A Rough Guide With Indispensable Points For Making Biodiesel Fuel
In all likelihood, making biodiesel may not have entered your mind before. Maybe you will have seen one of those soy powered buses around the place, peaking your interest, or you might just be fed up with those horrible prices at the petrol station. Have you calculated the size of your carbon footprint yet? We’re all stopping to think about how we contribute to an overall problem of global warming and as we see the politicians treading water, we’re considering what we can do to push.
If you think that it is impossible to make biodiesel fuel safely, effectively and relatively cheaply, you are wrong. Thousands of people can testify to the fuel’s efficiency as they use it during their daily lives. It takes a little bit of application to understand the process until perfected and you do have to use some caution and common sense. However, all the materials that you need are readily available and you do not need a degree in chemistry to help you to get through it!
It’s essential to remember that you should beware of using any overly simplistic advice or a simply written ‘how to,’ like this one that follows, and before actually attempting to make biodiesel, you’ll need to have exacting information of the process itself and all safety requirements:
Making homemade biodiesel involves a process known as transesterification. You will be using a catalyst (lye) to remove glycerine from vegetable or animal oils or fats and you will effectively be extracting the oil that you can use in your diesel engine.
Use potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide, caustic soda and pick up some methanol as well. Note that you will need to keep the lye and the methanol in water tight containers and you should be aiming to use as pure a product as you can.
Measure out 200 mL of methanol into a sturdy plastic container and then add the lye, or caustic soda. All containers, including the plastic bottle should be tightly closed. Ensure that everything is dissolved by shaking the container vigorously.
The soy or vegetable oil needs to be heated to 130°F and poured into a blender. Add the mixture, close and blend for 30 minutes. Pour the result into a sturdy, large bottle with a tight lid. After 24 hours of settling, the glycerine, which is the darker colour, is settled on the bottom. Remove the top layer, which is the biodiesel, into a clean jar, being very careful not to mix in any of the glycerine.
Next you will need to wash your resultant mixture to remove the remaining imperfections by adding clean water, then letting it settle for about four hours or so, and finally allowing the water to drain through a hole in the bottom of your container that you will have made earlier on.
You may have to repeat the process, but when the product is clear, the water will have evaporated and you will have made your first batch of biodiesel fuel! Before you get started on your new road to discovery, get your hands on some expert safety advice – which is essential, on how to make biodiesel to an internationally accepted standard, while being safe doing it!
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