--- In [email protected], "nbquidditch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "Ron Jones" <ron@> wrote: > > > > > As a scientist I do wonder why no-one has yet set up a proper > recovery plant > > for frying oil. It must be all down to the price of fresh oil - but > > A few comments: > > 1. We asked our local pubs and fish & chip shop what they do with > their old frying oil. They leave it outside and someone comes and > takes it away 'for processing'. They get o payment for this and are > pleased not to have to dispose of it themselves. > > 2. At the beginning of the summer (!) there was a narrowboat moored up > near the Alrewas water station and the owner had several cans of old > vegetable oil - I now know where he got it from (1. above). He was > simply filtering it through some old stockings and some other > unidentified material. I got chatting to him and discovered he used it > neat in his engine - no dilution - and had been doing so 'for years'. > He wasn't very forthcoming about the full details but maintained that > his engine was 'not modified'. > > 3. I then found the following url: > http://www.dieselveg.com/conversion%20info.htm - > the secret here is that they use plain vegetable oil by pre-heating it > (and starting the engine with diesel). Maybe this is what the boater > in 2. above was doing. It certainly sounds like a better way forward > than going to the trouble and expense of converting veg oil to bio- diesel. > > Cheers > > Will >
A diesel will burn almost anything that can be injected into it and ignites below about 400C however I raise three possible problems with using un-trans-esterised vegetable oil in addition to the water, bug and cleansing mentioned before. 1. In cold conditions it is very likely to wax in the tank. The Broads Authority found this some years ago so unless you heat the whole tank you will get nowhere. The BA abandoned the use of such fuels. 2. IT oxidises easier than diesel so forms gums (look at an old cooking oil bottle). 3. It is more viscous which is very likely to cause lubrication problems in anything using a DPA injector pump unless its modified. This includes the BMC range & Perkins 4-10x range. Inline, Single injector & rotary pumps are less likely to suffer this problem. Tony Brooks
