Bio Diesel/ Veggie Oil

[nolafishr]

Does anyone here run Bio Diesel or Veggie Oil in their Trucks? I have read a lot about it and was wondering.

[oldestof11]

I always run B5 or B20. Government mandated of course.

Now, at work, we have about 160 gallons of veggie based oil that we use for our air compressors and vacuum pumps. I am going to see if I can snag them for summer.

[Burritoboi5]

I used to run a few gallons of the Veg in with my regular diesel during the summer, never had any issues but the oil I had was filtered with a centrifuge and screen filters. Smells good too, I think the most I ran was 30-40% veg.

[redneckroot]

I run tested biodiesel up to 100% at times.

[Mark Nixon]

PROPERLY done Bio-Diesel is a nice fuel, it'll clean EVERYTHING out.
With that, you should either have a freshly re-done fuel system, or carry extras of the parts it'll kill, such as a lift pump, or a new filter, injection pump, etc.

I wouldn't even consider WVO, because it tends to have contaminants no matter how you prep it.
Short of making bio diesel, running WVO is basically asking for trouble.

I have the results of WVO running through a VE and it's not pretty.

IMO, for all the extra work, costs to properly process it and the competition for the WVO product, it's just not feasible to run the stuff, plus if you get one bad batch, you'll wish you'd never had it.

LARD (or animal fat) contamination is very prevalent in WVO.
Lard is hard to separate out and sets up individually from WVO, because it is an animal based, not a plant based, product.
It also requires a higher temp to liquefy, which means it's more of a solid at an animal's body temperature, as well as room or air temperature.

Ultimately, one should also NEVER have to PAY for something that the rendering companies get PAID to haul off.

My feelings are very similar for WMO/WTF, if it's dark, it's contaminated.
WTF belongs nowhere near an engine, IMO.

Mark.

[oldestof11]

Now I have a question for you Mark.

What about heating the waste motor oil up to 200*-220*, then using a low pressure sub 200 GPH pump to push through a sediment filter and 3-4 filters ranging from 20 down to 2 microns? Heated up enough to not break the oil down but separate the contaminated from the oil? Basically what they do to "recycle" the oil but since I would add only up to 50%, lubrication can be done by the Power Service and diesel.

[Mark Nixon]

The problem I see is with what is referred to as "Black Diesel".
Any contaminants usually add color to the oil base, ergo, solid black carbon, which is the most common contaminant, is what causes the black color.
To a lesser degree, so does microscopic metal particles, which are also not good to machinery with tight tolerances.

As far as I've been able to determine, the BEST way to remove carbon and particles is good old GRAVITY, combined with heating the oil to reduce viscosity.
Centrifuges, filters and heating the oil works, but still can suspend particles, where as simple gravity and removing the base from the TOP will work the best.
Problem is, it takes TIME to settle particles from oil, but by heating it, the settle out time can be reduced.

Funny thing about this, I only realized this "settle out" phenomenon after working on an old car that had sat for 20-odd years.
The oil in it looked like it had just been changed when I pulled the dipstick, but once it had run, it was coal black.
The only way that could have happened is that the (now) suspended particles, over 20+ years, had settled into the pan.

There's something remarkable, yet basic, about ANYTHING oil-based that is used in an automobile/truck:
These products are lighter than water, as such (as with water), these types of oil products will allow dirt and solids to settle out and since these oil products and fuels are generally refined as a vapor, there are never any solids to affect them, therefore on refining, they only need filtered because of post-refining contamination.

Mark.