100, 101, 115
biodiesel designs for, 96–118, 97, 98
additives, 168 “Eco-System,” 104–106, 105
blends, 88–90, 167 hot water tank (UK), 103, 103–104, 104
chemistry of, 51– 69 materials for building, 95–97
emissions, 10, 11 pump, 101, 102
history of, 2 requirements for, 94–95
locating, 17, 88 See also biodiesel, making
making. See biodiesel, making bioethanol, 172 (see also biofuel)
production rates, 12 biofuel
reactor. See biodiesel reactor carbon cycle, 13–16, 14, 15, 199
vs SVO conversion, 181–185 crops for, 200–201
biodiesel, making, 87 definition of, 71
assessing WVO for, 75, 77 deforestation and, 201
chemicals for, 73–74 emissions from, 13
drying process in, 77, 86 (see also standpipe food production vs production of, 201–202
tank; vapor condenser) production of, 9–10, 172
emulsion breaking process in, 85–86 sources of, 10, 172, 201–203, 203, 211
filtering process in, 86 (see also fuel filters) See also biodiesel
glycerol by-product from. See glycerol biomass, 12, 12
methanol recovery process in. See methanol, bleeding, fuel system, 138–139
recovery boats, biodiesel, 208

223
Index

carboxylic acids. See fatty acids engine conversion (Cont.)

catalyst, 52 SVO viscosity issues, 120–124, 126–129
caustic burns. See chemical burns two-tank. See two-tank engine conversion
cetane number, 165 system
Chavanne, G., 2 esterification, 64–65, 65 (see also esters;
chemical burns, 72, 196–197 transesterification)
crude oil esters, 63, 64
fractional distillation and, 5, 7 ethanol, 57, 58
fractions of, 7, 7, 166, 173
price vs diesel price, 8 fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). See biodiesel
fatty acids, 58–59, 58, 59, 61
dewatering tank, 112, 114 polyunsaturated, 60, 60, 62
diesel saturated, 60–61, 60, 61, 62
automatic transmission fluid and, 170 unsaturated, 60, 60, 62
cost of, 5, 6, 8, 8 Ford, Henry, 10
demand for, 7 fossil fuels, 12, 13
emissions, 11 fractional distillation, 5–7, 7
engine. See diesel engine fuel filters, 124–126, 130, 156–157
engine oil and, 170 heaters for, 127, 127–128
grades of, 166 fuel injection systems, 32, 131
vs gasoline (petrol), 6, 7 common rail, 34, 130
vs vegetable oil, 16, 67, 120, 120–121 in-line injector pumps, 30–34, 33, 34
Diesel, Rudolf, 16, 19–23, 19 mechanical unit injectors, 34
diesel engine, 26 rotary injector pumps, 34
cycle, 28, 29 See also fuel injectors
efficiency modifications for, 40, 41, 42 fuel injectors, 35, 35, 36, 37, 37–38, 39 (see also
fuels. See biodiesel; diesel; straight vegetable oil fuel injection systems)
fuel system, 28–40, 31 fuel tanks, heated, 128, 128
glow plugs, 37–40, 40, 41
history of, 20–22, 23–24 gasoline
vs gasoline engine, 25–27 engine. See gasoline engine
diglycerides, 63 nondiesel alternatives to, 171–180
drying tank, 112, 114 vs diesel, 6, 7
gasoline engine
electric vehicles, 174–175. See also hybrid alternative power sources for, 171–174,
vehicles 176–177
Elsbett, 145 vs diesel engine, 25–27
single-tank conversion installation, 146, Girl Mark. See Alovert, Maria
146–153 glow plugs, 37–40, 40, 41
emissions, 2 glycerol, 69, 85
biodiesel, 10, 11 disposing of, 187–188
formation of, 3–4, 4 recovering methanol from layer of. See
emulsification, 52 methanol, recovery
energy sources, 12 (see also specific source) waste, 68–69, 78–79, 81, 111
engine conversion
fuel injections systems and, 129, 130 heat exchanger, 121, 121, 122
one-tank. See one-tank engine conversion constructing a, 123–124
system HHO technology, 169–170

224
 Index

Hubbert’s peak theory, 4 photosynthesis, 9, 9–10

human-powered vehicles, 180–181 Pogue, Charles, 171
hybrid vehicles, 176–177 (see also electric vehicles) Pogue’s carburetor, 171
hydrocarbon, 52–53 Pollak solenoid valves, 136, 136, 137
boiling points, 5 polyunsaturated fat. See fatty acids,
hydrogen polyunsaturated
fuel cell technology, 179 portable generators, biodiesel
internal combustion engine technology, 178 port helix pump, 30, 32–34, 33, 34
production of, 177 propane, 54, 54, 173
hydropower, 12
Racor filter, 126
kerosene, 166
safety issues, 47, 72, 191–197
Laming, Graham, 104–105, 197 saturated fat. See fatty acids, saturated
lift pumps, 131 settlement tank, 111–113, 112
Lin, Victor, 212–213 solenoid valve, 135
lipids, 59–63, 60 symbols, 132–133
amphipathic, 161 standpipe tank, 112–114, 112
liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), 173–174 straight vegetable oil (SVO)
lye, 72, 73 blends as diesel biofuel, 167
cold weather and, 126
magnets, 169 engine conversion considerations, 181,
methane, 53, 53 184–185
methanol, 57 viscosity of, 16, 120, 120
availability of, 74 See also SVO engine
recovery, 86–87, 106, 107, 110–111, 111 SVO. See straight vegetable oil
safety measures for working with, 72, 95, SVO engine
192–193 conversion considerations, 181, 184–185
methoxide mixers, 108, 110 WVO used in, 155–164
monoglycerides, 63
motorbikes, biodiesel, 208 titration, 47–49, 75, 156
transesterification, 66 (see also esterification)
NERD (non ester renewable diesel), 211 transport technologies, 203–204, 203
nuclear power, 12 triglycerides, 66–68, 66, 67, 68, 160–161
turbocharger, 37–40, 39
octane number, 167 2-ethylhexyl nitrate, 168
oil, consumption vs discoveries, 5 two-tank engine conversion system, 131
one-tank engine conversion system, 143 advantages of, 139
advantages of, 144 closed-loop, 134, 134–135
commercial kits for, 145 commercial kits for, 142–143
disadvantages of, 144 disadvantages of, 139
DIY kit for, 144–145 DIY kit for, 140
installation of Elsbett, 146, 146–153 open-loop, 133, 133
Otto cycle, 27, 28 switching system, 135–136, 137
ozone, 3
UCO (used cooking oil). See waste
petrol. See gasoline vegetable oil
photolysis, 3 unsaturated fat. See fatty acids, unsaturated

225
Index

vapor condenser, 106–107, 107 waste vegetable oil (Cont.)

vehicle emissions. See emissions assessing quality of, 43–44, 47–50
venturi, 104, 106, 107–108, 108 cold weather and, 164
viscosity dewatering, 163–164 (see also standpipe tank)
of diesel vs vegetable oil, 16, 67, 120, 120–121 filtering, 156–160
issues for SVO, 120–124, 126–129 free fatty acids in, 47, 156 (see also titration)
water in, 49–50, 75, 77, 156, 160–163
washing methods, 84–85 water-powered cars, 169–170
wash tank, 111–114, 112 white spirit, 167
waste vegetable oil (WVO) wood gas, 171–172
acquiring, 43–47, 202 WVO. See waste vegetable oil

226
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us have lost someone to it, we all want cures to be found.

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