austin1972

Hahaha, I know. The washing and drying part had me at first too. Gentle cycle (no bleach!) followed by hanging with clothespins?

You wash bio with water to remove excess methanol and soap to ensure - get this - you don't get WATER in your diesel!

The logic is that methanol and soap have a huge affinity for water, so you need to get it out of the biodiesel. Since the biodiesel by itself doesn't like water (oil and water, right?) it will seperate from the water while the methanol and soapy stuff goes into the water.l The water sinks to the bottom and you just drain it off. Wash, rinse, repeat until the water comes clear. Many use water misters to wash the fuel.

Drying can be done a couple ways. You can use time or heat. I like heat because I'm impatient. Biodiesel is cloudy until it dries. Not sure that's the best way to tell when it's dry but that's the method I used in my Dr. Pepper test run. They now have machines that do all that stuff for you (react/wash/dry).

You'll lose a little HP on bio because it has fewer BTU's than dinodiesel. Well made bio will not hurt your motor. Do a little research on FFA's, unreacted WVO, glycerine, methanol and water. These are things you do not want in your finished bio.

Gawd, I dork out on this stuff but in all honesty, THESE GUYS know about 5,984,267,412 times what I know.

kawi600

yeah I found out that the water you get out from settling and heating or even spraying is nothing compared to what you can get out if you heat and bubble in the reactor or heat and vacuum. LOTS of water comes out.
thats not healthy because water is really evil at high pressures you can get cavitation on top of normal corrosion. I worry about the pump parts and injector nozzles.
if you make your own fuel you can always verify your process by sending it out for analysis.. you can do some home tests as well. google for 'biodiesel 3/27 test'.

whistling turbo

Has anyone had any experience with the Diesel secret energy? I know i have read this thread that has mentioned a couple of times that it is crap, but does anyone actually have experience? It is not biodiesel. It don't need a separate tank on vehicle, it seems way more simple and safe to make. And it is the one that only costs 46 cents per gallon. I am sure other sites will mention it not good....because they want you to use there system.

kawi600

dont use diesel secret, its a bad idea to run gasoline in your motor and thats basically what they have you mix in there.
The only two safe ways to do it are a veg conversion or biodiesel.

whistling turbo

I didn't read anything on the diesel secret web site that says anything about adding gasoline.

austin1972

I think the directions that come with it have you mixing in gas and a cetane booster. Over at the biodiesel infopop forum, it's referred to as 'snakeoil'.

Try it if you like - it's your truck after all. Just be prepared for fuel pump and injector issues.

whistling turbo

But making biodiesel you mix in Methanol. And gasoline is just a more refined diesel. So I don't see this mix being anything really different than the others. Sure wish someone would chime in that has used this product. Diesel just jumped to $4.20 here the other day. Cetane is something we need for our diesels, specially the older ones.

kawi600

When you react biodiesel you do use alcohol, but it is washed out in the next step. Most of it winds up in the glycerol but not all of it.

austin1972

Good bio will have all the methanol washed out of it. It's just used along with KOH or NaOH to make methoxide for the transesterification of your WVO. It's shouldn't be a component of the finished product.
No no's in Bio:
No water
No methanol
No soap
No FFA's

Yes! PH=7 and passes the 3/27 test.

whistling turbo

There are some big words there. I am no way an expert, but if gasoline is just a more refined diesel, I guess I am thinking that a little gas wouldn't hurt then. I am probably wrong here, it's been known to happen. Just ask me wife. He He

austin1972

I just use the big words to make myself sound like an expert. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!

whistling turbo

Lol. Too funny

ktpauley

We have a fairly elaborate setup. We centrfuge the WVO for 3 hours prior to processing. The processor is a cone bottom unit from a company in Wash. state. We don't water was, but dry wash using Purolite 2906 media. All of our fuel passes the 3/27 test. We make soap out of the glycerin. If you use NaOH you make barsoap. If you use KOH you make liquid soap. All I can say about the soap is it cleans like crazy. The cost is around $.95/gallon. I'll have to tak pics of the setup. Keith

Diesel Dave2

I heard about this dry washing...Could you explain this or post a website that I could read about it...So far I have water washed close to 2000 gallons.Would like to check out a different process.

LanceD

how do you make the soap? you just clump it together and let it harden or what