I run a small{1,000ac} hay and cattle ranch in eastern oregon,and we have been using biodiesel in all our tractors,trucks,pickups,and irigation pumps for the last 8 mon. we haul waste oil from 2 counties here and pay $0 for it. we have noticed a marked improvment in horsepower in all equip! It costs us aprox 65 cents per gal to make. the price varies manly with the price of methanol, our last delivery cost us $2.03 per gal in 55 gal drums. We are in the process of building a 100k gen set to run the shop and house and will soon be off the grid completly.NO MORE POWER BILLS!!! We built 2 process plants.One 30gal and 1 200gal plant. Using mostly junk from our own bone yard We'v spent less than $500. We are working on a plan to haul 1,000 gal a week from 2 local french fry plants, and have an order for all the biodiesel we can make from a local trucking co.I realy encurage every one to try it yourself. This year alone we will save over $30,000 in fuel and electric bills! that is money in our pockets not some huge oil co.Good luck

 

Just be careful selling the stuff. From what I have read on the tax codes, you may sell up to 400 gallons every quarter without reporting to the feds. Outside of that, I would love to have any info on your setup that you feel like sharing.

 

Our setups are very simple. The waste oil we receive comes in the same 5 gal jugs that the restarants buy it in. We have a heat exchanger we built from and old ac condenser mounted on a portable stand with a 1/2 horsepower pump that we put behind our shop wood stove,and it pumps a 50/50 antifreeze solution thru a coil in a 40gal insulated open top tank.the oil is dumped into this tank and heated to 150F then drained thru a gate valve at the bottom onto a inclined 1/6in punch plate trough.The heated oil then goes into a 30gal insulated tank and is filled to 25 gal,then we add 5gal of methanol/lie mixture and stir vigorously for 30 min.After the reaction is completed this mixture is pumped into a noninsulated 30 gal tank and cooled overnight.The next day we pump 25 gal of biodiesel of the top, and are left with 5 gal of glycerin which we save for further processing to recover aprox 40percent methanol for reuse.the biodiesel is alowed to settle for 2 weeks, and is then decanted of the top of the barrel and pumped thru a 5 micron filter and a 2 micron filter hooked together.now it is ready for use.As to the taxes,Oregon has a tax incentive program for biodiesel producers who produce less than 1,000,000 gal/year.Our governer has proposed a plan to mandate a 5percent biodiesel use withen 2 years with tax incentives for farms who use or produce it.Hope this will answer som of your questions.

 

Fabmandelux, what do you do with the glycerin byproduct?

 

Funny you should ask! We just ran our first 30 gal of glycern through our new shop built stainless steel still. We recovered 37% of our initial input of methanol,not bad for home built.We now have solid blocks of dark brown to black semi-refined glycerin.Our next project is to add more lye,water and heat.Presto! Soap and liquid hand cleaner! Now I have to find some soap moulds,it never ends. Any help?

 

Can't help you out with any soap molds, but I like the way you are thinking.

A lot of smart people are capitalizing on biodiesel right now, and it's very interesting to me (an oil businessman) to see the farmers get involved in self production and the chemical companies get involved.

There are some interesting arrangements out there because biodiesel is a high demand product as is glycerin. I know first hand of an arrangement where a man supplies a pharmaceutical company with animal fat (grease), the pharmaceutical company adds the methanol and produces the Biodiesel. The pharmaceutical company then "gives" the biodiesel back to the man who provided the animal fat, free of charge. The pharmaceutical company retains the glycerin as payment for their service.

Good luck with your endeavors. If I wasn't stuck in a suburb in an office all the time I'd be riding a big tractor, growing things, fabricating, making motors and machines, maybe even biodiesel!

 

Does your exhaust smell like fries?

 

can you help a guy out on how to make some of this I own a 35 acre farm I'v read most of the info on the net but it gets Really confusing

 

Amazing -

It seems like only a few months ago I mentioned BD, and now look at all the news coming in...

Fabmandelux, you are totally awesome!!!

I found a source here locally that I can get 55 gallon drums from and have two of them (hint- many full service gas stations and repair shops get oil in 55G drums, and will give them to you for free) but thats as far as I got with it due to other issues.

~Wolf

 

We do Bio-Diesel in central PA, At times we use an old portable john cleaning truck to pick up waste vegetable oil for refinement, suck it up at the site, and spit it back out at the plant, our Glycerine though is clear, about 99% pure and is clear liquid, we still have liquid hand cleaner, working with the hard soap still, Exhaust smells more like hamburgers, we got a pile of soap molds off the BAY, be careful though, they melt at a low temperature, may want to try forms made of wood. In PA, they give you a wopping 1 cent per gallon tax incentive to use Bio Diesel. we have not gotten the stiffer oil to work yet, ( when they clean off the griddles, they throw water on the griddles to help clean off the food leftovers, which is now in the oil and it comes out stiff and hydrolized). Amazing, what chemistry can do.

 

Note on sources:

In the west Tennessee area it may be hard to find, but many asian food restaraunts produce fairly clean waste oil (so I was told).

K-fry, Taco Bell, and many large fast food chains use a fully plumbed waste oil system these days, and have the removal contracted out - so they were a bust. I didn't get a verifiable contact for the oil collection company either (wrong number).

Still - in the south, we probably use more oil in cooking than anywhere else. The basics of "Southern Cuisine" are: "Bole everthang in Ole..." >:op

Small food places (especially family owned) are likely the best bet.

~Wolf

 

Waste oil that has NOT been used to cook meat is the most desirable.
IE, oil from a bakery, tortillia bakery, potatoe chips, etc.
The guy above mentioned oil from an asian restaurant and i would say yes to japenese because they mainly fry vegetables(tempura)
It has less "#!*&" in it so less by product ='s less work filtering down the line.

Did anybody see the BIodiesel co-op Willie Nelson started in Austin Texas?

 

Tell me more about this. I have been doing some research on bd here in Tx and I am comming up with very little.

 

here is another question, I've been shopping around for a 7.3liter f250 and was intending on running biodiesel etc.
I have two trucks in mind, one being 94 turbo and one being the older 89 without....
which will run better with the grease/bio?

thanks
dp

 

Biodiesel would work great in either. I think '94 was the first powerstroke (right? But I think you could also get an IDI turbo for a while there), they aren't quite as ideal for a grease conversion as an inderict inj. motor. Which is it? The injectors on powerstroke are more susceptible to build-up and at least one of the conversion companies provides an additional heated filter (total of 2 in-line I believe) to prevent this.

If they are both IDI either one will work, but you'll be happier w/ the turbo . I've got the greasecar system on my car, any more questions just ask.