1784 Mind Blowing Easy Method For Making A Cheap 'Biodiesel'

A little tip for filtering oil for pretty much any purpose: They make 1 micron "filter bags" but they aren't the fastest method, but very effective. So what I do is allow the oil to settle for a day, this allows the particulate contaminates and water to go to the bottom, I then pump out the top 80% or so to leave all that on bottom. Then I put the filter bag in a section of PVC with a collar, fill with the oil, then I have a shop vac with the appropriate sized adapter to fit on the bottom of the PVC the filter is in. What happens is the shop vac actively pulls the oil through the 1 micron filter quite quickly- basically a large poor man's Buchner funnel, filter and flask all in one.

Took me a few minutes to discover that in the UK, 'paraffin' is what we in the States call 'kerosene' :) When I hear paraffin, I usually think of wax

these gent's make youtube worth watching again.

The cost of used frying oils WVO varies around the UK from having to pay for it to being paid to take it away - the difference can be huge. I ran Diesel Engined Road vehicles on pure WVO for years, and it was sensible to have a heat exchanger to heat it up before it got into the injection pump as it as fairly viscose, and had a separate filter, as at some temperatures or with any sediment a filter could clog up - this obviously infers the need for a second fuel tank and a switchover system from one fuel to the other: We used Diesel to start and stop the engine to make it easy to start. It worked really well for years but effectiveness does vary from engine to engine - my Ford Transit was happy enough with it, as a Direct Injection Diesel (DI) engine, but my Citroen (Peugeot Diesel as standard) worked really well as it is an Indirect Injection Engine (IDI): Indeed with that Peugeot engone I got around 10-20% better economy PLUS some 20% more power, plus the engine was almost silent, even on a motorway - one heard the wind rushing over the car rather than hearing the engine. The only disadvantage to using WVO was the filtering effort, time and mess - and the need to heat it to filter, it except in summer. One thing to note was the additives we experimented with to get rid of/dissolve some floating 'other fats' on top of the bulk of the WVO - natural turpentine was best for this (not the chemical variant known as white spirit, though they look similar). We also had good results with paraffin, but I don't recall the exact results of the various experiments with it, (sorry to say) as we generally used some 97% pure WVO with a little paraffin and a very little Turpentine - we were limited in road use applications by regulations on the amount additives, by HMRC who were hot on it as the first people started to use it in numbers - I always felt this stymied research in typically 'British government' style. One is allowed to make a certain amount for private use these days - unless laws have changed from 15 years ago, this allows one to make one ton a year without registering with HMRC as a fuels producer as I was, so don't go off selling it openly ;) I really look forward to trying this new mix and at different temperatures to see if it is now practical for use ('filtering') as far north as we are now in Scandinavia. Please note that certain injector pumps such as Bosch were fine with WVO with its lubricity, but other injector pumps don't like it (Lucas and others) and failed totally after a thousand miles or less: It will be interesting to hear how this 'new' fuel fares in that respect. For the record, pure WVO (even in the less efficient Ford Transit ID engine) showed zero particulate emissions at an MOT testing station at any revs - they thought their machine was broken until I swapped back onto Diesel: Technically, it also reduces several other harmful emissions, but raises one slightly - I have no idea how that would compare with a WVO/Paraffin mixture at 50%. Interestingly, when used in a wick lamp, paraffin burns very cleanly, but cannot be replaced by Diesel which soots them up very quickly and heavily - inferring that perhaps we ought to not be banning/extra taxing Diesel cars but instead using them on paraffin, perhaps with a little modification of fuel and/or vehicle, such as this one - could it really be this simple?! Thanks for the video :)

My 206 estate i run for 3 years on kebab shop oil, strained through nylon tights, in cold times i would add a drop of diesel 50/50, run like a dream neat or mixed and the smell was amazing. 🙂 ,, and all my Diesel cars since have never failed emissions , 50/50 a day before the MOT JD.

Just a little disclaimer for Robert here, some modern cars have a really hard time on veg oil biofuel. Things like fuel pump/injector seals and rubber hoses can eventually react with it and cause a BIG repair bill. So do your own homework before deciding if you want to risk putting any alternative fuels in a car. Heaters and stoves on the other hand, the worst case scenario is you'll bug*er up a 5 to 20 quid wick, so with paraffin now at 2+ quid a litre, the risk is still well worth the potential savings.

I used to clean my used vegetable oil, with a homemade centrifuge. In winter I used to mix it with Kerosene (28 second heating oil), and put it straight in my diesel Audi A4 convertible. The centrifuge cleaning system was fully automated, and turned itself off, after filtering 25 L.

Nice one Robert!! Been watching the prices of veg oil for a number of years in supermarkets and its interesting to note that veg oil matches the rise and fall of diesel. I wonder why!!!

For those of us who don't speak the King's English (i.e., Americans), what the Britsh call paraffin is kerosene. I have no idea what they call paraffin wax.

This is a great way to re use my old vegetable oil. I use in my deep fryer. I normally filter it and store it for such things as this. I am ready for a hard freeze and power outage of 5 days to a week. As always very informative video. You never disappoint Rob.

Excellent. We used to collect the waste oil and let it settle in the tank. Had a drip feed into a gas bottle burner to heat an old cottage that we grew plants in. Place stank of chips though! Wish I'd known this then. We had 1000's of liters dirty oil. I'd be bloody minted! Great video as always!

That is so much easier than other methods to refine cooking oil into biodiesel. You could wash out even more impurities but it looks like it burns pretty clean. Now to put this with your DIY marine stove and some of your strange engines and we have come full circle. Love it! Thanks Rob!

I love your videos, they all have a practical application. I made a K stove according to your design, and it makes an incredible amount of heat. it gobbles up fuel so fast, I had to restrict the air inlet so that it didn't melt the pipes.

Nice. Old method of purifying wine was to use egg whites. That's why wine making regions of France have lots of recipes that just call for egg yolks.

Careful with biofuels and cold temps. if the engine and fuel delivery system isn't properly set up for biodiesel you can really gel up your engine in the winter.

I have a few years experience of driving with homemade biodiesel. I still find the best mixer was 1/3 kerosene and 2/3 clean dewatered WVO. There is no danger to you motor to run on WVO but just one thing to bear in mind is that the homemade biodiesel does not have the same lubrication qualities as the nor mal road diesel so it will in time damage your engine, but by them you will have saved the price of a new car! Best to use on a cheap old car/van

My dad did 200k miles fishing up and down the UK collecting and filtering oil from chip shops along the way to power his Citroen ZX with his own custom fuel line heaters to aid its use in winter additive free. Everywhere he went he was advertising for all the chips shops with the smell of his car exhaust 😂

Had a 1985 Ford F-250 with dual tanks. It was an indirect injection naturally aspirated engine IDK about the newer engines, but actually used just strained oil in rear tank as long as you start with diesel on front tank to get it up to temperature then switch tanks and 15 min or so before turning off, switch back to diesel tank to clear lines.

Be interesting to see how it performs per ratio of paraffin in one of the chinese diesel heaters.

I ran my diesel car on 10 to 50%, summer to winter, new cooking oil for ages until the price went through the roof, no processing straight into the tank. Kept the cost down run a treat.