Boat Exhaust Smells Like French Fries?

[Gallivanters]

What's the latest on mixing cooking oil with diesel fuel?

A restauraunt here in Pago Pago has over 250 gallons of used vegetable oil and they'll happily give it to me if I'll just take it away.

I've heard of people running marine diesels with various blends and I'm curious if anyone here has any first-hand experience with it or heard any good sea stories about using it.

To Life!

Kirk

[MMNETSEA]

Originally Posted by Gallivanters' date='24 March 2010 - 04:09 PM

What's the latest on mixing cooking oil with diesel fuel?

A restauraunt here in Pago Pago has over 250 gallons of used vegetable oil and they'll happily give it to me if I'll just take it away.

I've heard of people running marine diesels with various blends and I'm curious if anyone here has any first-hand experience with it or heard any good sea stories about using it.

To Life!

Kirk

Coincidence, this very day gave a family around 25 litres of used cooking oil to use in their yanmar tractor. They mix it in a ratio of 0ne oil

to three Diesel. And of course Thailand and Malaysia manufacture biodiesel from palm oil. The cooking oil I gave these folks for their tractor was made up of 10 bottles of used sunflower oil and the rest was used palm oil.

[mico]

Originally Posted by MMNETSEA' date='24 March 2010 - 07:46 PM

Coincidence, this very day gave a family around 25 litres of used cooking oil to use in their yanmar tractor. They mix it in a ratio of 0ne oil

to three Diesel. And of course Thailand and Malaysia manufacture biodiesel from palm oil. The cooking oil I gave these folks for their tractor was made up of 10 bottles of used sunflower oil and the rest was used palm oil.

Hey Mmnetsea - can I have a family size bag of fries, a fishermans basket and a serve of crumbed scallops to go thanks

[MMNETSEA]

Originally Posted by mico' date='24 March 2010 - 05:27 PM

Hey Mmnetsea - can I have a family size bag of fries, a fishermans basket and a serve of crumbed scallops to go thanks

Come along side - not port side , that's where drinks are served!

[JeanneP]

When we were in Pago Pago almost 20 years ago, there was a professional captain driving a large RIB, called "Skyrider," around the world fueled by soybean oil. He was the center of cruisers' attention for the short time that he was there. He told us that cooking oil was all he used in the diesel inboard and outboards, but that to prepare the oil for use there was an alcohol catalyst added to the oil. He wasn't more specific because he was paid to drive the boat, not make the fuel, which was shipped to the various stops he made to refuel.



With that thought, I just did a quick search on the web, "how to make biodiesel", and though pretty long, here's an interesting site giving quick and free instructions on converting vegetable oil to use in diesel engines. It talks about the fats in used cooking oil that are not appropriate for a diesel engine, the suspended water, etc., so it seems that there's more to using the cooking oil in one's engine besides just pouring it in. Anyway, one place to look, I guess. Make Your Own Biodiesel

[MMNETSEA]

Originally Posted by MMNETSEA' date='24 March 2010 - 04:46 PM

Coincidence, this very day gave a family around 25 litres of used cooking oil to use in their yanmar tractor. They mix it in a ratio of 0ne oil

to three Diesel. And of course Thailand and Malaysia manufacture biodiesel from palm oil. The cooking oil I gave these folks for their tractor was made up of 10 bottles of used sunflower oil and the rest was used palm oil.

Hi Kirk,

Note that that the subject of the topic has moved to illustrating the production of biodiesel.

To clarify, what I gave these impoverished friends was used cooking oil which they will mix with their refined diesel NOT biodiesel. Diesel fuel is sold at every service station, for the millions of diesel pickups and agricultural tractors.

Biodiesel is only available in the far south of Thailand, in Malaysia and Indonesia.

They tell me that they and others have used the mixture for a long time without problems.

I have never used the blend - never had a reason to.

Richard

[JeanneP]

I make no pretense of being very knowledgeable about this issue, but it appears to me that biodiesel is the catchword for non-petroleum oils used as diesel fuel, not the blend of alcohol and diesel or gasoline (petrol) marketed in the US as biofuel. The link that I posted describes how to make diesel fuel from cooking oil, with explanations that used cooking oil has significant amounts of adulterants including animal fats and "trans-fats" from excessive heating of the oil. As the fellow on Skyrider explained it, all the vegetable oil that he used was processed using alcohol (he didn't mention lye) as a catalyst, with the alcohol removed from the oil before being used as fuel.

