BioDiesel

[FatFreeMilk]

The Advantages of Biodiesel

Pure biodiesel is biodegradable, nontoxic and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics. It is a renewable resource, based on soybean and other oil crops that are grown anew each year. It is produced domestically, reducing this country's dependence on foreign oil. It requires no engine modifications or changes in the fuel handling and delivery systems. Some vehicle hoses may need to be changed. Biodiesel delivers similar torque, horsepower and miles per gallon.
Safer and Cleaner Fuel

Biodiesel offers fleet operators a safer, cleaner alternative to petroleum diesel. Biodiesel is made from renewable fats and oils, such as vegetable oils, through a simple refining process. Pacific Biodiesel produces biodiesel from used restaurant fryer oil. One of the main components for fryer oil are soybeans, a major crop produced by almost 400,000 farmers in 29 states.

Biodiesel is recognized as an alternative fuel. In its neat form and in blends of 20% or more with petroleum diesel, the US Department of Energy has acknowledged biodiesel as an alternative fuel. Biodiesel can be used for vehicle credits under the Energy Policy Act.

Biodiesel operates in conventional combustion-ignition engines, from light to heavy-duty, just like petroleum diesel. No engine modifications are required, and biodiesel maintains the payload capacity and range of diesel. Since engine modifications are not required, there's no need to change vehicles, spare parts inventories, refueling stations or specially skilled mechanics. Vehicle hoses need to be checked after the first 6 months of operation on biodiesel. Replacement of non-compatible hoses may be necessary, but is not usually difficult or expensive. Blends of 20% or less tend to have little effect on even non-compatible hoses.

Biodiesel cuts down on targeted emissions. Biodiesel used in a 20 percent blend with petroleum diesel and a catalytic converter will cut air pollution. Particulate matter is reduced 31 percent, carbon monoxide by 21 percent and total hydrocarbons by 47 percent. Biodiesel used in a blend will also reduce sulfur emissions and aromatics. Using 100% biodiesel further reduces emissions and carcinogenic compounds.

BioDiesel!
biodiesel tshirts! (sorry, US customers only)

Learn hot to make it from this thread

This is some cool shit, I don't know why more people don't use it.
Questions, Comments, Concerns?

[DaCuBaN]

It seems to be just an advancement on warming the engine and running it on peanut oil

Still, good stuff I guess. Pity you&#39;ll never persuade the american gas-guzzling culture to take it on <_<

[Vinny Rafarino]

This is nothing new. Cleaner burning fuels for combustible engines have been available for over 50 years.

[FatFreeMilk]

Well then why haven&#39;t they caught on?

[DaCuBaN]

Because at first glance they appear a false economy.. less power, although not much, less economy, although again not by much.

As for corporate attitudes, take the example of TFT and CRT monitors/televisions. The former is actually cheaper to manufacture than the latter, yet still they continue to make them. Basically they&#39;ve invested their money into the industry, and won&#39;t let go until the very last. The same can be said for the oil industry: I&#39;m sure all those refineries and wells cost an arm and a leg.

It&#39;s one of the few arguments to display that capitalism slows technological progress.

[Vinny Rafarino]

It&#39;s not a matter of "catching on", it&#39;s a matter of suppression. The petroleum industry creates too much surplus value for the ruling class to be discarded.

In a capitalism economic platform, it does not make fiscal sense to replace something until it no longer creates surplus value. Too many fat white cats (the very same that contribute the majority of funds to the political coffers) rely solely on this market to maintain their wealth.

Without them, politicians would have to actually rely on "substance" to get elected.

We all know how well that would go over.

[antieverything]

RAF pretty much said everything I was going to. The oil companies have been suppressing this shit for years. Did you know that there&#39;s such a thing as the lifetime lightbulb and has been for decades? Guess why they don&#39;t sell them&#33;

[Hate Is Art]

My mates car runs on vegetable oil&#33; (or something like that) That are enviro-nut-jobs&#33;

[Sabocat]

I just read an article, where an Audi A2 achieved 95.3 mpg on bio diesel. The car, which is a turbo charged, injected 1.4 litre diesel normally gets about 70 mpg.

The other question other than why aren&#39;t we using bio-diesel, is why aren&#39;t cars like the Audi A2, and the Smart Car (about 54 mpg on gasoline) not being brought into the U.S.? I think Comrade RAF outlined the reasons succinctly.

Can you imagine if even 10% of the population drove cars that got 95 mpg, what the benefits would be to the environment as well as decreasing dependancy on foreign oil?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Wasn&#39;t there a load of fuss when a village was dodging fuel taxes because they all ran their cars on the local chippie&#39;s waste oil?

