Bio fuel called Diesel

[KP44]

Originally Posted by Compass790

Yes I can see homemade diesel from 100% old cooking oil could be a problem.
Thats a lot different from 5% biodiesel that you get from a fuel dock or gas station that many trucking companies use at least here in NZ.
5 or 10% biodiesel what I was talking about, guess I should have been more specific.

Right on!

There is a big difference between home-made bio-diesel and diesel containing 10% bio-fuel.

[_m_miles]

A former neighbor used biodiesel in her car. The problem was not with the engine, but with the hoses, which tend to degrade faster. You might want to inspect fuel hoses more frequently.

[friz]

A few years ago when the price of truck diesel was around $4.00 I used re-cycled vegetable oil in diesel truck engines. Cost less than $2.00. Over maybe a 2 year span encountered no problems attributed to the re-cycled oil. As stated before, Mr. Diesel used peanut oil in his engines. Although I have no empirical data, I do not see why palm oil would be a problem.

[Paul Reading]

I believe that B7 has a much higher water content and this can separate if left for long periods and that allows diesel bug to grow. You don't have much choice if that is al that is on offer.

[erie]

Originally Posted by Emmalina

Just a heads up that now in Thailand all diesel will contain 7% Palm oil derivative... the government has decided to just call it diesel instead of B7 . My donkey seems ok with this stuff I am even thinking B10 (10%) as its cheaper and I can't see a big difference between 7-10%. My biggest fear is diesel bug if left for long periods. So what engines can or can't use this stuff I wonder ?

They experimented with locomotive engines running on palm oil, they would start it on diesel and then switch over to palm. When shutting down loco it had to be switched back to diesel. If the loco stalled while running palm oil
and temp dropped the palm oil would turn into Crisco....

[Tillikum]

Some modern diesels can be adapted to run successfully on Straight Vegetable Oil "SVO", that is either new oil or cleaned Waste Vegetable Oil "WVO". www.elsbett.com

Both biodiesel and SVO are known to scour petrodiesel deposits from fuel systems which can plug up filters quickly until the system is cleaned out.

Biodiesel is only as good as the process that made it, some is ASTM grade and some is rubbish. I've seen some filthy muck come out of the bottom of gas station diesel tanks when they run low too.

Most WVO/SVO vehicles use a dual tank system: start on petro/ULSD, switch over when the engine is hot and switch back some minutes before shut down to purge the system of WVO/SVO. Most have heated tanks and filters for the WVO/SVO, usually heated by the engine coolant, sometimes by electric heating, or both.

Considering what a PITA cleaning out fixed tanks is, large cleanouts and even a heavy glass "viewing port" wouldn't be a bad idea. Have an illumination port too if you really want to get clever.

The best thing about B100 other than the vastly better lubricity is the lack of that bloody benzene stink that takes forever go away when diesel spills or leaks. It also seems to rejuvenate the seals in some older injection pumps which were never built for the dryness of ULSD; that stuff has caused the failure of hundreds of thousands of pumps. Tough thing to have happen in the middle of nowhere.

Worth having a small centrifuge on board to clean your fuel, and your engine oil; it's what the commercial ships do. They can be driven off oil pressure to clean the lube oil, or compressed air or electricity to clean the fuel. Spinner II® Products : High-efficiency lube oil filtration for heavy-duty diesel engines. If I were setting it up I think I'd have a separate locker with a watertight floor and door (at chest height) and separate ventilation and mount the centrifuge in that - they're messy to clean out, but you'll never run out of filter elements.

"Black diesel" is a story for another day.

[a64pilot]

Palm oils effect on copper,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...10938X12004891

A big issue is that there are several different forms of Bio Diesel and as one can except Bio from animal fat is a different chemistry and has different properties from a vegetable based oil.
It’s why making blanket statements about Bio Diesel is difficult.

[jpmesa]

I used Bio- diesel ( corn) for years here in California. Never had a problem. You have to be careful you have right rated rubber hoses on you engine. Most stock hose on the engines are fine. I used to fill half the tank with regular diesel & half with bio-diesel. I tried other combos but they all worked the same. Great part it smell like popcorn when the engine is running.

[Buzzman]

Originally Posted by Compass790

thanks for posting results of your lab work.
Before I put old canola oil in my tank I left a jar of it mixed 50/50 with diesel sitting for a few months more to see if it seperated out but it grew nothing & didnt seperate. Wasn't surprising to me & its pretty humid where I live. As I said in earlier post I've left soy or canola oil in very damp conditions in the bush for years & it doesnt grow anything visible.
Bit off topic but did you do any lubricity testing?

I read many years ago some, I think, University of Texas, research where they used methyl ester in a trial program in a trucking firm's vehicles. They emptied the oil out of the sump at regular intervals to check lubcricity and found, IIRC, that the biodiesel was a better lubricant and did not add as much (if any) carbon deposits to the engine lubrication oil, the usual reason for changing it.


They were testing to determine service intervals and so on.


IIRC the 'control' vehicle was left with its original fill of lubricating oil, with only samples withdrawn at each 'normal' (for petrodiesel engine) service intervals.


Apparently, each time they checked, it was still close to spec for new oil, so they left it in. IIRC it was still good after 100,000 miles when they changed it anyway as they just couldn't believe their results.

I recall this because it astonished me when I read it.


From memory the research was from the late eighties or early nineties.

[Todd727]

Technically, it's all bio-diesel, it's just that one takes much longer to be make.

[Tupaia]

I ran on bio in SE Asia and compared to mineral diesel from Australia I was burning 1.96 l/h compared to 1.82 l/h that would suggest the calorific value of bio is less.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by KP44

The manual for my new engine (fiat diesel) says no bio-fuel.

I observed a young couple start a new business, which included a new diesel delivery vehicle. They picked up used cooking oil from local restaurants and manufactured in into bio-diesel for their vehicle. Within a year, the vehicle was having engine problems. By the second year, the engine was a basket case.
The couple lost their business and made their vehicle into a "tiny house" that friends tow from place to place.

Filtering used cooking oil and running it in a diesel engine is NOT the same as using bio-diesel from a pump. All kinds of crud can get dissolved into fry oil and be beyond the average garage producers ability to remove or neutralize. Commercially produced bio-diesel will have a much better control on the product that goes out to the pump.

Likewise, the people are confusing using alcohol in gasoline with adding bio-diesel. Alcohol can really do a number on older engines both in terms of loosening built up deposits and degrading rubber parts. Low percentage bio-diesel is much less of an issue. It can work on deposits a little bit but at low percentages, it's much less of an issue.

[Compass790]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Palm oils effect on copper,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...10938X12004891

A big issue is that there are several different forms of Bio Diesel and as one can except Bio from animal fat is a different chemistry and has different properties from a vegetable based oil.
It’s why making blanket statements about Bio Diesel is difficult.

Yes just stumbled across this about FAME bio diesel to support your point.
Interesting reading this warning about letting FAME biodiesel sit for long periods in your system.
This from real world experience:
https://oregonfuelinjection.com/biod...l-breaks-down/
Suspect it might be much bigger issue with 20% biodiesel than 5%
I believe the local bio diesel can be animal based or plant based as long as it meets the spec.
Not worried about my canola oil mix but wont fill up with local biodiesel from pump before winter now.