Biodiesel

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Biodiesel is made from fat or oil. It can be used in nearly any diesel engine, with little or no engine conversion.

Biodiesel produces less particulates than petrodiesel and is thus much less hazardous to the health of the population, particularly those living in urban areas exposed to significant levels of diesel pollution.^{[verification needed]}

Straight vegetable oil

While straight vegetable oil^W can be used as fuel (new, or waste frying oil), it has a negative effect on the engine after prolonged use.^{[verification needed]} Thus it is usually better to process the oil into biodiesel, especially for engines which get heavy use.

Sources

Biodiesel can be made from any^{[verification needed]} fat or oil, such as:

• fish oils (e.g. in Norway[1])
• vegetable oils, which are now often cheaper than regular fuel,^{[verification needed]} if bought in bulk, and we consider that premium cooking oils are not needed.^{[verification needed]}
• used deep frying fat or oil (which would normally be discarded, at economic and environmental cost) - take-away food shops typically have a regular output of this waste.
• Even fat from liposuction operations should be able to be used.^[1]

Suggested projects

• Search for literature discussing the health impacts of vehicle pollution, and different aspects of the pollution such as particulates vs other pollutants.^{[expansion needed]})
• Design a relatively simple, reliable way of converting vegetable oil (waste and/or new) into biodiesel, to minimize the technical expertise and resources needed, perhaps making it more practical for production in small or medium-sized remote towns.^{[expansion needed]}
• It is claimed by a guest on an episode of the UK TV show Top Gear[2] that adding a solvent makes straight vegetable oil runnier (less viscous) and better for use as fuel. The solvent used in the program is non-kerosene-based white spirit (non-kerosene based for tax purposes) added at 3% by volume to filtered used cooking oil. Does this work? Does it reduce the problems of straight vegetable oil, in terms of the long term effect on the car's engine and cold weather operation?^{[expansion needed]}

See also

• Biodiesel Oven
• Biodiesel Tractor Conversion
• Biodiesel Truck Conversion
• Biodiesel auf Deutsch
• Pongamia pinnata, Karanja

Notes

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References and resources

• Tickell, J., Teickell, K., From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank: The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil as an Alternative Fuel, Greenteach Publishing, 1999.

External links

• Make your own biodiesel from Journey to Forever
• biodiesel blog
• Footprint Recycling Providing biodiesel in Humboldt County
• NREL Biodiesel This is an excellent PDF going into some of the technical details of the chemistry and processes behind biodiesel production.
• Guide to Biodiesel

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