[Hate Is Art]

Yeah, my mates car is a smart car&#33;&#33; THEY HAVE TWO&#33;&#33;

[FatFreeMilk]

Stupid fucking coprportae fat cats. Well actually I guess they&#39;re pretty inteligent/ratty/sneaky/cheaters to be able to be doing business like this and there not be a big public outrcry for new buisness in something that could really help the pollution and sky high prices for fuel.

Yeah, that&#39;s pretty impressive Disgustipated. I do think they have Audis here in the US though. What&#39;s the smart car? See, there&#39;s another advantage of biodiesel over say electric or solar powered cars (do they sell solar powered vehicles to the public?). Lots of people aren&#39;t willing to sacrifice that manly power that people get the giggles from while driving their H2. They could use BD and not tell the difference in performance&#33; And save some money too.

I first read about BD while reading one of my bros off roading magazines. They powered this big ass truck with it that was equiped with all these goodies to survive out in the wilderness. It was pretty impressive. If a big ass truck can do it, imagine regular cars, trucks, scooters, whatever.

Can you imagine if even 10% of the population drove cars that got 95 mpg, what the benefits would be to the environment as well as decreasing dependancy on foreign oil?

That&#39;s kind of difficult to fathom man. If only the rest of America knew what they were being discouraged from knowing. Fuckers.

Give your mate a big pat on the back DN&#33;

[Sabocat]

I do think they have Audis here in the US though.

They do, just not the A2 model.

Also I believe it was about 10 years ago, some guy motored a small powerboat around the world (28,000 miles) on soy or biodiesel, to demonstrate it&#39;s advantages, viabiltiy as an alternative fuel.

[DaCuBaN]

What&#39;s the smart car?

It&#39;s a mercedes benz two seater - A bit shaky past 50, but nothing terrible, but it&#39;s more a city car than anything else as iirc it&#39;s under two metres in length and so would have poor stability at high speeds.

They did make a &#39;sports&#39; version as well... it&#39;s not much bigger but far lower to the ground...

...and has two of the engines from it&#39;s cousin in it

[DISTURBEDrbl911]

man, i am getting a 1982 Chevy Chevette diesel, it is a hatchback, i need to figure out a place that i can get bio diesel or how i cna make it on my own

[FatFreeMilk]

This is originally Valkirye&#39;s (sp?) post. Enjoy ...



I found this little article off an anarchist site called SchNEWS -- You know how much the anarchs like to sabotage the consumer industry&#33;&#33; Don&#39;t know if this formula works. and I wouldn&#39;t tell you to try it unless you have a chemistry background. But why don&#39;t you take it to school and see if your science teacher will cook some up. It would be fun to blow the oil industry on it&#39;s ass.


Making BioDiesel
- It’s a Piece of piss
There’s nothing more we like at SchNEWS towers than a spot of DIY, be it a pint of homebrew or a free party. But one piece of DIY that we reckon is up there with free parties is home made diesel.

Yep, forget about handing your hard-earned coffers over to the corrupt, greedy and killing corporations like Shell and BP, take a squeezy bottle, a piece of sticky backed plastic and make your own biodiesel. No seriously, biodiesel is a fuel made from waste vegetable oil, of which there is literally tons of the stuff being dumped in landfill sites up and down the country&#33; This otherwise waste is easily collected from chip shops and restaurants and without too much hassle processed to make biodiesel that can be used to run any diesel engine. Biodiesel, far from being an inferior homemade product, is better for your engine than the usual crappy fossil-based fuel that is helping to screw up the environment and people’s health. Biodiesel can be made in your own backyard with little start up cost involved and works out at about 30 pence per litre. Wanna know more? Then read on.

Let’s first rewind and go back to the beginning of the 1900s where Dr Rudolph Diesel has just invented the diesel engine and is displaying it at the Paris exhibition. Sat right there is the mother of all diesel engines happily chugging away running on peanut oil&#33; Rudolph had designed the Diesel engine to be run a variety of fuels and during his Paris speech said, "the diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and will help considerably in the development of the agriculture of the countries which use it." Sounds good for developing countries but not so good for the petroleum industry. A few years later and Rudolph Diesel’s body is found drifting face down in the English Channel. After holding secret talks with the UK navy about fitting diesel engines into their submarine fleet Rudolph Diesel was killed by the French to stop his diesel technology being fitted into submarines over the world, nothing new there then&#33; After Diesel’s death the petroleum industry capitalised on the diesel engine by naming one of their crappy by-products of petroleum distillation ‘diesel fuel’. That’s how dirty diesel fuel has come to be the fuel for diesel engines.

