How biodiesel is made

Global warming, pollution and the high cost of fossil fuels all are making bio-diesel an attractive alternative as fuel.

What is bio-diesel? How is it made and what should we know about any dangers of using it? Bio-diesel is an alternative fuel made from plant materials.

Many of the refineries making bio-diesel use soybeans but there are lots of plants like kudzu flax and switch grass which work as well. Biodiesel can even be made from tree cellulose or the oils given off by algae.

First the plant matter is processed to remove the oil.It is this vegetable oil which is turned into fuel. You can even use left over cooking oil from restaurants to make bio-diesel. This results in vehicle exhaust which smells like french fries.

How is biodiesel made?

The process which converts vegetable oil into fuel is called ester interchange. Vegetable oil is mixed with a small amount of an alcohol, usually methanol, and an alkaline catalytic ingredient such as sodium hydroxide.

Vegetable oil is made up of triglycerides,a compound of the alcohol glycerin with three fatty acids. In order to make bio-diesel you have to separate the glycerin molecule out and replace it with three methanol molecules.

This leaves us a mixture of 10% glycerin and 90% bio-diesel. Some scientists are finding ways to use the glycerin byproducts as cattle feed.

Refineries are being built to process and refine bio-diesel all over America. There are several large refineries currently being built in Kentucky and Tennessee. In Cleveland, TN Agro Industries is making biofuel from kudzu, a rapid growing plant pest.

Bio-diesel can also be processed on the farm or at home with kits that are readily available on-line and uses left over restaurant fryer oil to produce bio-diesel for usually less than a dollar per gallon.

The Benefits of Using Bio-diesel

Bio-diesel is good for your engine. It's a better lubricator than petro-diesel and tends to be a better cleaning agent for your fuel system. It also has a higher Cetane rating, which means it's a better fuel.

Bio-diesel is not compatible with ordinary rubber. If your fuel system has rubber fittings they can be replaced with Viton to counter this, However, most modern Diesel engines do not use rubber fittings anymore.

Bio-diesel is good for the earth.

Bio-diesel is non toxic. More biodegradable than petro-diesel, it's cleaner burning and doesn't add Co2 to the atmosphere when burned. Less dangerous in a spill or accident, bio-diesel smells like a deep fryer when it burns instead of the nasty diesel smell. Because it produces such clean emissions bio-diesel has a positive impact on global warming. Making bio-diesel also has a low carbon footprint. Bio-diesel is cheap, eco-friendly and safe. This just might be the fuel of the future.