Run Your Car on Bio-Diesel - Can You Really Make Your Own Fuel?

Run Your Car on Bio-Diesel - Can You Really Make Your Own Fuel?
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Tony_Kitson]Tony Kitson

If you want to do your bit for the environment, and save a bit of cash too, then you can run your car on bio-diesel. There are many commercially made versions that are widely available. However for maximum savings it is possible to produce your own fuel. If you are wondering how hard is it, and can you really make your own? Read on to see the basic steps you will need to take.

Waste Oil:

The base of your home-made fuel will be vegetable oil. The cheapest sort, and one you may be able to pick up for free, is used oil from fast food restaurants or similar. Many places will be only too pleased for you to take it off their hands.

Additives:

To this oil base you will be adding two chemicals, namely; methanol, and sodium hydroxide, often called lye or caustic soda. These additives will help to prevent the oil producing solid fat particles that will clog up your engine, and also make the fuel burn better, and give it better performance at low temperatures.

Process:

The method of producing a fuel from vegetable oil takes place in three stages.

1) Filtration. The first thing to do is to remove any solid impurities from your waste oil. Pass the oil through progressively smaller graded filters until all solid particles are removed.

2) Remove water. Your clean oil will contain a certain percentage of water. This is unwelcome in fuel and must be removed. The easiest way to do this is to heat it to 100 degrees centigrade. At this temperature water will boil off and some will settle to the base of the oil. After some time your oil will be water free.

3) Introduce additives. Add the methanol, and sodium hydroxide to the clean dry oil. You now need to stir this mixture for some time and then leave it to settle. Glycerol will form, and you need to remove this from the mix, this by-product is basically soap.

4) Wash and filter. After washing and filtering once more your fuel is ready to use.

Precautions:

You should get a good instruction manual to help you get all these stages right, as depending on the type and composition of your base oil the chemical amounts will vary. The process is very safe however, and as long as you take the same safety precautions that you would when deep fat frying, there will be no problems..

It is possible to run your car on bio-diesel, plus you can make your own from waste oil. You will save a fortune by doing this, and it will be the most environmentally sound fuel you can use. Welcome back to inexpensive guilt free motoring.

Make your own bio-diesel:

Did you know you can save money by producing your own bio fuel at home? For comprehensive instructions visit this [http://www.how-to-make-biodiesel-today.blogspot.com/]make bio-diesel website at [http://www.how-to-make-biodiesel-today.blogspot.com/]www.how-to-make-biodiesel-today.blogspot.com/.