Make "Biodiesel"? Let’s find out! Diesel vs Biodiesel, Used Motor Oil, Vegetable Oil, MPG

with the price of diesel fuel these days biodiesel seems like a pretty good option especially if i can brew my own so today we'll do some testing on some biodiesel and fortunately i found a small diesel engine that we'll be using for the testing so let's get the testing underway we'll first make biodiesel and we'll compare biodiesel against diesel and several other alternative fuels we'll see how well a diesel engine runs on diesel biodiesel vegetable oil hydrodiesel and even used motor oil then we'll compare the lubricating properties of biodiesel to diesel as well as vegetable oil use motor oil and hydrodiesel we'll test the biodiesel for corrosion resistance and resistance to gelling when exposed to cold temperatures i just purchased this engine so before we jump into making biodiesel let's get this thing running the governor assembly is on the front of the engine and you can dial in the engine speed up to 3000 rpm it has a small mechanical injection pump that's near the bottom of the engine a fuel line that runs from the injection pump to the injector and a fuel return line from the injector to the fuel tank pushing down the compression release lever opens up the intake valve to release the compression the exhaust is on the left side and the air intake is on the right let's see if we can get this thing running it really took quite a bit of effort to get this engine going since there was air in the fuel line after cracking open the fuel line to remove the air the engine fired right up some people actually use vegetable oil or even use vegetable oil as a source of fuel in a diesel engine we're going to try running the engine on vegetable oil but we're also going to make biodiesel i need to get the process started making the biodiesel since it takes about 24 hours for everything to settle out to make the biodiesel we need potassium hydroxide we also need methanol the yellow bottle of heat will work just fine and then of course the vegetable oil i'm going to measure out two cups or 500 milliliters of vegetable oil potassium hydroxide serves as a catalyst that causes a chemical reaction with methanol and straight vegetable oil i'm going to measure out 100 milliliters or just about a half cup of methanol i'm going to measure out 3.5 grams of potassium hydroxide okay we're right at three and a half grams i'm going to add the potassium hydroxide flakes to the methanol so it can dissolve i'm gonna go ahead and eat the vegetable oil up to 130 degrees fahrenheit basically this process converts oil into biodiesel and biodiesel has a lower flash point as well as lower viscosity compared to vegetable oil the vegetable oil is around 130 degrees fahrenheit or 70 degrees celsius i'm going to go ahead and add the methanol which has the potassium hydroxide in it now that we have all the ingredients in the same container let's shake the contents for five minutes you'll know when a chemical reaction occurs when the vegetable oil changes from yellow to orange [Music] it's been right at five minutes so let's check back on this in 24 hours it's been right at 24 hours and there's a distinct layer separating the biodiesel on top from the potassium hydroxide methanol and glycerol at the bottom the final step is to wash the biodiesel by misting the biodiesel with water this process will help remove any traces of potassium hydroxide and methanol that's still held in suspension in the biodiesel all right we're finished with the process and we have some biodiesel this is my 1996 dodge ram which has a mechanical injection pump back when this truck was built diesel had 500 parts per million sulfur content injection pumps definitely need lubrication and sulfur is an excellent lubricant unfortunately modern diesel fuel only contains 15 parts per million so the question is will biodiesel and even hydrodiesel offer better lubricating properties compared to modern diesel fuel in the next test we'll add 40 milliliters of diesel into a test cup and then test the lubricity or the film strength of diesel the lubricity of diesel is typically measured using a high frequency reciprocating rig unfortunately i don't have that piece of test equipment but i do have this lubricity tester which will provide us with some great information i'll go ahead and remove the weight from the tester since diesel has a much lower film strength than motor oil the test will last right at 60 seconds after the test we'll compare the size of the wear scar in each bearing there's quite a bit of friction with the diesel at 425 watts that's a pretty large wear scar let's test straight vegetable oil and see how it compares to diesel and the vegetable is off to a great start compared to the diesel just a few seconds into the test and it's down to 365 watts or about 60 watts lower than the diesel so it is definitely a lot less friction compared to diesel the size of the wear scar is a lot smaller with the vegetable oil we'll take a closer look at the side by side later in the video a big thank you to my friend matt from the warp perception youtube channel for sending me the hydrodiesel the manufacture of the hydrodiesel uses a process that forms a stable emulsion allowing water to mix with diesel the fuel is also supposed to burn cleaner and offer better fuel efficiency [Music] and the hydro diesel appears to be performing slightly better than diesel at 410 watts compared to 425 for diesel the we're scaring the bearing definitely looks a little bit smaller than diesel and we'll compare them in a couple of minutes i've had a lot of requests to test use motor oil as diesel fuel this is some old 5w30 oil that has around 4000 miles of use to help improve the flash point and lower the viscosity i've cut it with one part gasoline to 10 parts oil and the used motor oil and gasoline blend is performing almost as well