Having thought about it for several months, I had made up my mind to start doing home-brew BioDiesel. I found an excellent source of WVO- about 25 gallons a week, pure canola, given to me free in 16 litre buckets. I've looked up various recipes and procedures- decided I'd prefer the chemistry approach over the mechanics of doing a WVO conversion, and then I started looking for enough Methanol to do my first 5 gallon batch. Holy Crow! The stuff costs $10 / gallon and you have to use 1 quart for every 5 quarts of Bio-D yield! So, in other words, to make Bio-D it comes out at 50 cents per quart based on the price of Methanol alone.

OK- so at today's prices, $2.00 / gallon for home-brew Bio-D is better than the $4.00 we pay for regular Diesel here in Canada, but my interest in Bio-D goes beyond the car. I wanted to use it in my furnace too. But Furnace oil is $2.80 per gallon. In that light, Bio-D is definately not worth the effort. The only way to make a good business case for it is to add Methanol recovery to the process- much more complex.

So- I'm going with WVO for now, unless I happen across a source for Methanol that is no more than $5.00 / gallon. (BTW-Anybody know of such a source?)

Dave

1976 300D

Try the shops where the drag racers buy stuff. Some race engines use methanol for fuel. When methanol vaporizes it substantially cools the intake air and helps pack more oxygen in the charge.

You need to shop around. Find an industrial solvent supply company. Canada might be a lot different, but where I am in Northwest Arkansas, the price variation is huge.Locally the best price I could get was $5 a gallon. I finally located an industrial solvent company a bit farther away, but get it for $2/gal. The prices you are quoting are way high.

these folks might know, I read a discussion on it last week. http://forums.biodieselnow.com/

if your not going to recover your methanol what are you going to do with it?

Sure it's .50/qt for methanol but you can recover a significant percentage of it after the reaction for use in your next batch through simple distillation. Anyway, you sure don't want to try and burn that stuff in your diesel...not nearly enough BTUs.

__________________
Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Yeah, you gotta shop around. In my area I looked at hobby shops, race tracks, chemical suppliers and the whole 9 yards. I finally found a bulk fuel supplier who sells it for $2 a gallon at a pump. And he'll even sell for less than that if you buy it in huge volumes (like 300 gallons). So don't give up yet. !

__________________
'81 300TD turbo <<sold 12/05 to another diesel nut

I got methanol for my custom "diesel" outboard from a local racetrack. It was only $2.25/gallon.

They were very excited that I had a methanol outboard, but were much less interested when I said it was only for my sailboat, 2 hp.

Bruce McCreary
'85 300D
Snowflake, AZ

A sailboat in AZ? Why? That place is all beach and no ocean.

__________________
Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Seeing as my annual energy requirements are 75% home heating and 25% Diesel, I was just going to leave the methanol in, and run no higher than B20 in the car. In the furnace, the methanol would burn nice and clean, with no worry about damage to hoses and seals- or at least I was just going to see what would happen with it. Footnote- my present oil burner is 20 years old, so I'm not worried about damage to it anyway- I just want to run it into the ground then buy a new retrofit that is more environmentally and Bio-fuel friendly.

So- now that I found an excellent source of the WVO, the seriousness of my endeavor kicked in, and I took a final look at other costs and availability. I was "assuming" methanol to be readily available and cheap- I learned differently! So far, I can't even find anyone who sells it locally. Chemical suppply places (only 3 in my area) only sell to industry. One of them said "we don't normally sell to the public but I will check out my re-packaging costs and get back to you with a price". Sounds like a possibility, but I'm not expecting a price I could live with.

I've now concluded that if I can even find a place to buy the stuff, methanol recovery is an absolute necessity, based on cost alone.

Dave

Thanks for the link- I checked out the Canadian section and it appears people here are running into the same issue, and asking the same question I am- if you can get it at all, it's at least $10 per gallon. They mention Princess Auto and Canadian Tire- I checked both in Moncton NB and they only sell it in winter months for gas line antifreeze. Still almost $3.00 per litre- same price as Methy Hydrate in their paint department.

Dave

What about the yellow bottles of Heet? At the end of winter here they can be had for 25 cents if you look around. 355ml bottles 100% methanol.

__________________
1959 Gravely LI, 1963 Gravely L8, 1973 Gravely C12
1982 380SL
1978 450 SEL 6.9 euro restoration at 63% and climbing
1987 300 D
2005 CDI European Delivery
2006 CDI Handed down to daughter
2007 GL CDI. Wifes

Can you just run straight WVO (filtered of course) in your furnace? I would think you could set up to do that fairly easily. Preheat it and go.

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me7.html

Anyone have any luck ordering it in 55 gal drums? That's the smallest I've seen my employer order it from the distributers. Sure it'll be expensive, but it'll also fill you needs for many months.

The distributers might be wary to sell it to individuals out of fear that you're trying to extract ingredients out of cold medicine or something.

__________________
Greg Schwall

1983 300SD - 465,000 miles