Bio Diesel

[WH_Conley]

I just took a job with our local county government doing a vocational program with Class D prisoners at the county jail. The idea is to try to teach them how to work as much as an individual trade. Well, we all know that not all of them want to do anything different than what they have always done, I have to sort them as we go.  One thing we are doing is recycling, we already have the program off to a shaky start. One aspect that has been put on my plate is bio diesel. There seems to be a vast amount of used cooking oil available. I do not know anything about making this stuff. I have read a lot about it in the last week but have no practical experience.

I know several here on the forum have made bio in the past and still do. I need a crash course. This program needs to be up and running pretty quick. I need all the help I can get.

The short list of what I have to work with is, cheap labor, nothing else. I need help on kits or anything that is available. I would also like your comments on what the short comings of these kits are and any other tips anyone can give.

All help appreciated.

[John Mc]

A great place to start:

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html

The link above is mainly their "why biofuels?" page, but check out the link to BioDeisel in the left column, and the many sub-links under that.

There was a book that came out some years ago with a title something along the lines of "From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank" I think it was by Josh Tickell. It was an interesting intro to the subject, including walking you through making a small batch of biodiesel with not much more than a kitchen blender, waste veggie oil, and a few chemicals. There may be much better books out there by now.

Another business to look at would be converting diesel vehicles to run on straight veggie oil (they can still be run on diesel after the conversion). This gets more complex in colder climates, but can be done. If you are in the south, gelling of the veggie oil is less of a problem.

[OneWithWood]

Meaning no disrespect, John, but I would avoid journeytoforever like the plague.  It is full of out dated and inaccurate information. 

WH, some of the kits are good and some not-so-good. I would avoid any kit that has poly tanks as part of the set up.  I have been making bio diesel for several years and have made over 10,000 gallons of fuel I use in my vehicles, equipment and as a fuel oil for heating.

The best equipment on the market, and the safest, most automated, is the Bio Pro line by Springboard bio diesel.  www.springboardbiodiesel.com

I have a dinner party starting in a few minutes so I cannot go into any details at the moment but I will get back on the forum in the morning with some pointers.

The chemicals involved (methanol, potassium or sodium hydroxide, and sulfuric acid) may not be things you want the inmates palying with.

[John Mc]

No offense taken, OneWithWood. It was probably 10 years ago that I was poking around in the subject.

[OneWithWood]

WH, if I understood your post you really do not have much of a budget to work with.  Is that correct?

Here is a pic of a processing unit I built when I was first starting out.  It is configured around a water heater and a number of open head 55 gal drums.


 

With this set up I could make 32 gallons of biodiesel over the course of 4-5 days.  Everything was manually operated and would necessitate 6-8 hours of hands on time.
The total cost of the unit was somewhere around $500 including pumps and electrical connections.

My current processor is a BioPro BP190.  It cost $11,000, makes 50 gal every two days and takes about 30 minutes of my time.  From a cost benefit stand point the automated processor was the way to go for me.  If the county is looking at the total picture the automated processor would pay for itself very quickly.  My total cost to make biodiesel is $0.78/gal. now that the processor costs are recovered.  With the processor included it was $1.10/gal.

What is the quantity of oil produced by the kitchen on a weekly basis?  Is the county paying for a vendor to pick it up or are they able to sell it?
What are the winter temps like in your area?

You also mentioned converting vehicles to run on straight veggie oil.  I would urge you to do some research on that and look at it with a critical eye.  The conversion of the vehicles cost money and is increasingly more difficult to do with modern diesels.  From my perspective running straight veggie oil is not a viable option.  With bio diesel no conversion of vehicles is necessary and there is no additional wear on the engines if the fuel is made properly.  As an added bonus it a very good soap can be made from the glycerin byproduct. 

If you think you would like to pursue the bio diesel production I am more than willing to help. 

[John Mc]

That was me who mentioned converting vehicles to SVO. I've seen a couple of them here in VT, but now that you mention it, they were both older vehicles.