as a vegetable oil at around 370 watts compared to 365 for vegetable oil and the used motor oil seems to have done nearly as well as the vegetable oil testing the biodiesel it definitely has a much lower viscosity compared to vegetable oil and the biodiesel seems to be performing better than the diesel in the hydro diesel at around 405 watts and the biodiesel seems to have a wear scar that's slightly smaller than diesel so let's take a closer look diesel is on the left hydro diesel is in the middle and biodiesel is on the right and the hydro diesel actually performed better than diesel with around a five percent smaller wear scar biodiesel did even better with a 21 smaller wear scar compared to diesel vegetable oil is on the left and then used motor oil both used motor oil as well as vegetable oil provide better film strength than diesel hydro diesel and even bio diesel modern diesels are pretty picky about the type of fuel they use so i definitely don't recommend running straight vegetable oil or use motor oil in a modern diesel engine it'll likely cause fuel system or engine issues over time before we run the diesel engine all types of fuels let's kick off the cold temperature test the freezer is set very close to zero degrees fahrenheit or negative 18 degrees celsius we'll check back on this in several hours to see if they freeze let's kick off the corrosion resistance test next i just finished sanding the test piece and cleaning it with brake parts cleaner so i'll apply a thin coat of each product and spray down the test piece with hydrogen peroxide and vinegar and salt which is a very powerful corrosive we'll check back on this in about 24 hours i went ahead disconnected the fuel line that travels from the fuel tank to the injection pump i set up a separate fuel cell just so we can keep a better eye on the fuel i'm going to add diesel to this fuel cell and as the diesel runs down to the very bottom of the fuel cell and runs out i'm going to go ahead and begin adding the other types of fuel when i disconnected the fuel tank air got into the fuel system causing the smoke so i'll give the engine a minute or so and the air should work its way out of the fuel system the air is out of the fuel system and the smoke is cleared up the diesel fuel and the fuel cell has been used up and there's a small amount of fuel still in the fuel line so let's see how the engine runs on biodiesel it's been a couple of minutes since i added the biodiesel so the diesel fuel that was in the fuel line is definitely used up and the engine is running on biodiesel well i don't know about rolling coal but i think we should try rolling some french fries with this biodiesel man this smoke smells much better than diesel smoke definitely hamburgers and french fries for dinner tonight the biodiesel is used up so let's see how the engine runs on hydro diesel it's been a few minutes and the engine is definitely running on hydrodiesel definitely quite a bit more smoke compared to diesel or biodiesel and fairness to hydro diesel though it does have a lower viscosity than biodiesel and that's probably a factor since the engine is smoking pretty badly i'm going to add some diesel to see if we can clear up the smoke it took around three minutes but the smoke is cleared up and the engine is running on diesel so let's test the engine out on straight vegetable oil it's been nearly four minutes since i added the vegetable oil and the engine is still running great the engine seems to be running just as good on vegetable oil as it did on diesel and biodiesel great throttle response and the amount of exhaust smoke seems about the same before we run the engine on used oil i'll switch back over to diesel to get all the vegetable oil out of the fuel system it's been about 10 minutes and the diesel is used up so let's see how the engine runs on the used motor oil that has the gasoline blended into it the engine also has great throttle response and the diesel engine seems to be running great on used motor oil much better than i thought it would the exhaust does have a very light smoky haze to it i'll add a little bit more used motor oil to see if it continues to run so well so the engine ran great on everything except for hydro diesel all these products have had plenty of time to freeze if they're going to freeze so let's take a look at each one of these products one at a time this is summer grade diesel and just about reached cloud point the vegetable oil has frozen so vegetable oil definitely needs to be heated for use in sub freezing temperature hydrodiesel hydrodiesel did not freeze biodiesel unfortunately the biodiesel did gel use motor oil with 10 gasoline it's been nearly 24 hours and there's a lot of rust that's formed on the test set very surprised that hydro diesel actually did the best the second best was used motor oil and finally vegetable oil was in third the control definitely has the most rust however diesel as well as biodiesel are very close to having just about as much rust as a control if you can find an affordable source of vegetable oil making some biodiesel definitely seems like a good option especially considering the price of fuel these days however making diesel for a car will definitely require a lot more equipment than just using a stove top and a couple of pans all the videos on this channel including this one are viewer suggested so if you have a video idea i hope you'll take time to leave a comment thanks so much for watching and please take care and look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 1,863,983

Keywords: Seafoam, project farm, biodiesel mpg, make biodiesel, fuel efficiency, gas mileage, biodiesel fuel, biodiesel fuel pros and cons, biodiesel fuel vs diesel, biodiesel fuel additive, used motor oil as fuel, diesel fuel efficiency

Id: FwpKA7oBmWY

Length: 11min 4sec (664 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021