Blending gasoline with biodiesel

[Jeffrey S. Brooks Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Blending gasoline with biodiesel at 10% to cause contaminants to precipitate out, lower the gel point, improve performance, and reduce emissions.

[tbird650 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tbird650]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

JSB, I believe I've seen you measure the specific gravity of a number of your blends.
I'm just wondering what has been learnt from the specific gravity data so far?
Are there any trends?

[Jeffrey S. Brooks Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Yes, I measure the specific gravity and viscosity of each of my blends, and, I have found that specific gravity does not closely follow viscosity; however, it is a way to qualify a blend.

[tbird650 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tbird650]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

I have found that specific gravity does not closely follow viscosity

What can we do the various data gathered? Can it be graphed or similar? No doubt you've been thinking and have a plan.

Say, have you got those failed IP's apart yet? Am keen to know the diagnosis. It's an important piece of the puzzle, I believe.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Hi Jeffrey,
I find your video very interesting.
I attempted to duplicate your results using 1 litre test batches.

1st test- High conversion washed and dried biodiesel. About 6 months old.
2nd test- High conversion unwashed, undried biodiesel. About 4 days old
3rd Test- Very low conversion unwashed and undried biodiesel about 3 days old.

After an hour I do not see any precipitate in any of the tests.
I will also remind you that you added petrol to the mix, not diesel. Most people who use biodiesel do not fill up with petrol when biodiesel is not available.
I think your conclusions about what clogs fuel filters is not supported by this test and requires more testing.

If it were me I would do a 3/27 test and a Shake-em-up test on the B99 to get an idea of the quality of the biodiesel.

Again, I find the video very informative. I think you are on to something. I think more testing is definately required.

[SUZUDDIS Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SUZUDDIS]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Tilly

that's because you have clean fuel and clean containers. what this video shows is that Jeff has a dirty tank or the pipe work is dirty.
adding petrol or diesel won't stop this reaction. changing the ratio of Bio/Petrol/Diesel will only slow the fall out. again informative but you would have to have poor biodiesel or dirty equipment to have any benefit from this mix.

Michael

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Jeffrey,
I cannot see how you come to the conclusion that biodiesel does not clean the residues of years of diesel use, from the tank.
The fact that you bought biodiesel which had particulates in it does not refute the many years of experience of biodiesel users.

You state that your vehicle does not smoke, but it is quite clear from the video that, at least at idle, your vehicle produces a significant amount of smoke from the exhaust.

Regards,
Tony

[Jeffrey S. Brooks Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

What can we do the various data gathered? Can it be graphed or similar? No doubt you've been thinking and have a plan.

Yes, I plan to pull all of the data together soon, and will release it.

Say, have you got those failed IP's apart yet? Am keen to know the diagnosis. It's an important piece of the puzzle, I believe.

Yes, I have three failed IPs with me, and I plan to pull at least one of them apart. I noticed that my vinyl sight glass will swell if there is too much alcohol in the petrol I use, but that vinyl sight glass will shrink back to normal when the alcohol content is reduced below 2%, so I thought I would soak my two partially failed IPs in diesel fuel for a week to see if that regenerates them.

what this video shows is that Jeff has a dirty tank or the pipe work is dirty.
Michael

Actually, Michael, my blending apparatus was back-flushed with clean gasoline before I put the biodiesel into it. So, the precipitates were not caused by dirt in my processing equipment; however, the biodiesel product may have been poor. So, it is good that Tilly did his experiment. Now, we just need a few more people to run the same experiment to have a broader data-set to examine. It is clear to me; however, that the post biodiesel water wash could be eliminated if the biodiesel product were blended with petrol at 5-10%, then allowed to settle for a few days, then the precipitates removed prior to filtering into the fuel tank.

My hypothesis is intermittent introduction of petroleum distillates is what causes the plugging of filters and in some cases of amber coloured gunk that accumulates in the fuel system, such as tBird reported some time ago. Therefore, if petroleum distillates are blended with biodiesel on a regular basis before the fuel tank, and allowed to settle, and any precipitates are removed, then fuel filters will not fail more frequently than when running D2, and the amber coloured gunk accumulation will not form in the fuel system of biodiesel consumers.

The precipitates of particulate and amber coloured gunk might just be so small an amount that it does not become a problem in several thousand K of driving. So, running a small sample, as Tilly did, may not reveal the problem. In 80L processed I only found about 100ml of gunk. So, in a 1L sample it would only reveal less than 1ml of gunk, which may have been too small for Tilly to observe. So, I suggest a larger sample size will be needed to prove or disprove my results.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Hi Jeffrey,

I have been studying your video and I do have some concerns.

The fallout in your video shows chunks falling quickly down the glass tube.
If you have ever made biodiesel you will know that the fallout is not chunks.
During the initial large separation you can see a definite demarkation line between light and dark biodiesel that very slowly settles to the bottom over an hour or so.Then over the next few days/weeks the biodiesel will gradually lighten in colour as a glycerine layer slowly builds on the bottom.
I have never seen chunks as depicted in your video.

