How do you make Bio Diesel from home grown Soy beans?

Question

I need to know what equipment I will need, cost, etc. Thanks!

Answer 1

you're getting some wrong info here--biodiesel is not just strained oil.  

Vegetable oils and animal fats are triglycerides, containing glycerine. The biodiesel process turns the oils and fats into esters, separating out the glycerine. The glycerine sinks to the bottom and the biodiesel floats on top and can be syphoned off.

The process is called transesterification, which substitutes alcohol for the glycerine in a chemical reaction, using lye as a catalyst. See How the process works

Answer 2

Well, first you need to get the oil from the soybeans.  Once you do that, you can pass the oil through a coffee filter to get rid of any impurities or sediment.  Once you are sure it is pure oil, pour it in your diesel tank with a mix of 80% biodiesel and 20% petro diesel.  To go one hundred percent biodiesel, there are some things you have to do to modify the engine.

Answer 3

FT is talking about what is called "SVO", which is NOT Bio-diesel, it's just plain vegetable oil. It will soot up the engine. Those who do use it will tell you to start on Petro-diesel, get the SVO (straight vegetable oil) hot, switch to it, and then a few miles before reaching your final destination, switch back to Petro-diesel, which will help clean out the engine. The young lady's part about getting fryer oil is an excellent point. Why use new, when the used is better, and generally free. That oil, however, will have to be titrated ( a chemical test for acidity in this situation) to find how much lye (sodium hydroxide) will have to be used to neutralize the acids in the oil, and still make the tranesterfication happen to get the most bio-diesel from the oil that you have. Doigpatch does have a good answer, and JourneytoTomorrow is a good site. I have something better to offer. Find the magazine "Home Power" and ask for a copy of issue 107. In that issue there is an in depth discussion of making bio-diesel. The costs are difficult to state here because there are a few variables to that question. Are you going to use used equipment, or are you going to use new. The parts need to be metal, until you have the final product. Do NOT use any of the plastic stuff that is offered by some companies for the various mixers and process tanks. There have been reports of people who have, and serious injury from fires and other mishaps from using plastics. Remember one key point, when lye, and the alcohol are mixed, you have a very caustic base, that can, and will do serious harm to exposed flesh. It produces a nasty chemical burn that literally eats flesh. Be VERY careful.

Answer 4

Can you make Bio Diesel out of soy beans? I thought the best way was to go to a fast food joint or a local pizza place that has fries and ask for their old oil  (free) and they will give it to you if you haul it away. Any hoo.. the machinery is about 5-600 bucks and you can find it in the back of most trucker mags. Like 24/7 or Tow Times. Also, the show Trucks on spike tv weekends had an episode where the host Stacey David makes a batch of the stuff for like .40 cents! Look it up on the Spike web site.

Good for you for helping the enviornment.