Yellow grease is the waste material that resturants produce on the scale of multi billions of gallons a year.

***not intentended for professionals, novice level only***

It is thick, dirty, watery and who knows what got dumped in it. It has to be de-hydrated and filtered to 5 microns to make it in a 6.5L IP (DS-4).
The first picture is heating it to remove water. If my grease looks clear, it's because I draw off the top of the containers I put it in. The more I draw off the cloudier it gets. As you bring it toward 220*F it will begin to pop and crackle as it steams out the water. let it hold >220 *F 'till it stops then come back to ~150*F for safty's sake and then it's ready to filter.
The second picture shows a gravity filter. It takes 30 min to go through one coffee filter ~5-10 microns. picture #3 is the crap that you don't want in the system.

At this point it can go in the fuel tank. When I first started adding it, I would only put it in with the engine running but over time it hasn't failed me. I don't add more than 10% at this point but I'd like to run 100%. Picture #4 is the way it looks when it's full of water off the bottom. These take twice as long to boil out.

Believe me...I am not being a smart @ss when I ask...what is the purpose of it. Does it aid in lubrication to engine parts or......?

Yes, and it has a high cetane content, it's thick , dense energy.

Where does one attain this "product"? How does it affect your mileage and power?

Where does one attain this "product"? How does it affect your mileage and power?
McDonalds, Burger King....as far as mileage & power, be careful with the % mixture you make. Do your research. It depends on climate, distance, purity...

I live on the gulf coast. Very hot here most of the year. I wouldn't exceede 50% in the heat of summer and possibly none in the winter if you live up north.

The power increase is about the same if you added a few gallons of 30W oil to the fuel tank.

QM, does it mix well with the #2? With the price of fuel lately we are all looking for some cheap fuel.

They sell kits for this. Around $600 or so. The ones I have read about start the truck on diesel then go to this veggee oil after which you switch back to diesel to shut down. The kit comes with all the lines and a twenty gallon tank with a couple of filters and such. The tank and filters are heated so the veggee oil is oil and not goop. While this is suppose to save a lot of money on diesel I haven't heard what happens with a 100k of doing this. Depend on where you get the veggee oil you could smell like frys going down the road.:lol:

Yes, and I'm just mixing the two in the tank. The trick is quality and quantity control. Don't put any dirty stuff in.

QM
So, you are starting and shutting down with WVO? I understood that when it cools it will gel and not flow thru the pump & injectors? Or does the filter heater on the 6.5 heat it enough to get it to flow ok? i was planning to put a small second tank in to start & shut down with biodiesel in and use the main large tank to run WVO.
http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/images/smilies/cool2.gif

Yes, It works fine so far. I did it all last summer and I like the smell too.

come on fellas....where are all the chicken jokes? LOL

QM, this seems to be the wave of the future, i remeber seeing this kind of thing on "thats incredible" when a truck was ran on chocolate bars.

what did McFly use in place of the "flux capasator"? thats right, Mr Fusion! just goes to show that even in the future, we can use about any resource for fuel.

maybe this will catch on with fuel being $2.25 per gal......i guess if youeat at KFC and then use the oil from there, you may be getting more than your moneys worth in the long run.

That stuff works good with inline injection pumps, but I think your going to screw up your DS pump using that stuff. Keep it up, we need the work.

QM, I have to tell ya, I like your idea but I think the glycerin and Free Fatty Acids screw up the injection system. I'm just not sure what quantities are ok to blend in and that's why I was going to try the biodiesel conversion process if I ever get off my dead butt and do it. You are right when you say that vegetable oil is very slippery stuff

I spend $5000 a year in fuel at least. That's a couple of pumps and a fuel tank too!

QM, enough said. Anything you can do to get that cost down IS a good thing

Pop over to biodiesel.infopop.cc site. LOTS of guys working on this. There are plans over there for building your own WVO system. Got to do it carefully, and read up on this stuff first before you start doing it. You can booger your fuel system up!!! BUT if done right, there are some that have gone 100k mile veggin'.

Like QM's thought on over-all economics . . . weigh out pump verse's fuel cost. Way things are goin' pumps will be cheaper than fuel.

Only hesistancy I see with the boiling out method, is that it does not get ALL the water out believe it or not. There is free water, dissolved water, etc. etc. Be careful.

Don't use the fast food resturants oil, they are usually the worst from the stuff I've been readin' on.

