Biodiesel

[Jim Miller]

On the Island of Hawaii there is a 65 ft charter boat with Cummins Diesels running on Biodiesel. The owner is Fairwinds Cruises. The engines are derated from 450 hp to 350. I was on the boat for a day and there was no diesel smell whatsoever. I think the Engines are 8.3s . This info is all from the Commercial Captain and affirmed later by the owners representative. Since my Wife was so impressed I started thinking about this for my 8.3s.

My info on this is that Biodiesel needs to be stored at a controlled narrow tempeture range. Also, it is necessary to be able to switch back and forth between Petro diesel and bio so,that Petro is used at shut down And maybe startup as well. <br />Does any body know of some further details, articles, or technology which might make this a future practical alternative?

 

 

 

 

Topic

[Francis Valerio]

It sounds like you are referring to WVO (waste vegetable oil) or a combination of BIO diesel and WVO. “Usually” BIO Diesel is a mixture of BIO and regular diesel and gets referred to as BIO and the % of the mix (B5 B10 etc…) and is used normally for any diesel engine. When using WVO the “waste vegetable oil” needs to be at operating temperature and to accomplish this they run some kind of heater (like a heat exchanger principle) to heat the WVO up but to get to this temperature the engine must be started on regular diesel fuel.  The engine also needs to be switched back to regular diesel for a few minutes before shut down.  This would be running off 2 different fuel tanks….1 for diesel and the other for the WVO. If you shut down on WVO and the engine is allowed to cool the WVO will not be thinned enough to support combustion in the engine (that is why it needs to be heated first).  Some have run coolant lines from the engines cooling system into the WVO tank that act as a heater, so once the engine is warmed up the WVO is good to go as well…and then they run a diverter valve from the diesel tank to the WVO tank and then magically your exhaust smells like french fries or chinese food depending where you got the WVO from. Much of this is trial and error and systems are many times home-made and people experiment with different combinations of BIO / Regular #2 Diesel / WVO.  The nice thing is you can cut the #2 with a combination of these with no mods BUT if using the WVO the water that is in it must be boiled out prior to using. This is just a very generic explanation and I am thinking back from 10+ yrs ago so the techniques may have changed and there might be a “better way” now a days but that is the “basics” in a nutshell

[Tony Athens]

I have never seen / heard anything bad from using BIO other that you need to extra careful on water  and age– It seems to absorb more water and degrades over time. ..

Yes, it can smell good especially the home-made bio that uses bacon grease from restaurants.. ..

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