Fast-forward to the beginning of a brave new millennium, one where oil is running out, the climate is fucked and Biodiesel can save the world, well no but it can do its bit&#33;


A few facts on biodiesel
Biodiesel is biodegradable and non-toxic.100% biodiesel is as biodegradable as sugar and less toxic than table salt. Biodiesel biodegrades up-to four times faster than petroleum diesel fuel with up-to 98% biodegradation in three weeks. Compared to crappy fossil fuel diesel, biodiesel has the following emissions characteristics:

100% reduction of net carbon dioxide
100% reduction of sulphur dioxide
40-60% reduction of soot emissions
10-50% reduction of carbon monoxide
a reduction of all polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and specifically the reduction of the following carcinogenic PAHs:
phenanthren by 97%
benxofloroanthen by 56%
benz-a-pyrene by 71%
aldehydes and aromatic compounds by 13%
5-10% reduction of nitrous oxide depending on age and tuning of vehicle.
For every one ton of fossil fuel burnt, 3 tons of CO2 is released into the atmosphere, biodiesel only releases the CO2 that it has taken in while the plants it is made from were growing, therefore there is no negative impact on the carbon cycle.


How to build a single tank biodiesel processor

Equipment required

45 gallon drum.
1/2 or 3/4 Hp electric motor.
Two pulleys which produce 250 rpm and a max of 750 rpm at mixer blade.
A belt for the above.
12 inch rolled steel rod.
Two steel shelf brackets (for the blade).
1 1/2 inch (38mm) brass ball valve.
A hinge and a spring to act as a belt tensioned.
2000-watt electric water heater element.
A water heater thermostat.
1 1/2 diameter piece of steel pipe * 3-5 inches long with male threads on one end.
Assorted tat: angle iron, wood, screws etc.

Assembly

1 Cut a large opening (about half the top) in the top of the steel drum.

2 Drill 11/2-inch hole in the bottom of the drum.

3 Weld the 1 1/2-diameter pipe in the hole at the bottom of the drum.

4 Attach the 1 1/2-inch brass ball valve to the pipe. This is the drain valve.

5 Drill a hole in the side of the drum at the bottom, same size as the heater element.

6 Fit the heater element making sure it is not touching the side of the drum.

6 Wire up the heater element.


Chemical mixer

1 Attach one pulley to the rolled steel rod.

2 Attach the other pulley to the spindle of the electric motor.

3 Weld the propeller to the other end of the rolled steel rod (shelf brackets).

4 Attach the rod, pulley and propeller assembly to one side of the hinge.

5 Weld a piece of angle iron across the top of the drum.

6 Weld the unattached side of the hinge to the angle iron so the propeller and rod assembly sits in the middle of the drum. The hinge should swing the propeller and rod back and forth.

7 Mount the electric motor on the side of the drum.

8 Fit the belt to the pulleys and tighten by wedging a block of wood into the hinge.

You also need to fashion a simple wooden measuring stick with 10 litre increments.


Other bits and bobs
A hydrometer is a good piece of kit to have to measure the specific gravity of the biodiesel. The specific gravity of biodiesel should be between 0.860 and 0.900, usually 0.880. The specific gravity of vegetable oil is 0.920 therefore the specific gravity of biodiesel should be lower than the vegetable oil used to make the biodiesel.

How to make biodiesel

Every time you make a new batch of biodiesel using old vegetable oil you have to find out the amount of reactants required to get the correct reaction, this process is know as titration. In addition to the above equipment you will also need the following equipment:

Petri dish

20 ml beaker

1500 ml beaker

500 ml beaker

Isopropyl alcohol

A graduated eye dropper

Litmus paper

Blender with a glass bowl.

Methanol

Used cooking oil

Sodium Hydroxide


Titration

Step 1 Titration: to determine the quantity of catalyst required

1. Measure 1 gram of Sodium Hydroxide onto a petri dish

2. Measure 1 ltr. of distilled water into a 1500 ml beaker.

3. Pour the 1 gram of Sodium Hydroxide into the 1 Ltr. of distilled water

4. Label ‘do not drink Sodium Hydroxide’

5. Measure 10 ml of isopropyl alcohol into a 20ml beaker

6. Dissolve 1ml of used vegetable oil into the isopropyl alcohol.

7. Label oil/alcohol.

8. Use the graduated eye dropper to drop 1 millilitre of Sodium Hydroxide /water solution into the oil/alcohol solution

9. After 1 millilitre of Sodium Hydroxide /water solution is added check the pH

10. Repeat steps 8&9 until the oil/alcohol reaches a pH of between 8&9. The pH increase will usually occur suddenly. Usually no more than 3 millilitres of Sodium Hydroxide /water solution will need to be added.

