Making Biodiesel At Home

Biodiesel will help your diesel motor run better and longer than before. It's cleaner than a regular diesel fuel and, guess what, it's easy to make at home!

If you're after the plans for making biodiesel at home or you just want to make biodiesel for your caror truck it's important to be aware of one thing...

Using biodiesel in your vehicle may, I repeat may, void the warranty on your vehicle. Check with your manufacturer first.

Also be aware that making biodiesel at home is not for kids to play around with. Some of the ingredients we use are toxic and thus not suitable for little hands!

Now we've got the warnings out the way, what exactly do we need?

Biodiesel is made up of vegetable oils and animal fats that contain glycerine. The actual process of making biodiesel turns the animal fats and oils into esters separating the glycerine which will sink to the bottom. The biodiesel thus rises the top. Joy of joys!

This process is otherwise known as transesterification which in a chemical reaction substitutes the alcohol for glycerine during the chemical reaction. The alcohol that you need to use can be either ethanol or methanol.

There is a variety of different oils that can be used in the process of making biodiesel...

Rapeseed and soyabean oils are the most commonly used. Mustard, palm oil, hemp and algae have also shown much promise for the future.

You can of course use waste vegetable oil as well as animal fats. It's also worth mentioning that a company in New Zealand has found that sewage waste can be used instead of the algae - talk about recycling!

For a more in-depth step by step process for making biodiesel please take a look at my guide on how to make biodiesel

Have fun with the process!