MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I sort of fancy doing it, methanol is easy to get as is caustic soda. Is it a simple matter of mixing the soda into the methanol and adding oil before everything gets blended?
If you do make it, please tell me how. Or where I can get good info.
Cheers!
I know someone who does. Did. Stopped because it ended up only being about 20p a litre cheaper after all the heating/mixing/waiting/filtering was done! He was doing it on a ~100 litre per batch scale.
Hmmm, that wouldn't be worth it.
[url= http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel.html ]I found this page [/url]a couple of years ago. As they don't appear to be trying to sell you anything, most of the others were, it should be quite useful.
I have a cple of friends that do it on a fairly large scale, i believe you can make 1500 litres per adult in a household per year before the customs+excise are interested, they get their oil FOC from the local takeaway just down the road,and for that reason its extremely cheap but if you have to pay for the waste oil its gets less attractive
I was toying with getting one of these one day:
http://www.northerntooluk.com/fuel-transfer-pumps-and-lubrication-equipment/bio-diesel-transfer/fuelpod1-biodiesel-starter-kit_180608E.html
[img] 
[/img]
at £1,600 for the kit though Im not sure what payback time looks like...
It's more than just mixing it together. There is some titration involved if I remember correctly.
It's not rocket science, but you do have to be very careful. some of the chemicals are a bit nasty and if you get the batch wrong, it will screw up your car. Most new engines don't recommend it either, especially thr newer vw engines. The fuel pressures are so high, it can cause the bio to break down.
I've done quite a lot of it, but unless you can get the veg oil for free, is not really worth it.
Before you start, there is a lot of reading you need to do. Don't buy a kit, make your own GL reactor.
The forum below is all you need
http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/forum/index.php
I've heard you can mix old cooking oil with standard diesel 50/50 and get good results.
I've heard you can mix old cooking oil with standard diesel 50/50 and get good results.
For a few hundred miles maybe, on an ancient non-direct injection diesel.
I've tried a 10-15% mix of veg oil before, in the summer when there was no question of it solidifying. That was in a VW mk3 Golf TDi with the 90bhp direct injection engine. It ran fine at that sort of mix, but that was neat veg oil. If you're mixing used oil, then you'll just clog everything up in no time, as it will be full of large fatty particles!
If you're gonna do it, do it properly. Sadly these days, just like most things, it's too much of a pain in the arse or too expensive, to do anything other than just fill up down your local petrol station...
Oh, and if you want to run a vehicle at all on bio-diesel that you've made yourself, don't plan on running a vehicle any newer than about 10 years old! Most newer cars run too high a fuel pressure...
i was looking into this last week after stumbling across 2 recommended units priced at 360 and 600 or so. only prob is that veg oil seems to have also gone ballistic in price. on threads from a few years back it was down around 50p or less a litre, now its up over 1quid so sadly for all the effort you won't same much cash.
but if anyone knows differnet please let me know. i bought some fuel a few hours back and its going crazy how much it is compared to the summer.