Complete Biodiesel System Setup

Biodiesel Setup

This is the whole biodiesel system set up. You will see my friend Bruce and our other buddy's daughter Karisa. The Blue barrel that Bruce is leaning on is the heating barrel. The WVO goes in here to be heated. It is then pumped into the blue or black barrel off to the left of the picture once the temperature reaches about 130 degrees.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Waste Vegetable Oil

This is WVO that we picked up at a restaurant. We try and put it in a sealable barrel for the ride home (very messy process).

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

WVO being heated

This is the WVO while it is being heated. We heat the WVO in this steel drum using a oil burner from a furnace.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Heating the WVO

Here is Bruce putting the pump line into the heated WVO that is going to be transferred to the reactor.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Heating the WVO

Here is a picture of me on the other end of the line pumping into the reactor.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Heating System

This picture shows you the heating system. The steel barrel sits on cement slabs. The oil burner fires under the barrel using a 50/50 blend of biodiesel and dino diesel.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Pumps and plumbing

This is a picture of our pumps and plumbing. Depending on how the shut offs are set up will determine where the oil is moved.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Drum of Methanol

This is a 55 gallon drum of methanol that we are pumping out to make meth-oxide with.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Meth-oxide tank

The 5 gallon tank sits upon our reactor. It contains meth-oxide. We mix methanol and potassium hydroxide and than pump it into the reactor.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Draining Glycerin

The tube is draining glycerin from the reactor after it is mixed for an hour and sits over night. About 20% of the Mix becomes glycerin.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Glycerin Byproduct

This is a barrel with glycerin byproduct. This is what is left after you make your oil. If you look closely you can see a separation of glycerin at the bottom and biodiesel at the top (about 8 inches). Currently we do not have much use for the glycerin. We have been working on a burner that will use the glycerin as fuel.

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!

Biodiesel Final Product

This is the final biodiesel product. Bio diesel is pumped from our washer into our hold barrel then into our cars.

What you do not see is our washer. After we separate out the bio diesel we put it in another barrel and mist water through it for about 2 hours. This cleans out the impurities. The water is drained out the bottom and discarded. We are still working on perfecting the process. We have converted about 1500 Gallons of WVO into fuel. There are several other options that we could use for cleaning and drying the biodiesel fuel that we will be using in the future.

For more info, visit easygreen's website

Start Making your own Biodiesel and Get off the Grid!