blending wvo an petroleum diesel

[John Schroader]

Been running bio for a good while now (100% in warm weather and 60% in winter). I recently spoke with a fellow who says he runs 100% wvo in the summer without any modifications and has done so for a long time without problem. Too, I've read in this forum that this practice could cause injector coking. My question is this ----- what potential problems might I encounter if I ran a blend of wvo and either bio or petroleum in the summer? I spend a couple of months each summer working away from home and don't have access to my bio lab.

[Old300D]

The blends that people have used that seem to work the best are blends of WVO with kerosene, and a bit of gasoline, both having much less viscosity designed to bring the fuel viscosity close to diesel.

There have been reports that blending WVO with diesel can cause something to precipitate and plug filters. They say it's wax coming out of the diesel fuel.

I haven't heard of anything good or bad about blending WVO with biodiesel, but since I make bio, I'm not about to take all the extra time to filter or de-water my WVO.

[Whiskeydan]

Grill cleaner! I had one place, where I was about to collect wvo from, tell me they pour grill cleaner in with the oil. Yikes. Makes me wonder what else I'm getting...
I wonder what a little "grill cleaner" in the wvo blend will do???

[angst]

I did two spring/summer/falls blending mostly wvo/petro D and no heat mods. I would also do WVO/Kero/Petro D blends that consisted of a couple gallons of kerosene per tank. I would also put like a 1/2 gallon of naptha (white gas colman fuel) but as things continued to work well I started skipping the naptha and then the kerosene. Realistically most of the time in the warm weather I would skip the kerosene for the ease of using fuel from the pump and still use a gal or so per fillup if it is handy enough.
I would go as high at 80-85%WVO in the mix.
Last summer I added a heat exchanger. I go as high as 90%WVO in the mix in the warm summer months. Heat exchanger gets things up to 140F fairly quick.
So all out Ive got 4 years of blending. 3 of those years with no heat mods and mostly Dino D rather than kero for the blend.
No filter plugging probs. Filter the oil really good and you realistically have cleaner fuel than dino D from a pump. My filters seem to last longer than pump fuel. I do keep several filters in the trunk.
Im in the southeast like you. I stop all my blending and use Dino D from December till the end of Feb.
Talked to a guy in Knoxville that has done 3 summers of 100% WVO in his 240D with no heat mods.
With high ratios like over 70% WVO you will get a real tangible reduction in power and acceleration. Some cetane booster helps. Not a big negative though when fuel is free.
Of the people that had bad dino D/WVO blending experiences on the infopop board my theory is that there is a combination of two things. 1 water in the wvo, and 2. (drum roll please for my big theory) The nightmare stories seem to always be in California. I suspect that their pump Dino D is formulated differently to make it more prone to sludgy reactions with WVO.
Im not really concerned with the talk about coking. Coking is essentially dirty injectors in my mind and the condition can be reversed by using Dino D or injector cleaners if needed.

[John Schroader]

Ditto ---- one place I collected oil for my bio had used some chemical to clean the grill. Couldn't get that batch to work at all. Hadn't thought about that, but I guess the grill cleaner would slip under the radar if I wasn't testing it for bio. Thanks for the heads up.

[dannym]

I don't do any pumping except if I'm dumpster diving.
I pour the WVO through a filter into my holding tank.
I filter it again into cubes then I pour it into the fuel tank through a funnel.
Here's where things get tricky. The funnel has a mesh screen at the end that every once in a while gets clogged with gunk. I believe this is where people come up with the idea that WVO gels or loosens crap from the fuel tank. They believe this because they pump all their oil. If they tried pouring it they would see the crap in the screen too.

That said, all you have to do is blend the WVO to the consistency of diesel fuel. Then you can run it just as you would diesel.

Yes, it has to be done right. And there's a lot of work involved but don't make it any more difficult then it needs to be.

DAnny

[ChefHugh3]

Originally Posted by Whiskeydan

Grill cleaner! I had one place, where I was about to collect wvo from, tell me they pour grill cleaner in with the oil. Yikes. Makes me wonder what else I'm getting...
I wonder what a little "grill cleaner" in the wvo blend will do???

DO NOT get your WVO from large grease tanks behind restaurants. They pour everything into them. Talk with smaller operations or managers and let them know you will haul of the WVO if they handle it properly. In days gone past you used to resell the old fry oil, but now you have to pay to have it picked up. As a recycler you can save owners and others money, space and smell. Most all health departments like the fact you dispose of you waste oil in a proper and timely manner. Dade County enjoys that I keep mine for personal use