Hello Ryan
Comments below.
I've just had this thread brought to my attention on
thedieselpage.com. There looks to be a lot of people over there
bashing biodiesel as holding too much water and potentially
destroying the high pressure injection systems on the Chevrolet
duramax diesel.
They are being especially harsh on homebrew and on fuel made from
waste oil. One or two of the people who are defending biodiesel in
general sound like they are talking the NBB line about homebrewers
and waste oil causing quality problems and suggesting everyone stay
away from it.
I don't yet have the experience or the hard numbers to defend
biodiesel, but I'm sure more than one person on here does.
Here's the link:
http://forum.thedieselpage.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=007240
Thanks,
Ryan
Yeah, the usual mindless knee-jerk reaction - of course big industry
would do it right and produce quality fuel, of course a bunch of
scruffy amateurs would produce poor-quality sub-spec junk in their
backyards.
It turns out that the truth is the very opposite, and there's plenty
of evidence of it. It's all in the list archives for anyone to find,
if they want to. I'll extract some for you, and add some more.
I've just had a message from Aleks Kac. It refers to the basic quality test:
Quality testing
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_vehicle.html#quality
This is the most useful all-round test, and it's very simple: Put
150 ml of unwashed biodiesel (settled, with the glycerine layer
removed) in a half-litre glass jar. Add 150 ml of water, screw the
lid on tight and shake it up and down violently for 10 seconds or
more. Then let it settle. The biodiesel should separate from the
water in half an hour or less, with amber biodiesel on top and milky
water below. This is quality fuel, a completed product with minimal
contaminants, well within the standard specifications. Wash it and
then use it with confidence.
But if it turns into something that looks like mayonaisse
(emulsifies) and won't separate, or if it only separates very slowly,
with a thick white layer sandwiched between water and biodiesel, it's
not quality fuel and your process needs improvement. Either you've
used too much catalyst and made soap (better titration), or a poor
conversion has left you with mono- and diglycerides (try more
methanol, better agitation, longer processing time, better
temperature control), or both.
Whichever, you're headed for washing problems. Super-gentle washing
techniques might avoid the problems, but you'll still be left with
poor-quality fuel laced with contaminants that are bad for the engine
and the fuel system. Even normal bubble-washing is quite gentle, and
it's worth repeating the test with some washed fuel -- it should
separate from the water cleanly within 10 minutes.
Aleks wrote:
For nosyness' sake I tried the ole' test - mix a little water in your finished
product and watch the separation - but with a commercial biodiesel sample from
Austria. Horrifying results: it created a thick white foam between
the water and
bio layers. The le white foam thinned to 1/4 of thickness in 2
weeks, but hasn't dis-
saspeared. After 2 weeks the fuel still hasn't cleared.
Conclusion: Commercial bio is not washed with water! I suspect it
has merely distilled
its meth out and neutralized in a solid acid bed.
Bad fuel!!!
We did the same here with some commercial brew, and got the same
result. Bad fuel! We used some of our own production as a control
(normal production, nothing special), it separated cleanly within
minutes, NO white layer. The commercial stuff took SIX MONTHS to
clear.
This is from a previous message:
Some months back there was a fuss in California after World Energy
distributed a consignment of sub-spec biodiesel. Details here:
http://archive.nnytech.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/25291/ Bad quality at
World Energy? what's that again about Now what's that again about
homebrewers, quality, and out-of-spec fuel, and the quality control
standards that only industry can provide??
http://archive.nnytech.net/sgroup/BIOFUELS-BIZ/2888/ Re: even more
shady quality control in commercial biodiesel
World Energy withdrew the consignment, and their VP Sales Graham
Noyes posted this explanation:
First, this biodiesel is crappy not because it is Yellow Grease
(aka recycled) biodiesel but because it is out of spec biodiesel.
Prior to triggering this railcar, we received lab analysis showing
that it met ASTM spec. The good work of Dr. Dan alerted us that
there might be an issue with the fuel. We sent samples to an
independent lab and found it did not meet spec. We then pulled all
product and stopped supplying. If you have product that does not
meet spec, we will replace it with ASTM spec fuel. We guarantee that
our fuel meets ASTM spec and back that up as necessary.
I asked him how it was possible that the first lab had okayed it but
he didn't reply. There's been quite a lot of this
