Do you make your own biodiesel?

[Mahana79]

My buddy has a company that pumps thousands of gallons of veggie oil per month. He has gone back and forth about a bio setup for the last couple of years. The problem he keeps running in to when looking at the commerical processors, is that they keep telling him his oil supply is, not sure of the term here, too dirty. The plant he pumps it from is a pork rhind plant. I guess they use the oil for quite a while and because it has animal fat in it, it's harder to process?

This oil supply is pretty secure. He has been pumping it- and others- for years. Being that he is looking to supply his fleet of diesel equipment, he has been a little hesitant to buy a large system only to find that his oil supply isn't what it needs to be.

However, I'm a DIYer and willing to spend a little $$ just to see if it will work on a smaller scale to make my on processor- and to prove to him that it can be done.

We have the oil supply but can it be cleaned enough? Just like most of you, we've heard everything from it can't be done to just wash it more and add more chemicals.

I guess it would be worth a try. Any advice?

My Advice, first thing, take a sample and do a titration test. that will tellyou how "dirty" it really is. From what I have seen and read the two really major factors are FFA (Free Fatty Acid) content and water. even if the FFA comes back high from the titration dont loose hope. i have had success doing the 2 step Acid-Base process with really high titrating oil upward of 15. for a really nice comercial quality processor look into the BioPro Lineup carried by Utahbiodieselsupply.com they are already setup to do the Acid-Base reactions and they produce absolutly beautiful BioDiesel.

i wish i could find a steady supply of oil like that.

 

[Bill Barrett]

So how do you guys take care of the road taxes? Paper work a lot of red tape and work?

 

[Mahana79]

So how do you guys take care of the road taxes? Paper work a lot of red tape and work?

file a IRS Form 720 for Federal Road Tax. Then what ever your states requires. BioDiesel is Exempt from Road Tax in TX.

 

[Bill Barrett]

file a IRS Form 720 for Federal Road Tax. Then what ever your states requires. BioDiesel is Exempt from Road Tax in TX.

Not too bad, I think Illinois has some break on state tax too.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

thanks for the advice.......haven't heard of the acid-base reaction.....

i think i'll thow together one of the appleseed processors and just give it a try..

i have a cousin that manages a mc'ds....i may just see if i can get my own supply

My Advice, first thing, take a sample and do a titration test. that will tellyou how "dirty" it really is. From what I have seen and read the two really major factors are FFA (Free Fatty Acid) content and water. even if the FFA comes back high from the titration dont loose hope. i have had success doing the 2 step Acid-Base process with really high titrating oil upward of 15. for a really nice comercial quality processor look into the BioPro Lineup carried by Utahbiodieselsupply.com they are already setup to do the Acid-Base reactions and they produce absolutly beautiful BioDiesel.

i wish i could find a steady supply of oil like that.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

what's the difference in the acid-base......

My Advice, first thing, take a sample and do a titration test. that will tellyou how "dirty" it really is. From what I have seen and read the two really major factors are FFA (Free Fatty Acid) content and water. even if the FFA comes back high from the titration dont loose hope. i have had success doing the 2 step Acid-Base process with really high titrating oil upward of 15. for a really nice comercial quality processor look into the BioPro Lineup carried by Utahbiodieselsupply.com they are already setup to do the Acid-Base reactions and they produce absolutly beautiful BioDiesel.

i wish i could find a steady supply of oil like that.

 

[Mahana79]

what's the difference in the acid-base......

Here is what Girl_Mark says on Acid-Base. Homebrew Acid-Base Biodiesel Recipes - Topic Powered by eve community It is what the bioPro machines use. If you use the same amount of oil each time you can use the same amout of Acid, Base, and Methanol every single time. no longer need to titrate. And it makes beautiful fuel every single time. You can read up on the Acid-Base that the BioPro uses at UtahBiodieselSupply.com. Graydon has tons of information on his site.

edit: Forgot the link

 

[Bird]

The Denton Record-Chronicle has this story this morning about the City of Denton, TX, cutting ties with a biodiesel company. They built a facility at the city landfill that opened in 2005, the city put a lot of money into it, and was going to buy the biodiesel for city vehicles. Now they've quit using the biodiesel and plan to sue the company that was making it. I wish I knew just what's wrong with it.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

hope i didn't hijack this thread!

i talked to my buddy quite a bit more and it does sound like the oil is VERY dirty....we'll do the tritration test, however, in the next few weeks....

just this one place is 3000+ gallons......PER WEEK! he named some kind of chemical that is in it too that they are using to clean the vats......and, i guess the worst is that this is a pork rind factory.....

i called my cousin that manages a mcd's just a few minutes from my house, she said if i could get her some type of container that the health inspector would not condem she could probably make sure i got only the oil from the fry vat....she said that is about 120gallons per week.......

that buddy of mine said he would order, say, the bio pro 190 or bigger, tomorrow if he knew it would process the oil.....are there any reps, wonder, willing to let them "demo" it like they do new dozers or backhoes they buy?

also, he said if i could secure a clean source of bio from the local mcd's (there are a total of 4 owned by the same owner my cousin works for) that he'd buy the system and supply me with free biodiesel...

i'll see if i can put any of this together....

the acid base looks promising and the bio pro claims it can handle it.....

 

[Mahana79]

The Denton Record-Chronicle has this story this morning about the City of Denton, TX, cutting ties with a biodiesel company. They built a facility at the city landfill that opened in 2005, the city put a lot of money into it, and was going to buy the biodiesel for city vehicles. Now they've quit using the biodiesel and plan to sue the company that was making it. I wish I knew just what's wrong with it.

I have heard that it was due to poor fuel quality from that company/plant. left alot of the city fleet being towed. I have run a cumlitave of about 100K miles on BioDiesel, mostly B100 with Zero Problems. Kept the same fuel filter change schedule and all is well. both Homebrew and commercial. Most of what i bought was from what was then Austin BioFuels.

anywho....soapbox off