recycling oil for driving

Rep Dom

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Dec 27, 2011
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It is possible to use recycled veg oil (recuperated from restaurants) to run diesel cars. Has anyone heard of this green solution for driving. Who 's doing it in DR? :)
 
May 29, 2006
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I know a guy who has a restaurant in NY and he runs his truck off of used fryer oil. It can be done, but you need a reliable source of used oil and a garage to process it. Clean new cooking oil is US$6-$10/gallon in the US (compared to about $3.50 for gas from the pump) and the DR does not produce much cooking oil. Palm oil may have some potential, but I don't think it would be cost effective unless it was also used. Another potential source for biodiesel in the DR would be the pencil tree(which grows anywhere without inputs), but the technology hasn't been proven.

Corn as a source of biodiesel isn't cost effective and they are cutting the subsidies for it in the US. It takes something like 9 gallons of petroleum to make 7 gallons of corn based diesel fuel after fertilizer and processing and the corn industry is subsidized. There is some potential for other crops(such as switchgrass) that need fewer inputs that may work, but there aren't exactly any switchgrass farmer lobbyists in DC to get a program started. Monsanto/Cargill has deeper pockets. Canada isn't going to develop biofuels while they are still a major oil exporter.

There are other markets for used oil. It's used to make soap and sometimes plastic. As biodiesel catches on, it won't be free anymore, which is good for restaurants wanting to get rid of it. I wouldn't be surprised if some fast food chains start to use the oil to power on-site generators or even fryers. At the very least, they could use the oil for their fleet trucks.

Aside from car fuel, there is some potential for corn cob to be made into eco-friendly charcoal and there is some work going into making shrub trees into sustainable charcoal sources. Propane was subsidized to reduce the demand for charcoal and it's charcoal production that is the biggest threat to the island's ecosystems.
 

karlheinz

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Oct 2, 2006
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Interesting question Rep Dom., i've done a bit of reading about this very subject back in the states with interest. As was pointed out you would need a source and some space to store the product. From my readings about kits built for vehicles they use a separate tank, multiple filters, a heating source for the SVO to decrease the viscosity and then a switch over device to change from diesel to SVO. My biggest concern is will using SVO cause problems with the newer injection systems? I think these were being used on older mercedes with simple injection systems and injector plugs instead of the rail systems used now.
 

PeteyPablo

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Apr 30, 2011
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Interesting question Rep Dom., i've done a bit of reading about this very subject back in the states with interest. As was pointed out you would need a source and some space to store the product. From my readings about kits built for vehicles they use a separate tank, multiple filters, a heating source for the SVO to decrease the viscosity and then a switch over device to change from diesel to SVO. My biggest concern is will using SVO cause problems with the newer injection systems? I think these were being used on older mercedes with simple injection systems and injector plugs instead of the rail systems used now.


SVO is a PITA (pain in the a$$) with the newer Common Rail fuel injection systems. The reason is that they run at a MUCH higher pressure than the older style. The first generation Com Rail systems were 10,000 to 15,000 PSI. The newer generation Com Rail designs go up to 26,000 PSI

In contrast the older individual injection systems produced from 1,000 to 4,500 PSI. That huge difference is why the older diesels took to SVO so well.

With that being said, there is one company that I know of that designs excellent 1 tank setups for SVO....Elsbett.com
 

Rep Dom

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Dec 27, 2011
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Hi, SVO is not so complicated to use. Of course you need a bit of space to get the SVO cleaned and ready. But not that much. Its actually a matter of organisation. Its better to go for bicarburation with a separate tank for diesel to start the engine and heat the engine. Otherwise the oil is too "viscosy". I 've done it with a car in the south of France and it worked fine. But my question: is there a competent mechanic in the DR able to adapt a bicarburation to a car. Anyone has experienced?

About injection systems, yes its better to choose a quite old car and imperatively a vehicule with a bosch pump.
 

PeteyPablo

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Apr 30, 2011
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I think some clarification is in order...

It is not at matter of it being complicated to use. Using an SVO is easy...avoiding engine problems down the road is the hard part. The hard part is getting your system properly setup and 'tuned' so your engine doesn't fail (due to the high pressure design of the Common Rail fuel system).

There are plenty of people here that jumped on the WVO and SVO bandwagon when gas prices spiked a few years ago. Diesel mechanics were gainfully employed for a good while after that ;)
 

hammerdown

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Apr 29, 2005
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It is possible to use recycled veg oil (recuperated from restaurants) to run diesel cars. Has anyone heard of this green solution for driving. Who 's doing it in DR? :)

YES, go down by the old Sosua car wash and there is a business doing that right now....but don't know the name of the company.....I was there and saw their operation,,,,,,pretty slick
 

frank617

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Jan 12, 2009
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An acquaintance of mine owns a BioDiesel company in Santiago. It's goes by the name McDougal Co. and is located in Las Charcas. He runs his own diesel suv on nothing but the fuel that his company recycles/produces. Give Joel a call for more info. 829-420-8026 Tell him you got the contact info. from "El Sicario" (inside joke).
 