Do all your reading first before messin' up and getting disgusted at the whole setup. It's got merit.

I have read about a guy in Washington state who runs all of his farm equipment and trucks on the stuff. There is a recipe where you add Lye and sodium hydroxide and end up with liquid fuel and solid lye soap. I think it is call sapponification ?spelling? It sounds like it should work Dr. Diesel designed the thing to run on peanut oil for submarines.

We need to lobby Congress to stop paying farmers to not grow stuff, and pass legislation that allows incentives for SVO reliability research, growing crops for fuel, and credits for folks that run (veggie/waste refined/cleaned) derived fuels. Veggie fuels won't replace gas but look how much oil would not have to be converted to Diesel that would be available.

As I recall to make it cost effective for soybean oil to be used as a diesel replacement the $/gal would have to be something like $2.35 ,2002 numbers. Then you have to get a distribution system set up and BIG Censored OIL won't let that happen.

I have read about a guy in Washington state who runs all of his farm equipment and trucks on the stuff. There is a recipe where you add Lye and sodium hydroxide and end up with liquid fuel and solid lye soap. I think it is call sapponification ?spelling? It sounds like it should work Dr. Diesel designed the thing to run on peanut oil for submarines.
I prefer SVO to biodiesel.
Biodiesel has less energy per pound.
Biodiesel has to be processed (*note the "high tech" way to do it is with ionic resins or supercriticial methanol)
Biodiesel breaksdown quickly and it breaks down petrol diesel quicklt too.

Just a side note. I heard an "expert" on diesel fuels and biodiesel say on the radio that biodiesel had just as much sulfer as petrol diesel. If you know anything about anything you know that sulfer in petrol is from eons of microbial breakdown producing hydrogen sulfide.

Biodiesel is good stuff, for those who think green. But, it can attack some of your components in your fuel system. SVO requires less work in the long run, but requires modifications to get it to run.

I think the process that your are refering to is transesterification.

Another biodiesel drawback is at low temperatures, it gels easily.

KNKREB,
I'm running SVO with no mods.

No mods with running a blend in TX, I can see that. But if you are running "S"VO as in 100%, in my area where the temps getz a bit more chilla. . . needz a little bitz a help with some heat.

QM, are you testing for PH? WVO that is acidic will attack the inside of your pump.:confused: I am working with a science teacher at work who just completed first batch of biodiesel and now we are going to start experimenting with blending WVO, test tube first before it goes into an engine. By the way, the first batch of bio went into a diesel lawn mower today, ran great!

Alkaline aint none too healthy either, though I suspect probaly easier to find WVO being too acid

My point is nuetral is what we want, so why take chances on running something without testing and costing us some big bucks. After all we are trying to save money, right.:eek:

I have the means to test the sulfur content of fuels. I personally don't see how some biodiesels would have any sulfur in them at all, unless there is some kind of baterial fermentation in the processing of it? There is a local station selling it, but I don't want to have to buy 40 gallons just to test a sample of it (40 Gallon minimum purchase). Hmmm, I'm curious now... I will have to stop by and see if I can get a shot-glass size sample.

pH may be an issue, but from the few posts that I've read on this forum, biodiesel seems to be more agressive on fuel systems that it was not designed for. The rubber return lines on injectors (depending upon which ones you have, and no not vacuum line) turn to swiss cheese on BD.

The methanol tends to gobble stuff up. You can convert over to Viton to keep from having a biodiesel puddle follow you around town. Some of the parts I been screening through to use on building my system, has specifically said "no alcohol" fuels.

If you are running a two-tank SVO setup, then you will start up on diesel, switch over to SVO, and shut back down again on diesel. Contact time with your fuel system is reduced to running time only, as opposed to constant contact.

One of the postings that I've been reading on another site, said that FFA's (Free Fatty Acids) are not as harmfully as some may think. That are actually a great source of energy in the fuel. There are other forms of acids which can be more harmful. There are water soluable acids which are in a whole other category, but these are rare.

Find yourself a good supply of WVO, not one that's been beat to death, like that of fast food chains.

Well, did my own WVO blend yesterday in my cummins. I filtered about 2.5 gallons and put it in my 40 gallon fuel tank. Before adding to my fuel tank, I blended 50/50 with diesel and mixed it up. Then I put it in the freezer for 2 hours and it didn't separate or cloud. So I am game. I drove it for about 150 miles and, believe it or not the exhaust smells just like the 100 percent biodiesel that I put in my diesel lawn mower.:cool2: Makes me hungry. One question I have though is that I used the WVO that turned clear at 70 degree room temp., I skimmed it off of the top. The rest of the oil is whiteish in color, should I just heat it up and then filter it. The whiteish stuff plugs my strainers very quickly. Any thoughts?