If you go to the 1:10 min mark on your video you can see an irregularly shaped lighter area on the side of your glass tube that suggests to me that the inside of your tube is dirty. Also, just before that point, when you pan up the glass tube it certainly appears that the inside of the tube is dirty as you move towards the top.

My three test batches still show no form of fall out, whether it be chunks or a fine layer of glycerine.

I think that at this stage you need to insure that your equipment is clean and repeat the test. What you are showing does not fit with anything I have experienced.

Perhaps the biodiesel is such a good solvent that t has cleaned your glass tube out

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Hi Jeffrey,

My hypothesis is intermittent introduction of petroleum distillates is what causes the plugging of filters and in some cases of amber coloured gunk that accumulates in the fuel system, such as tBird reported some time ago.

If you are talking about tbird650, the way I read it he is using WVO, not biodiesel.
I can show you a multitude of horror stories on the infopop forum from people using WVO

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

HI Jeffrey,

Another extremely important point.
On your video starting at 1:05 minutes you say;
"You can see up here that the blend is a little thinner at the top... that's...I put the gasoline on top...two gallons of gasoline on top of eighteen gallons of B99"

When I performed my three experiments I just poured the petrol on top of the biodiesel and let it sit too. The next morning when I turned the bottles upside down I noticed that there was the swirling refraction distortion you get when two dissimilar liquids are first mixed together.
There had been NO significant mixing of the petrol and biodiesel over a 10 hour period.
Your video shows the same thing.

By pouring the petrol on top and not mixing, the petrol and biodiesel did not mix to any appreciable degree.
It is sure looking like the precipitate you are seeing has come from either the bottom of the petrol can or the dirty sides of the glass tube.

I await a re-run of your experiment.

[Jeffrey S. Brooks Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Actually, my waste oil blending and processing equipment is attached to the rear of my van, so when I dirve it gets pretty mixed up, and I left that biodiesel/petrol blend in my blending trank for 2 days, which involved some driving each day. So, we can conclude that my blend was reasonably blended by the time I made those videos.



Secondaly, as I have already pointed out the amount of preciptiate was pretty low (<1L in 80L), which is about 1%. So, an experiment involvning a 1L blend is not likely to reveal much. I would suggest anyone wishing to confirm or refute my results must blend a larger sample, ie. >20L.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Hi Jeffrey,

Actually, my waste oil blending and processing equipment is attached to the rear of my van, so when I dirve it gets pretty mixed up, and I left that biodiesel/petrol blend in my blending trank for 2 days, which involved some driving each day. So, we can conclude that my blend was reasonably blended by the time I made those videos.

Are you now saying that what you said on the video was not correct about the liquid being thinner at the top of the glass tube because you had just poured the petrol on top of it and you had actually poured the petrol into the tube two days earlier and it had taken two days for the precipitate to develope in the glass tube and start falling out?
In the video you said that you had seen the precipitate start to form right away but were only collecting it two days later.

Secondaly, as I have already pointed out the amount of preciptiate was pretty low (<1L in 80L), which is about 1%. So, an experiment involvning a 1L blend is not likely to reveal much. I would suggest anyone wishing to confirm or refute my results must blend a larger sample, ie. >20L.

There are a lot of people who mix petrol and kerosene and diesel into their biodiesel over the winter and no one has ever reported what you have shown.
Considering you had not mixed the petrol into the biodiesel when you started seeing precipitate falling I think my 1 litre test batches are more meaningful than your test.

I suggest you clean out your equipment and repeat your test.

[BushBill Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BushBill]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

I'm one of those that adds petrol to my Biodiesel, the amount varies from summer to winter from 2-3% in summer and ~5% in winter. I do not get any precipitate dropping out. however I would think that poorly washed Bio might get something dropping out.

I wouldn't question your method Jeffrey, just the quality of the Biodiesel you started with, and perhaps the quality of the petrol. Maybe you should try with a different supply of Biodiesel and perhaps wash it thoroughly and dry it before experimenting.

BB

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Blending gasoline with biodiesel

Hi BushBill,

I'm one of those that adds petrol to my Biodiesel, the amount varies from summer to winter from 2-3% in summer and ~5% in winter. I do not get any precipitate dropping out. however I would think that poorly washed Bio might get something dropping out.

I wouldn't question your method Jeffrey, just the quality of the Biodiesel you started with, and perhaps the quality of the petrol. Maybe you should try with a different supply of Biodiesel and perhaps wash it thoroughly and dry it before experimenting.
BB

There are several problem with that theory.
1. One of my tests was with unwashed, very low conversion biodiesel (10% methanol) that was only about 4 days old. There is still no fallout
2. In the video the fall-out started in the glass tube Before the petrol was mixed into the biodiesel.

There is a problem with his method.
The glass tube is dirty for starters, you can see that.
Also Jeffrey uses Waste Motor Oil to fuel his engine. I would bet a dollar to a donut that Jeffrey used a container that was contaminated with the crap that settles out of Waste Motor Oil to pour the petrol into the tube. That certainly would explain why the fallout started before the petrol was mixed into the biodiesel.