PeteyPablo

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Apr 30, 2011
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An acquaintance of mine owns a BioDiesel company in Santiago. It's goes by the name McDougal Co. and is located in Las Charcas. He runs his own diesel suv on nothing but the fuel that his company recycles/produces. Give Joel a call for more info. 829-420-8026 Tell him you got the contact info. from "El Sicario" (inside joke).


AHA! Now we have arrived at what is a good solution for Com Rail vehicles! This changes the conversation from WVO/SVO to Biodiesel. Now this stuff you can just drop in your tank and go!!!

If you obtain WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil for those that might not know) and chemically process it (transesterification) to obtain Biodiesel you then have a true solution for running your diesel vehicle. Although it has been said to be truly safe with newer vehicles you should not run B100 (100% biodiesel) but instead B80 (80% biodiesel + 20% diesel)

They sell Biodiesel Processing kits everywhere now, or you can make your own...google "appleseed biodiesel". Keep in mind that there is a learning curve to producing a good batch though.

I am looking at purchasing a Toyota Hilux Surf with a diesel engine. This particular vehicle has the older style individual feed fuel injection system and runs at lower pressure. This is actually a good candidate for a mix of WVO (80%) and Diesel (20%), for those that might be interested.
 

Rep Dom

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Dec 27, 2011
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Yes, its better to have a quite old diesel car, like the Hilux PeteyPablo quotes. The pressure of the newer common rails is too high. A 10 or 15 years old car is fine but the most important is to get one with a bosch pump. If you dont, forget it. BTW, using WVO is not only a question of price but an ecological issue. It pollutes much less than diesel (from petrol) and it is obtenaid by recycling.
 

PeteyPablo

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Apr 30, 2011
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ADDENDUM:

That is the same model I was looking at, but in 2001 they introduced some new diesel engines, so check it against these:

1KD-FTV common-rail direct injection (can't do wvo/svo) (very nice engine btw)
Note: You may see a logo on the engine that reads 'D-4D'...these engines are all common rail

1KZ-T
indirect injection (this will do wvo/svo)
1KZ-TE
indirect injection (this will do wvo/svo)
 

PeteyPablo

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Apr 30, 2011
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I thought the main issue with using 100% bio was that it gels up in cold weather...

There were two reasons...The first was gelling in cold weather as you mentioned.

The second was chemical in nature. For the life of me I can't remember the explanation now. The solution was simply to mix in some diesel fuel or add chemicals (benzine and nasty stuff like that....don't quote me on the benzine).
 

Rep Dom

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Dec 27, 2011
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Yes getting biodiesel is a solution but quite a pain in a long term. The best solution is to get bicarburation. Which means start with GO in a little tank. And, when the engine's hot enough, change for WVO. And very important, a few minutes before stop, get back to GO otherwise a bit of WVO remains in the engine and gets it dirty... :)
 

bdablack

Member
Jun 30, 2011
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Biodiesel requires a very reactive alcohol, methanol is preferable to ethanol, a strong lye, potassium hydroxide is prefered to sodium hydroxide. If these ingredient could be obtained easily in DR, biodiesel would be a good alternative to gasoline and propane. Gasoline has to be imported and propane seems to be less safe to use, compared to biodiesel.

After a bit of reading, I found that the skin of bananas or plantains are high in potassium and if they are burned at a high temperature the postassium can be extracted. A high temperature can be obtained by fanning a regular fire to increase the oxygen input.

The potassium hydroxide can be obtained by using the ashes from the burnt platain or banana skins and driping rain water or distilled water through it. The water source should be free of other minerals that is why rain or distilled water is necessary. Sodium is the element in ordinary table salt but it's extraction is much harder to obtain. The solutions shoud be dried to produce crystals and should be stored in an air tight container because they are deliquescent.

Methanol is wood alcohol and ethanol is the stuff that gets you drunk. There is plenty of sugar cane in DR so ethanol produciton should be fairly easy. Seems to me that the natural resources except for methanol are abundant in the DR. There are many trees and dry leaves which could be used for a heat source. I was thinking that coconuts would be a good source of the fatty acids needed to produce biodiesel. Coconuts grow like wild fire. Although the extraction of the oil is labour intensive labour is cheap in DR.

If a few friends/associates got their heads together each working on a different part of the production cycle seems to me they could produce enough biodiesel to power diesel cars, trucks, generators and make life in
DR quite comfortable. Who wants to start and join the DR biodiesel club?