Petrol in bio

[Islebio]

Hi, does anyone have experience of topping up a tank of bio with petrol, say at 10% ( in the car fuel tank) to lower the freezing point. Was thinking about this for the winter here in Scotland. I currently run on B100. Many thanks

[knighty]

yeah... just stick however much petrol you need in the tank.... job done


handy trick is to leave a jamjar ot pure bio outside somewhere handy (windowsill etc.) then you can give it a shake on a morning and see how thin/thick it is

if you have 2 jam jars... you can mix a bit of petrol into one of them, so you get a rough idea of how much you need :-)

[Islebio]

HI Knighty,

Thanks for that, the reason i ask is the wiki page talks about mixing the petrol in the base veg oil before starting processing as it releases water, impurities etc  when mixed, then again thinking about it my end product of bio should have no water or impurities in it!.

Is there a rough guidance to how much?, 10% / 20% ? Was thinking it would be more cost effective putting in petrol rather than diesel as i need to add less to creating the same gelling point. Also bit hesitant putting petrol in the diesel engine, but i guess no harm done?

[greasemonkey]

Putting petrol in veg oil to get the water to drop out is a veg oil thing, not a bio thing.
It's to clean up the veg oil, before putting it in the vehicle tank.
It's not relevant to bio making.

[Julian]

Well it's a bit relevant as it can be used as a winteriser see this page on the wiki ... http://www.biopowered.co.uk/wiki/Winter_fuel_additive_testing

Personally I've run my 3002 TDI Discovery on 15% petrol in bio with no ill effects and no noticeable reduction in HMPEs.

However, KH's tests at 5% detailed on the wiki rate it quite highly as an gel suppressor.

[greasemonkey]

What I meant was, the one reason for adding petrol to veg, specifically for veg use, (the de watering) isn't relevant to bio. I was referring to what Islebio said in his first paragraph.
Got my fingers in knots on the key board.

Anyway, yes, it works as a winteriser, veg or bio.

[Islebio]

Cool, cheers for the replies, have made up a few test jars, with straight, 5% and 10% petrol in them, have stuck them in my freezer, bio is totally solid but 10% thick but still a bit loose. I am also really keen to run my aga on Veg oil am trying to find a way either by pre heating or by mixing with petrol/methanol to get the right blend to replicate kerosene, any of you guys know anything about this?.  Cheers

[Julian]

Don't forget your freezer will be running at around -18°C ... not really representative of even Scottish winter ambients.

If you can get hold of a redundant freezer, you can rig up a temperature controller with the probe in the freezer and plug it into that.  I did a whole load of tests on HMPE formation some years ago, and it worked really well.

This was the setup ...



Black box is a power supply for the grey box with display which is the temperature controller.  That drove a relay which switched the power to the freezer.  The black wire is the temperature probe located in the freezer.  Nice thing about the set up was that there was no modifications required to the freezer and it could be used normally afterwards.

If you got a 240v controller with suitably rate contacts you could do away with the power supply and relay.

Out of interest, I've just found one of the many photos of the tests I did ...



General findings from the tests was that water washing and a good winteriser (see KH's tests on the wiki) helped reduce HMPEs.

[dgs]

Cool, cheers for the replies, have made up a few test jars, with straight, 5% and 10% petrol in them, have stuck them in my freezer, bio is totally solid but 10% thick but still a bit loose. I am also really keen to run my aga on Veg oil am trying to find a way either by pre heating or by mixing with petrol/methanol to get the right blend to replicate kerosene, any of you guys know anything about this?.  Cheers

You will be lucky to get an oil burner to handle any great % of veg when mixed with kero, it can be a bit of a waste of time.

Best way is to 90%ish convert to bio, leave to settle for a long time with residual methanol (most of the glyc and soaps will drop out) then blend this with kerro and (depending on burner and set up) you can use this up to 80% blended with kero.

[julesandtash]

Some people have seem a reddish brown dropout in the tank and filters when blending bio with petrol.

Also, regarding burning WVO in the aga,  don't waste your time trying to thin veg oil with methanol. The two do not mix which is the basis of the Varnquist conversion test (eg 27/3). Biodiesel mixes with methanol, veg oil doesn't. 

[julianf]

I am also really keen to run my aga on Veg oil am trying to find a way either by pre heating or by mixing with petrol/methanol to get the right blend to replicate kerosene, any of you guys know anything about this?. 

Your aga will, im pretty sure, be a wick burner?  The one with the rings in the cast block?

If so, you have zero chance.  Bio / veg is no good at all with wicks.  You would probably have to replace the whole burner with one of those ex-mod things - i cant remember exactly what theyre called - alaska burner, maybe?

vjay on the other forum had one that he was trying to set up for central heating use, but i dont think he  ever completed the project.

[Islebio]

Hi,

Many thanks for that. MOD, are you talking a military spec burner?. I would be very keen to find out more about this Alaska burner, i shall have a google to see what i can find out, also you mentioned Jay on another forum, what forum would that be? Yes can see how veg and Meth wont mix, good call, also saw a guy on you tube ozritt who had a veg oil burner, but not sure if it would adapt to the aga. Will keep pursuing, any tips/ help is much appreciated.

Thanks

[julianf]

This is one of his threads, but there are others, i think -

http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/mybbforum/showthread.php?tid=18094&highlight=alaska

[1958steveflying]

yeah... just stick however much petrol you need in the tank.... job done

I did that many years ago and it caused an unknown dropout which blocked the filters and was a devils job to clear.    inho check how your bio reacts to petrol before adding petrol to your tank.