Can corn oil really be converted and refined into fuel for cars?

Question

Old Bald- I understand your point but restaurants pay people to take used oil from their facility and get rid of it. That seems like a nice deal.

Answer 1

yes it can it's called ethonal and it is in your gas now. there are alot of ethonal plants in the country

Answer 2

The original diesel engines ran on oils from corn and peanuts.

Answer 3

Yes it can, but its for disel based vehicles. It actually takes little or no energy to do. Its done by a chemical process called transesterification.

its  actually better though to use food waste like fats and grease and also other types of oils not just the corn oil. Corn oil alone is not viable!

Answer 4

In the old days us bootleggers, made corn mash, cooked it down and fermented it through some copper tubing to make 190+ Proof drinking alcohol.  Drinking or driving, they both pack a wallop.

Answer 5

If the car has a Diesel engine, yes.  For an Otto (conventional gasoline) engine, it would not be economic.

Answer 6

Sure, in some cars it can be used without conversion. The process converts corn oil into bio diesel. This is done by "cracking" the oil with lye and methanol alcohol. The byproduct is glycerin which is used for soap.

Older diesel cars like the 1980's Mercedes Benz 300 S Turbo-Diesel can use corn oil directly but not during cold weather unless a oil preheater is installed.

Unfortunately,  there isn't enough Corn on the planet to even reduce crude oil consumption by 50%

Answer 7

Corn oil ( cooking oil ) is $2.5 to $ 3 a quart .  To further refine this oil into a fuel would make the cost $10. to $15 a gallon !!  Corn is impractical as a fuel !!  As oil or as ethanol !