Any biodieselers in here?

[PhilNH5]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Think, if you could make $1.50 per gallon off of biodiesel, and you did a measly 500 gallons per week, that means you would be making 3.64 times minimum wage.
)</font>

Dixie Drifter,
You need to remember that a portion of the sale price includes taxes. I don't think Uncle Sam nor the states are going to allow you to underprice them becuse you are not charging taxes.

I know the offroad diesel is cheaper due to taxes but I thought that was a fed tax and that local state taxes would apply.

Or maybe I am completely wrong and there are tax incentives to use less petroleum but I don't think so.

Phil

 

[dixiedrifter]

What you would probably have to do is include sales taxes on the stuff. Cash buyers would recieve a discount.

However, how you get around paying federal and state fuel taxes is that you sell it as a "diesel fuel additive" and not diesel, because technically it is not diesel.

Now if you sold it pre-blended, such as in B-20, then you'd probably have to pay fuel taxes and or dye it to comply with a bunch of regulations.

 

[penokee]

Interesting article in yesterdays Duluth, MN Tribune on their first Biodiesel Station.
penokee /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Link

 

[penokee]

Intersting explanation of Biodisel for diesel newbies such as myself.
penokee /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Link

 

[dixiedrifter]

Today I was given permission to raid a grease tank.

I rigged up a barrel pump, some hose, and a 55 gallon barrel in the back of my truck.

I managed to pump about 50 gallons out of the tank, but unbeknownest to me at the time I was pumping mostly an oily water mix due to pumping in the tank too deep. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

I did manage to recover about 15 gallons of oil, and I knew i hit oil because the barrel pump suddenly became very very hard to crank.

Plus on top of everything the handle on the pump broke because its a cheap chinese made piece of junk. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Grease Removal Apparatus version 1.0 shall be retired immediatly.

After I get a hot bath and do a littl thinking, I'll tell ya'll about my plans for GRA v2.0.

 

[dixiedrifter]

Ok here is the concept behind GRA v2.0.

The requirements for a grease loading/unloading system are simple:

Must cost less than $100, excluding materials on hand.

Must utilize a bottom unloading system for water separation/grease removal.

Now then. I have no generator so any major electic device is out. Gas operated pumps would cost too much. 12 volt pumps would have insufficant flow plus are hard to get primed.

The only thing I have going for me is a 750 watt power invertor. This alone won't run hardly anything. It will however run a fountain pump.

Before ya'll get to laughing at me, if your not already, let me explain.

First the plastic barrel I was using will be replaced with an open head steel barrel. In the bottom of the barrel, a screw in bulkhead fitting will be applied. The barrel will be set on some wooden blocks and a 3/4" PVC unloading pipe will be run out the back. The lid will be applied and sealed with a generous helping of silicon caulk. In the fittings on top, two suction lines will be applied, one with a pipe going down to the bottom of the barrel.

Now how is that little itty bitty tiny fountain pump gonna suck a barrel full of grease?

Easy.

In scientific labs, devices called water aspirators are used to create vacuums for distillations and what not. Although they cannot move a great deal of air, they do create very high vacuums. With ice cold water running thru them at a sufficiant rate, they can almost pull a vacuum high enough to cause water to boil from the heat of your hand!

So basically I take the fountain pump, the aspirator, and stick it in a 5 gallon bucket of cold water and plug it into my power inverter. The vacuum line coming off the aspirator is then attached to the sealed barrel and plugged in for about 30 minutes or so before you leave and allowed to run on the way. Or you can plug it up to a wall socket and once the barrel is under vacuum, you simply seal it off and go to get the oil.

Now then, the trick to making it work, is to never let the barrel lose vacuum, otherwise you have to wait for the tiny aspirator to suck the barrel back down to a decent vacuum.

For sucking the oil out, you use some sturdly see thru line so you can tell what ur sucking, and a PVC probe, one end has a strainer on it, the other has a ball valve so that vacuum can be maintained.

Hopefully this will work out until I can come up with GRA v3.0.

 

[ALBALD1]

From what i've read, you just mix the lye, grease, & methanol & let it sit so many hours. whats the sulfuric acid for? I'm not doubting, just been trying to learn more about this process.

 

[dixiedrifter]

The scientific name for making biodiesel is called transesterfication.

For proper transesterfication to occur it has to be stirred since methanol is polar and grease is non-polar, meaning they won't mix, but they will emulsify.

If just using lye, you have to be very precise and measure the levels of free fatty acids in the grease before reacting it. Too much lye will cause soap, too little, incomplete reaction.

Adding sulfuric acid at the beginning causes esterfication. In laymans terms it simply assists in breaking down the tough stuff that would form soap during the transesterfication process resulting in higher yields and better quality product.

I'm seriously considering selling 40 gallon pre-measured "kits" minus the methanol if there would be anyone interested...

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Here's an alternative - don't do any refining!

"Every few weeks, Etta Kantor goes to a Chinese restaurant and fills a couple of five-gallon pails with used cooking oil. Back in her garage, the 59-year-old philanthropist and grandmother strains it through a cloth filter and then pours it into a custom-made second fuel tank in her 2003 Volkswagen Jetta diesel station wagon. Once the car is warmed up, she flips a fuel toggle on the dashboard to switch to the vegetable oil."

"Both used and virgin vegetable oil contain glycerin—a syrupy liquid used in hand lotions. It burns well in a hot engine, as in Etta Kantor's retrofitted diesel, but clogs a cold one. Removing the glycerin yields biodiesel, which is suitable for even a cold engine."

"Kantor, who paid $1,400 to outfit her VW diesel with a second fuel tank, says she gets nearly 200 miles per petrodiesel gallon."

Here's a link to the article in the September issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

 

[Jeff396]

I've been looking into possibly buying a veggie oil kit for my truck. It looks quite interesting but can be a bit expensive. I've found a kit to convert your existing fuel tank (if your truck has duals) for around $700. Then the price of an additional tank can run as much as an additional $1600 should you take that route. However, every site I've found info on says that the fuel mileage is almost identical to diesel fuel. It makes sense to me as I would think the injectors will blow that same amount of liquid into the cylinder whether it's veggie or diesel.

Jeff