You don't need a really fancy biodiesel processor to make your own high quality diesel fuel. There are many factors that dictate the quality of final quality of homemade biodiesel fuel but one of the most important considerations is the quality of the oil. If your oil is good then a second hand blender could be the best biodiesel processer you own.
It is the quality of the oil that you put in your biodiesel processor that is the most important. The best way to save
yourself a lot of headaches is to try and choose clean sources of waste oil in the first place. For one thing, contaminated oil is a lot harder to filter. It can contain too much water, food debris, salt or other contaminates.
Your first step will be to find a good source of relatively clean oil as well as something to store it in. The most common sources of free vegetable oil are restaurants (MacDonald's, KFC or similar fast food outlets), chip making companies (both French fry and commercial companies) and distributors of 'dregs.' (low quality oil.)
It is probably easiest to get your waste oil from a restaurant but it is also the dirtiest oil in terms of how much you will probably end up having to filter it before you can put it in your biodiesel processor However, waste oil from restaurants is plentiful and one restaurant can produce anywhere from 5 to over 50 gallons a week. This type of windfall of quality oil could put you in the business of selling your own homemade biodiesel fuel!
Snack food are also companies are copious producers of waste oil.
Although the oil has been used for cooking potatoes, pretzels and other treats it is often far cleaner and of a higher quality than the oil that is disposed of by restaurants. There are many smaller snack food, chip companies that are willing to give away oil in U.S. and Canada. By hauling away their oil for them, you are saving them the expense of doing it themselves. However you will have to devise some kind of process to remove particulates and food particles from the oil before putting it in a biodiesel processer.
Sometimes large manufacturers of vegetable oil may have stuff that is slightly contaminated. The manufacturer may have produced a low quality batch of oil that it simply cannot sell because it does not meet the company's quality standards. This is perfect to use in your biodiesel processor. Sometimes these companies give this oil for free however those days are probably going to be soon over as more and more companies recognize the need and value of the oil when it comes to biodiesel production.
This type of oil is preferred for blending in your biodiesel processor, as usually it requires limited filtering and processing. It has not been used for cooking which makes it cleaner than other sources.
Ash Ried is the author of numerous guides and articles on Biodiesel.
You can find articles on How To Make And Use Biodiesel on his website.
Click here to get free access http://NewBiodiesel.com/articles.html
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