DIY Biodiesel kit

There is a booming cottage industry of people making their own biodiesel from waste cooking oil. With the help of special equipment and the addition of a several chemicals, anyone can do it. Lower down this story we tell you exactly how to make it.

Remember – it only works in Diesel vehicles. The diesel was originally invented to run on peanut oil. But during the 1920s manufacturers, encouraged by the oil companies, altered their engines to use the lower viscosity of petrodiesel.

In the UK the cost is said to be only 15p ($0.27) a litre, compared to £1.30 ($2.45) a litre at the pumps. British tax rules state you can make up to 2,500 litres a year for personal use.

The exhaust smell can vary and depends on the type of oil. Some users say it gives off a ‘chip shop odour’.

The best biodiesel contains 80 to 90 per cent vegetable oil, 10 to 20 per cent alcohol and around 1 per cent is a ‘catalyst’.

‘The process takes a couple of days,’ said a spokeswoman for one company in York. ‘The alcohol provides the spark to make it go. Our biodiesel can be used to run any diesel engine. It is reliable and good quality and you don’t need to add anything, though some motorists prefer half cooking oil and half normal diesel in their cars.’

The company has to pay tax of 30.35p a litre, 20p less than for normal diesel. It has collected used cooking oil for 20 years and until recent years cleaned it up and sold it on for industrial use. Vans tour the region collecting used cooking oil from fish and chip shops, cafes, restaurants, hotels and schools. The oil is free as they are effectively providing a waste collection service to caterers.

Now it sells about 60,000 litres of biodiesel a month to motorists.

Back at the site, the oil is put into a large tank and filtered to remove bits of food.

Anybody can make biodiesel. It’s easy, you can make it in your kitchen — and it’s better fuel than the petro-diesel the oil companies sell you.

Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it’s much cleaner — better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it’s not only cheap but you’ll be recycling a troublesome waste product that too often ends up in sewers and landfills instead of being recycled.

Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment making your own fuel will give you.

Here’s how to do it — it’s NOT everything you need to know.You can find plenty of detail elsewhere online,such as http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_mike.html, from where this is extracted:

This is how to make your own biodiesel fuel from used cooking oil. The oil — waste vegetable oil (WVO), used fryer grease, animal fats, lard — is often free for the taking. All you need is a few common chemicals and some equipment you can easily buy or make yourself. The result is a cheap, clean-burning, non-toxic, renewable, high-quality diesel motor fuel you can use in your car without modifications.

CAUTION:
Wear proper protective gloves, apron, and eye protection and do not inhale any vapors. Methanol can cause blindness and death, and you don’t even have to drink it, it’s absorbed through the skin. Sodium hydroxide can cause severe burns and death. Together these two chemicals form sodium methoxide. This is an extremely caustic chemical. These are dangerous chemicals — treat them as such!

Mike makes front-page news in The Seattle Times, September 30, 2002: “Cooking oil can fuel the car after it helps feed the driver”
Always have a hose running when working with them. The workspace must be thoroughly ventilated. No children or pets allowed. See Safety for further information.
Making biodiesel
Ingredients

Mixture:
Waste vegetable oil (WVO) — used cooking oil, fryer grease, animal fats, lard
Methanol (CH3OH) — 99%+ pure
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH — caustic soda, lye) — must be dry

Titration:
Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) — 99%+ pure
Distilled water
Phenolphthalein solution (not more than a year old, kept protected from strong light) — “Phenol” or “Phenol Red” from swimming pool or hot tub supply stores may not be the same as phenolphthalein; it can be used but the directions for use may be different

Washing:
Vinegar
Water

See “Make fuel from used kitchen grease” by Mike Pelly in the Jan/Feb 2001 issue of Countryside Magazine.
Procedure

1. Filter WVO to remove any food scraps or solid particles.
2. Heat WVO to remove any water content (optional).
3. Perform titration to determine how much catalyst is needed.
4. Prepare sodium methoxide.
5. Heat WVO, mix in the sodium methoxide while stirring.
6. Allow to settle, remove the glycerine.
7. Wash and dry.
8. Check quality.

This procedure is called transesterification, similar to saponification. Sound familiar? Saponification is soap making. To make soap you take a transfatty acid or triglyceride (oil or kitchen grease) and blend it with a solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH, caustic soda or lye) and water. This reaction causes the ester chains to separate from the glycerine. These ester chains are what becomes the soap. They’re also called lipids. Their unique characteristic of being attracted to polar molecules such as water on one end and to non-polar molecules like oil on the other end is what makes them effective as soap.

In transesterification, lye and methanol are mixed to create sodium methoxide (Na+ CH3O-). When mixed in with the WVO this strong polar-bonded chemical breaks the transfatty acid into glycerine and also ester chains (biodiesel), along with some soap if you’re not careful (more on that later). The esters become methyl esters. They would be ethyl esters if reacted with booze (ethanol) instead of methanol.

Figures 1-3 show these two reactions. The zigzag lines in the triglyceride diagram (Figure 1) are shorthand for carbon chains. At both ends of each line segment is a carbon atom.

Figure 1

In Figures 2 and 3 these zigzags are shorthanded as R1, 2 and 3.

Figure 2

Figure 3
1. Filtering

Filter the WVO to remove food particles. You may have to warm it up a bit first to get it to run freely, 95 deg F (35 deg C) should be enough. Use a double layer of cheesecloth in a funnel, or a restaurant or canteen-type coffee filter.
2. Removing the water

Many people heat the WVO first to remove any water content. Waste oil will probably contain water, which can slow down the reaction and cause saponification (soap formation). The less water in the WVO the better.

Mike and Joe, an organic farmer who makes 40 gallons of biodiesel a week for the farm truck and tractor.
This is how they do it. Raise the temperature to 212 deg F (100 deg C), hold it there and allow any water to boil off. Use the mixer to avoid steam pockets forming below the oil and exploding, splashing hot oil out of the container. Or drain water puddles out from the bottom as they form — you can save any oil that comes out with the water later.

When boiling slows, raise the temperature to 265 deg F (130 deg C) for 10 minutes. Remove heat and allow to cool.

You may be lucky and find a regular source of WVO that doesn’t need to have the water boiled off, in which case don’t do it — boiling means extra energy and time. Personally I don’t boil off the water first, I’d rather avoid the extra step in the process and save the energy it uses. But unless you’re sure, it may be better to be on the safe side.
3. Titration

To determine the correct amount of lye required, a titration must be performed on the oil being transesterified. This is the most difficult step in the process, and the most critical — make your titration as accurate as possible.

IMPORTANT: The lye must be dry — keep it away from water, store it in an airtight container.