Dave,

I'd be careful with the whitish WVO. It probably contains molecules that have a higher cloud point than the clear stuff you skimmed off. There is also a chance it may contain water :( . I'd let it settle for a couple of weeks or use a water-blocking filter. Then, if you heat the white stuff up and it goes clear, it would be only usable in small quantities - and in hot or at least warm weather. Some VWO has been hydrogenated, i.e. "cooked" too long, and its cloud /gel point can be up as high as 90 - 100 F. That oil would have to be used in a heated WVO setup.

We find the clearer oils make biodiesel with lower cloud/gel point than does whitish. The whitest WVO isn't worth using, except in mid summer.

Always on the lookout for too-high viscosity here in the cold Northeast,

KN

Thanks King Nuzz, I will experiment some more before I run the white stuff. I am going to heat it and then let it sit and see what happens.

I've had a few adventures in yellow grease I have to share.

I managed to mix ~40% WVO into my tank. Then I took it further but had negative side effects due to the darkness or opacity of the fuel source I was using. The mix in the tank got to the color of coffe, with abot 30% glycerine when it settled. At this point the optical sensor started loosing time, giving DTC for the optical. The engine would "DIESEL" as it came and went from limp mode, but I still drove it 65mph like this.
I drew off a sample from the water trap and added some pump diesel (7 gal to 8 mixed gallons) the engine ran fine after this and I took another sample.

The first picture is the simi solid "white" or partially hydrogenated oil that has been fried to death from the chicken place. I find that if heated to ~150*F it is a dark brown liquid that mixes well in the tank and doesn't seperate or gel once it has become homogenious from driving around.

The second picture is the two samples of fuel from my tank. The sample on the left has the clarity of tea and the sample on the right has the opacity of coffe. I was amazed the the sensative 6.5L optical could run the "tea" fuel as well as it does.

BTW I'm getting much better milage with the grease in the tank, but My fuel filter only made 2K miles before the grease has fouled it to the point of nonpassage of fuel.

Quantum,

have you had any problems with the filter sock in the fuel tank getting plugged? I just managed to resolve a fuel delivery problem in my burb and it turns out that the inlet screen on my pusher fuel pump was too fine and the glycerine plugged it, limiting flow. I removed the screen(super fine) and replaced it with a screen from another fuel pump(much larger holes) and now I don't have any pressure loss at all. This fine screen was probably the cause of waxing last winter on sub zero temps also. Back in business blending with wvo. Also, I notice that the fuel is very slippery when mixed with the wvo:D good for my vp44 pump.

Plugged up again one day later, plugged the fuel filter solid(filter was only one week old)looks like glycerine, dark in color greasy consistancy. I think I will go the extra trouble and just make biodiesel. This experiment is a failure.-:t

Wouldn't vigorous dewatering / prefiltering of the oil help? I'm thinking of letting the oil settle for a while, then boiling the water out, then filtering it down to 2 microns before it goes in your fuel tank.

Wouldn't vigorous dewatering / prefiltering of the oil help? I'm thinking of letting the oil settle for a while, then boiling the water out, then filtering it down to 2 microns before it goes in your fuel tank.

:exactly: I hope so

Well, one of the benefits of having a little gray in my hair is that my memory isn't as good as it used to be, so, I was messing with some of my WVO that is sitting in my shop today. It is pretty warm in the shop, over 100f and it looks as if the oil has separated fairly well. When I first heated and filtered it about 3 weeks ago, I made the mistake of imediately adding the warm oil to the fuel tank without letting it settle. I think I got a pretty good dose of animal fats that caused the problems. So no I have taken the oil off the top of the filtered oil and it is clear, while the oil towards the bottom of the container is whitish. I think the clear oil will be fine to mix with my #2. I will see what it looks like in the morning at about 60f.:cool:

I am at 10% added WVO right now and am planning to go to 25%. I just take the stuff off the top when the guy dumps his oil. It's still hot and I have to be careful with it. After just going through a papertowel the stuff looks like clean honey (real nice). Then I run it through a coffee filter and it's all set. I am still putting an additional fuel filter and water separator on the truck this weekend