[WH_Conley]

Thanks for the input and keep it coming. I need all the help and advice I can get. When we get closer I am going to steer the Judge Executive to this thread. Some of you all know him from here. He is the Forum's own Thomas-in-Kentucky.

[Kansas]

Sounds like you are between the proverbial rock and a hard place. And I don't quite see how that is teaching them a vocation. Still, it might keep em busy and give them something to do. I assume this is waste that comes into the county for free that has to be dealt with.

These are a couple of way way off the wall suggestions. The first is this. We used soy diesel at one time for blade lube for our band mills. It wouldn't involve chemicals, I don't think. Why not just strain the oil and sell it for blade lubricant. Not sure what a D prisoner is, if they can be around chemicals. I'm guessing there are a whole lot of sawmills in Kentucky.

The second one might have better political traction. Did a quick Google, and apparently, you can use it to make soap, with chemicals. (caustic soda, whatever that is). Well, Kentucky has a prison system, plus the local jails. They all need soap. You might get the purse strings loosened a little if you could supply part or all of the soap. For molds and chemicals, although it sure wouldn't take much. Small tupperware containers I would think. You would not have to have fancy packaging. You may not have to package at all, except for a cardboard box to hold the cakes in and ship.

One more thing; if you really wanted to get fancy, and could make this soap, you could market it to "green" people as an inmate product. Ship it to California. Throw some good PR spin on it. I have hired a few former inmates. They are good at spin. Recycled materials for soap. Small portion of sales go to educational materials or whatever for the prisoners. Now that would be teaching them a trade. Marketing. Maybe a website. Yoou probably have a lot of talent sitting in jail.


Like I said, these are way off the wall suggestions.

[Paul_H]

  As an added bonus it a very good soap can be made from the glycerin byproduct. 

[OneWithWood]

Caustic soda=potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide otherwise known as lye. 

[Kansas]

Oops. I missed OWW comment on the soap before mine.

[WH_Conley]

Kansas, a little more detail on the vocational end of it. The recycle end is to pay for the vocational. The bio is considered recycle. Money is tight. The vocational part is mainly carpentry. It will be a lot easier for me to get money for tools and materials if the program is making some money. The Class D guys are just serving out their time If they have demonstrated violent tendencies, they stay in a cell. Some of them are young and have never worked at anything, some career criminals. My goal is to try to find the ones that want some training of how to hold a job and don't want to come back to jail. They didn't get in jail for skipping Sunday School, they aren't Charles Manson's either.

I got a sneaking suspicion that this is going to be a wild ride.

You never know when an off the wall suggestion might bounce around and hit smack on the target. There is a lot of talent there, most of it at BS, still talent.

[Gary_C]

Don't assume there is free veggie oil out there available in any reasonable quantities. In most areas that free stuff is now being used or is not free anymore. And there are people that now have routes to pick up that valuable feedstock.

Check it out in your area before you jump into anything.

[Gary_C]

OWW, please tell us more about your current operation. What feedstock are you using, where do you get it, and what does it cost? Plus do you have cold weather starting problems with your biodiesel?

I looked at your website and those complete units look good. My son has a car that has a conversion kit for grease but he is having problems finding the free waste grease anymore. So that's why the questions on your feedstock.

Oh and more. What other equipment like tanks, etc does it take to run those processors?

[OneWithWood]

I have a relationship with four local restaurants.  I pick up their used fryer oil (canola, soybean and corn) on a weekly basis.  Three of the restaurants are happy to give it to me, one asked .30/gal and I agreed to pay that as long as they kept the oil in a secure place and did not just leave it outside.  All the restaurants put the used oil back in the original 'cubies' it came in.
Bio diesel has a higher gel point that petro diesel.  The gel point is dependant on the feedstock.  The fuel I make is trouble free to about 38°F.  Below that I blend with petrol diesel.  The blending schedule is roughly 32-38°F 75% bio-to-petro
25-31°F 50-50
20-24°F 25-75
Below 20°F I run 100% petro

The blends are approximate because it depends on my ability to predict temps and what I have in the truck.
I have never had an issue with the truck but I have been caught with gelled fuel in my equipment.  From December through February I keep 100% off-road diesel in my tractor, excavator and crawler because they sit out in the weather and when I need them, I need them.