11. Use the following equation:

· the number of millilitres of the Sodium Hydroxide/water solution dropped into the oil/alcohol mixture = x

· (x+3.5)=N

· N= the number of grams of Sodium Hydroxide required to neutralise and react 1 Litre of used vegetable oil.

· N will be between 4.5-6.5, but it can be higher if the oil has been used for a long time.

Step 2. Measure the reactants

Measure the reactants in separate containers

1 Litre of filtered used oil into a 1500ml beaker

200 ml of methanol into a 500 ml beaker

N grams of Sodium Hydroxide onto a petri dish

Step 3. Dissolve the Sodium Hydroxide into the Methanol

The third step is to combine the methanol with the Sodium Hydroxide to create sodium methoxide, an extremely strong base. Once the Sodium Hydroxide has been dissolved in the methanol, the sodium methoxide must be mixed with the vegetable oil straight away.

· Carefully pour the methanol into the blender, any spills must be cleaned immediately with a water and vinegar solution.

· Carefully pour the Sodium Hydroxide into the blender

· Replace the lid of the blender and blend on the lowest setting for 30 seconds, until the Sodium Hydroxide has dissolved. Sodium methoxide has been produced and caution must be exercised


Step 4. Mix the reactants

· Remove the lid of the blender keeping your face well away from the top of the blender

· carefully pour the vegetable oil into the blender

· Place the lid on the blender and blend on a medium/high setting for 15 minutes. If the bowl or the blender motor get over hot switch off the blender and leave until cooled down sufficiently to continue again.


Step 5. Allow the glycerine to settle

Settling takes about 8 hours but since 75% of the separation occurs within the first hour after the reaction immediate separation will be visible. Within 8 hours the glycerine will have fallen to the bottom leaving a layer on top, this is methyl esters, or more commonly referred to as bio-diesel.


Step 6. Separation

After blending the contents can either be transferred into a 1500ml container with a stopcock or left in the blender for at least 8 hours.


Step 7. Clean up

Store the leftover used vegetable oil in a dry cool place

Clean all the equipment so it is ready to use again

Expose the glycerine to air and sunlight for 1 week and then use as soap.

Pour the biodiesel into your fuel tank and laugh like fuck&#33;

So there you have it, fuel from vegetable oil. Of course this is only one method of making biodiesel, there are many recipes for making biodiesel just take a look through the web sites at the end of this article. Don’t be fooled into thinking that biodiesel is anything but a serious contender in the alternative fuels market, throughout the world there are commercial processors being built to supply a rapidly emerging market. The UK government however, has chosen to ignore biodiesel, this is their mistake and something we can capitalise on. Let’s start making biodiesel and get production down to the local small scale level with co-operatives and individuals supplying all our needs while taking power away from the mega-corporations.


@nti copyright - information for action - copy and distribute&#33;

[Rage Against the Right]

I&#39;ve hears it said that mass producing biodiesel takes up about as much energy as you save using it? Anyone know wanything about that?

[apathy maybe]

The only trouble with bio fuels is that they still produce CO and CO2. I much prefere my bicycle. What I would like is one of
I saw one in Devonport (in Tasmania) and I thought it was great&#33; (Not this exact model though). (cab-bike.com)


Pedel power all the way&#33;

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by Rage Against the Right@Jan 14 2005, 11:16 PM
I&#39;ve hears it said that mass producing biodiesel takes up about as much energy as you save using it? Anyone know wanything about that?

If it does, being exactly equal or even a little more energy intense, I would like to do it; fuck the oil companies&#33; I&#39;d sell the fuel to everyone I know&#33; I might even be able to save some money that way for whatever cause...
The only problem comes when the corporate bastards want to shut down my little operation.

Also, I would like to know if you can crack the oils as is done with petroleum to produce more fuel in the right carbon chain range.

I would like to have a vehicle that had the electric addition to help conserve fuel and that bike adaptation, so I can save the environment while getting a nice workout; yeah, that would be nice.

[apathy maybe]

If you go to the website (cab-bike.com) they do offer electric motors. Which would be cool.


The only trouble with selling bio-fuel is that you would have to register as a business and fill in all these forms and pay taxes and shit. And if you don&#39;t, well it won&#39;t be the corporations that shut you down, but the govt.