The ramblings of g1powermac

While contemplating about making my own vegetable oil using sunflower seeds and a Piteba expeller and then converting it to biodiesel, it came to me that I maybe able to run the diesel engine directly on the vegetable oil. That would not only save having to buy chemicals to produce the biodiesel (methanol and lye) but would also remove the wasteful by-product (glycerin) from producing the biodiesel. After researching this possibility, I found there’s one major problem. Vegetable oil is much to viscous to work in a diesel engine without some modification. The way to fix this is to heat the oil up until it becomes more fluid. But this becomes a problem when starting the engine from a cold start. The major method then to run straight vegetable oil is to, well, not use straight vegetable oil. Standard or biodiesel is used to start the engine until the engine and the vegetable oil is warm enough to be used. And, before shutting down the engine, it is switched back to regular diesel to purge the fuel lines so the engine can start again. The major downfall with this method is the fact that you still need diesel to run the engine. However, Elsbett has created a converter system that will allow the engine to run on the vegetable oil only. From what I understand, the system replaces the fuel injection system to allow for the thicker vegetable oil. I like to see if I could maybe convert a diesel generator using this system which would make a nice backup for an off the grid power system.

Posted by g1powermac under Interesting Stuff | Comments Off