Youtube Video of it So I made some diesel from canola oil. It went okay. Not as easy as I thought. Had a lot of issues with the first batches. This one turned out, mostly. Enough to run in the stove. I will not be doing this again. There was a lot of cleanup, it didn't work very well, and the stove was ultra fussy. I took apart the burner cup, cleaned it out, cleaned the fuel tubes, and scrubbed everything out I could. Lots of tarry black scuzz. But it was more of a proof of concept since biodiesel is even less combustible than normal diesel. And I wanted to see if the Omnifuel lived up to its name. It did indeed. This was 100% biodiesel. And just in case anyone is wondering after watching the video, the stove was preheated correctly. It just doesn't burn very well with this fuel hence the fireballs.
In my opinion, it did not burn correctly since the flame was yellow, not blue. The flashes are unvaporized (liquid) fuel. There is not enough thermal feedback to the vapo chamber to properly vaporize the biodiesel, hence the flashes at higher flow rates. You are overpowering the vapo chamber at the higher flows. Eventually it did not burn well at all because it was only teetering on the edge of vaporizing the fuel and quit altogether once the heat of preheat had cooled. For what it is worth I made a post some time ago about having tried biodiesel in a traditional roarer and a traditional silent burning three-legged stove. The roarer was able to burn the fuel but only at full throttle and with yellow in the flame. The silent was not able to generate enough thermal feedback to get off the starting line, even with double preheats. Significant residues were found in/on my stoves after the test as you, too, discovered. My conclusion was that biodiesel is not a viable stove fuel in spite of the hype that the biodiesel crowd promulgates. On the other hand....... it works *great* in my TSI Beetle! 8) Cheers, Gary
Part of it is the camera. It is a 9 year old digital camera that has been dropped at the beach one too many times. So it looks a bit more orange than it did in real life. But it still was fairly orange. Of the videos from people burning normal diesel, it looks about the same as #2 diesel. I'll pick up some #1 diesel at the pump and shoot a video of that to compare. I have tried everything except normal diesel in this stove. Agreed. Perhaps commercially produced biodiesel works better, since the home brew stuff doesn't quite look like what I've seen from big processors. It might work as a blend. Maybe 10-30% with #1 diesel or kerosene. I'm also concerned about its effects on the gaskets. I drive a diesel truck for work that is specially made to run on a blend of biodiesel and not more than 20%. To make that possible, the engine manufacturer had to somehow harden and modify certain engine components to avoid damage from the diesel. I noticed that the nitrile gaskets in syringes I used for mixing the biodiesel degraded and hardened after the first uses. The blender I mixed it in had significant degradation to the plastic. It cracked and got a haze on it after about 25 minutes of mixing. Obviously very hard to components.
Morning, All, I agree with Dawg on this: "biofuel" is not a viable option for stoves. Maybe at some time in the future it "might" be perfected to the point that it would actually work as so many seem to hope it will. But, for my money, the closest we're going to come to that, at least in the near future, is in burning Meths in our stoves. It's as "green" as we're likely to get anytime soon, IMHO. Just my two cents, and worth what you paid to read them. I, for one, will not be gunking up my stoves by trying to get them to burn "biofuel", as Meths is quite "green" enough for me, and kero and Coleman fuel work like the champs that they are in my stoves!! To loosely paraphrase the line from the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid", "Biofuel? We don't have to show you no stinkin' (literally!) Biofuel"!!! Take care, and God Bless! Every Good wish, Doc
Yep. You need viton for biodiesel. The first thing the local biodiesel boys do with the Rabbits and MB's from the 80's is replace all the fuel system hoses and gaskets with viton versions. You do know that biodiesel will gel at temps below about 40 deg F? So, maybe not viable for backpacking stoves for that reason, too. Unless you only backpack in warm weather I suppose. K1 works so much better. And please excuse my typo from my earlier post, it should be TDI Beetle, not TSI. I have several fingers with bandaids at the moment and typing is challenging. Nothing spectacular, gents, just shop wear and tear. Cheers, Gary
"Nothing spectacular, gents, just shop wear and tear. " Must be all that fine BernieDawg work going on in the depths of the secret workshop!
Yep. That's it, Duane! Ol' Peabody the supermodel spokesdawg has gotten to be a bit of a primadona lately. I might have to bring in his understudy for the next photoshoot.
Most vehicles converted to run Biodiesel have preheaters to make the fuel flow and burn properly. Even the cars don't like biodiesel unless you warm it up. I would guess the tarry mess you had was from the heavier fractions of the bidiesel not burning properly. A lot of the omnifuel type stoves will work on fuels that aren't the "native" fuel, but they burn best when fed properly. Just my opinion, Jim Henderson
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your co-main event -- tonight, facing off in the blue corner, weighing at just under 1 lb, fighting out of Sweden by way of some factory in Eastern Europe, the Primus Omnifuel. In the red corner, this fuel is lime green in color. It has the highest BTU content per gallon of any liquid fuel sold to consumers, it powers the biggest equipment in the world and I only spent 28 cents on a half quart of it, ladies and gentlemen, #2 DIESEL FUEL. -- I tried another odd fuel in the stove. It went okay. I cooked some noodles on it. Then I left the stove to burn for another hour to get rid of the stuff. Its still not gone. And I only bought 28 cents of it. Video of the #2 diesel in an omnifuel. [media=youtube]d1bhl-SE1bY[/media]
That's the price to pay when all your products are made with a polish and luster that rivals if not exceeds the best jewelers and gunsmiths to date! Murph
For what it's worth. Here's my Primus MultiFuel on Ultra Low Sulfer Diesel... Startup. Burning blue. No flashing. Slight yellow streaks, now and then, but fairly clean burning. Good in a pinch, I would say. sam
Not sure, but I think it is #1 ULSD Diesel. I bought it from the local station for $4USD per gallon. A little more expensive but appears to burn cleaner than regular diesel or #2, which, I believe has a lot more sulfur in it. Still doesn't burn as clean as kerosene, which is about $6 to $8 per gallon, but, in a pinch, it will do the job. Here's the MSDS on it: http://www.spragueenergy.com/documents/MSDS-Ultra_Low_Sulfur_Diesel_number1.pdf Like the document says, it has a kerosene smell to it and is very light yellow. It has the same consistency as kerosene. It has flash point of 110F and an ignition temperature of 410F, while No 2 has a flash point of 143F an ignition temperature of ~494F, which is much higher and may be why it burns yellow (not quite combusted) in camp stoves. I believe kerosene has a flash point of 100F to 160F (depends on manufacturer) and ignition temp of 410F to 428F. Numbers do vary across the many documents posted, but suffice it to say, that the lower the flash point, the easier it is to burn and vaporize the fuel in a camp stove. Auto gasoline has a flash point of -45F and an ignition temp of 495F. Very easy to vaporize as can be shown by gasoline type burners that don't require a looping vaporizing tube that runs over the burner. Edit: I wanted to add that Vegetable Oil has a flash point of 620F, while BioDiesel has a flash point of 266F. sam