We have a neighbor here in New Jersey who is collecting the waste cooking oil from local fast food restaurants and processing it for use as diesel oil and home heating oil. He uses a process that seems to be similar to the one on the link that I provided.

Perhaps your farmer friends are okay using straight used cooking oil in their tractor, but Keith might want to do a bit more research before using it in his marine engine.

[redbopeep]

Issues with used veggie oils that I am aware of range from thickness (pre-heating fuel may be required)and viscosity changes in the fuel mixture which can require different fuel pumps and different injectors to be used for proper combustion.; presence of particulates which can cause damage; presence of water or other matter which can reduce combustibility.

my two cents worth

[Seafarer]

If you can find oil that has only been used to fry vegetables and not meats, you will be much further along.

Well strained and run through a water separator, I know a guy who runs this straight in his Mercedes 300D as long as the weather is over 70F. Any colder and he starts mixing in kerosene or diesel.

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by Seafarer' date='24 March 2010 - 05:24 PM

If you can find oil that has only been used to fry vegetables and not meats, you will be much further along.

Well strained and run through a water separator, I know a guy who runs this straight in his Mercedes 300D as long as the weather is over 70F. Any colder and he starts mixing in kerosene or diesel.

Sounds like my friend Larry, in Charleston. Collects the fuel (used Chinese takeout places' oil, in the plastic containers they're happy to have him take it away in), strains it into barrels, lets it sit for 4 months, pumps out to the scum level and lets it sit again, then pumps it into larger tanks.

He fuels two Mercedes and a big panel van with it, mixing 10% of some other paint cleaning solution which escapes me at at the moment, no warming issues, ever, in Charleston, with that mix. He started with gasoline as the thinner but went to the other stuff, much cheaper, and never looked back; hasn't visited a diesel pump in several years.

OTOH, to go off-track a bit, there are those who also mix used engine oil in their diesel fuel, as a means to get rid of it. Sounded very suspicious, so I did some research. Turns out the military always reuses their waste engine oil in some astounding, now unremembered, percentage of engine diesel oil.

I've not been brave enough to take the plunge; see rec.boats.cruising (you can find it on googlegroups, or if you have usenet from your ISP) archives for many discussions on the topic if it's interesting to you.

L8R

Skip

[bbeardb]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach' date='25 March 2010 - 06:03 PM

Sounds like my friend Larry, in Charleston. Collects the fuel (used Chinese takeout places' oil, in the plastic containers they're happy to have him take it away in), strains it into barrels, lets it sit for 4 months, pumps out to the scum level and lets it sit again, then pumps it into larger tanks.

He fuels two Mercedes and a big panel van with it, mixing 10% of some other paint cleaning solution which escapes me at at the moment, no warming issues, ever, in Charleston, with that mix. He started with gasoline as the thinner but went to the other stuff, much cheaper, and never looked back; hasn't visited a diesel pump in several years.

OTOH, to go off-track a bit, there are those who also mix used engine oil in their diesel fuel, as a means to get rid of it. Sounded very suspicious, so I did some research. Turns out the military always reuses their waste engine oil in some astounding, now unremembered, percentage of engine diesel oil.

I've not been brave enough to take the plunge; see rec.boats.cruising (you can find it on googlegroups, or if you have usenet from your ISP) archives for many discussions on the topic if it's interesting to you.

L8R

Skip

I have an old Mercedes myself, and can attest to the fact that you can run just about any clean oil as fuel. This works much better with the older fuel pumps and lower pressure injectors then it will with modern diesel injection. Motor oils straight will be rather smoky and probably stink something fierce. Used cooking oil needs to be strained of particles and the water separated. If it's cold, don't try it straight. Mixing with some odd part of diesel with help with that, or a thinner like was mentioned earlier (gasoline, whatever combustible paint product). Even if it's not cold, the mixture will help if the oil isn't the best. It really is amazing what a diesel can run on.