In addition to the processor I utilize a pallet jack, pallets I make, a manual barrel pump, a small sump pump, a 300 gal water tank (no running water in my shop), a plastic 55 gallon drum for the waste wash water (no drains in my shop either) and a filtering station I made from two 55 gallon drums.  I also have a couple of 275 gal totes to store the glycerin by-product in until I get around to reclaiming the methanol via a pot still I made from the electric water heater that was my original processor.

The biggest problem folks have securing feedstock is an unwillingness to work with the suppliers on a schedule they can depend on.  Once a restaraunt has been burned agreeing to let someone have their oil who does not show up on a regular basis they are very reluctant to go that route again.

[Bill]

Although I've not made bio-diesel I like the sounds of it ( a member of an auto forum showed me his operation and it was cool/practical - he used it for him and his neighbor - besides running his oil furnace on it ) .

I'm thinking between the bio-diesel for vehicles and maybe oil furnaces the prison would save a few bucks . I have read about some differences in the quality depending on the original source of oil and the consistency of the output - things like lubricity, cetane, gelling and more I don't remember so well . . .

Think there's some reporting requirements to the IRS ( govt wants its piece of the action I suppose ) .

I do like the concept but think the oil companies are - ahem - acquiring bio-diesel companies to " learn " the business .

Any ongoing progress news would of course be welcome .

[OneWithWood]

An issue that has caused bio diesel production some consternation is vehicles with diesel particulate filter systems that rely on a delayed blast of fuel so the excess fuel dribbles down the exhaust pipe to the DPF unit where it ignites to clean out the unit.  Works ok with diesel but there have been numerous reports of bio diesel causing issues by not igniting at the same temps and leaking into the oil where it can create big time issues.

I bielieve the first DPF units hit the market in 2006.

[doo_hicky]

OWW, have you heard of any issues with older equipment(such as farm tractors) that have issues with bio?  The issues that I have heard of is that a lot of older equipment/vehicals used natural rubber o-rings and that bio degrades them, and rebuiding the injection systems aren't all that cheap.

Thanks

Mike

[chevytaHOE5674]

Natural rubber and Biodiesel/waste veggie oil don't get along. You need Viton rubber seals and hoses in your fuel system to reliably run bio diesel.

On the other hand most older equipment can run on rather strong mixtures of waste motor oil without any issues. I filter all of my used motor oil/hydraulic fluid/gear lube/ATF/etc and mix it with regular unleaded gas and run it in my older tractors and in my ford IDI diesel pickup. 

[OneWithWood]

It all depends on how old 'old' is  ;)

Natural rubber seals will disintegrate when running high mixtures of biodiesel.  Many manufacturers switched from natural rubber to synthetic compounds in the mid '90s for O rings and seals though many, such as John Deere, continued to use cheaper rubber compounds in the fuel lines.

[doo_hicky]

Well out newest international tractor was made in 1978, so my memory seems to be correct in remembering that little tidbit about rubber o-rings.

@chevy  I have never heard of mixing gas with waste oil and using that as fuel in a diesel, isn't that just a little dangerous?

Thanks

Mike

[chevytaHOE5674]

Why would it be dangerous? The gas is just to thin the oil down and get it to flow through the filters easier and help settle any moisture to the bottom. I mix 80% oil and 20% gas and have been burning it in my pickup for a couple hundred gallons so far, makes driving an old diesel truck or tractor really affordable. Do some reading around the internet and you will find lots of people doing this.

[SwampDonkey]

Well someone found a way to make money on biofuel delivered by train, more than once with the same load.  :

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/12/19/mystery-biodiesel-train-credits.html