grease powered diesel Audi's?

[Robert Myers]

At 12:14 AM 7/13/02, Huw Powell wrote:

> > The best way to use old veg oil for a diesel is to convert it.  There is
> > a book and a website out there that talks about it.  Basically you
> > filter the old oil, add the right amount of methyl alcohol and lye, heat
> > and mix, and voila you end up with a high quality diesel and residue
> > (glycerin or the like).  Sounds a bit messy...

I'm surprised at the suggestion for the use of lye (sodium hydroxide) for
this purpose.  The usual catalyst for a transesterification reaction is an
acid rather than a strong base.  Otherwise, the described chemistry is
based on fact.  The materials used for making soap are fat or oil (not
petroleum based oil but animal fat or vegetable oil) and lye.


>sounds like the recipe for dynamite, too!

The by-product of this transesterification is, indeed, glycerol (glycerine)
which is one of the starting materials for nitroglycerine.  That, however,
requires some additional chemistry.  Glycerol is one of the more common
ingredients of hand cream or face cream.  Nitroglycerine is a bit touchy in
its relatively pure state so Nobel came up with a way to stabilize it by
mixing it with bentonite (a type of clay).  He called the mixture
dynamite.  If it weren't for the fact that I don't consider friends
expendable I could give a procedure for making nitroglycerine.  It is
really quite easy if rather hazardous.

>--
>Huw Powell
>
>http://www.humanspeakers.com/
>
>http://www.humanthoughts.org/
>
>
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Bob
*****
  Robert L. Myers   304-574-2372
  Rt. 4, Box 57,  Fayetteville, WV 25840 USA   WV tag Q SHIP
  '95 urS6  Cashmere Grey - der Wunderwagen    ICQ 22170244
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