Sign in  |  Register
Advanced search
Publication Cover

CITATION

Starbuck, Jon and Harper, Gavin. Run Your Diesel Vehicle on Biofuels: A Do-It-Yourself Manual. US: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics, 2008.

Run Your Diesel Vehicle on Biofuels: A Do-It-Yourself Manual

Authors: Jon Starbuck and Gavin Harper

Published:  November 2008

eISBN: 9780071600446 0071600442 | ISBN: 9780071600439
Open eBook
  • Contents
  • Foreword
  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • Chapter 1 Introduction
  • The birth of biodiesel
  • Vehicle emissions and biodiesel
  • Introducing … biofuels
  • Emissions from biodiesel
  • The lowdown on biodiesel maladies
  • Great … but I’m skeptical … nowhere I know sells biodiesel
  • Final remarks
  • Chapter 2 History of Diesel and the diesel engine
  • Early life
  • Birth of the diesel engine
  • Death
  • Legacy
  • Chapter 3 How does a diesel engine work?
  • Differences between petrol and diesel engines
  • The diesel engine fuel system
  • Fuel injection system configurations
  • Fuel injectors explained
  • Improving the efficiency of your diesel engine
  • Chapter 4 Collecting waste vegetable oil
  • Buying WVO
  • Regulations
  • Transporting it
  • Suckers
  • Storage of waste oil
  • Health and safety
  • How to titrate
  • Testing for water
  • Chapter 5 Biodiesel chemistry
  • Introduction to the chemistry of biodiesel
  • Chemistry refresher
  • Organic chemistry, hydrocarbons … and all that jazz!
  • Representing chemicals
  • Alkanes
  • Alkenes
  • Alkynes
  • Introduction to functional group chemistry
  • Alcohols
  • Fatty acids (carboxylic acids)
  • Oils and fats
  • Esterification
  • Transesterification
  • Triglycerides
  • Chapter 6 Fuel modification: making biodiesel
  • Introduction
  • Health and safety
  • Where to obtain the chemicals
  • Making biodiesel
  • Titration
  • Water in your WVO
  • Requirements
  • How to achieve high-quality biodiesel
  • Other methods of making biodiesel
  • Two-stage reactions
  • Buying biodiesel
  • Chapter 7 Biodiesel reactors and processors
  • Where to put the processor?
  • Electricity
  • Water
  • Lighting
  • Ventilation
  • Bunding and spills
  • Reactor materials
  • The US Appleseed biodiesel reactor
  • UK hot water tank
  • Vents and methanol recovery
  • Recovering leftover methanol
  • Plans, kits, and readymade reactors
  • Fully automated reactors
  • Chapter 8 Engine modification – running on SVO
  • The basics
  • Heating the fuel
  • How to make a heat exchanger
  • Filters
  • Heated fuel tanks
  • Lift pumps
  • Injection systems
  • Valves
  • Bleeding
  • Advantages and disadvantages of the twin tank
  • Putting together your own two-tank system
  • Commercially available two-tank systems
  • One-tank systems
  • Advantages and disadvantages of single-tank conversions
  • One-tank DIY
  • Commercially available one-tank systems
  • Chapter 9 Using WVO in your SVO engine
  • Introduction
  • Processing waste oil
  • Test first, WVO or biodiesel?
  • What is filtering?
  • Dewatering your WVO
  • So what does all this mean?
  • Testing for water
  • Dewatering
  • WVO in the cold weather
  • Summary
  • Chapter 10 Other options and solutions
  • Diesel, kerosene, and heating oil
  • Solvent thinning and blending
  • White spirit
  • Open source, not secret sauce
  • That is too good to be true!
  • Anecdotal evidence is not good evidence
  • Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof
  • Magnets
  • HHO and water-powered cars
  • Acetone
  • Adding engine oil or automatic transmission fluid to diesel
  • The great gas conspiracy
  • Pogue’s carburetor
  • Not a diesel engine?
  • Wood gas
  • Bioethanol
  • Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or Autogas)
  • Electric vehicles
  • Hydrogen as a future energy vector
  • Human-powered vehicles
  • Chapter 11 Engine conversion or fuel conversion?
  • How many vehicles are you running?
  • What is your location?
  • How are you going to dispose of the waste?
  • What is your typical journey duration?
  • Who else uses your car?
  • Which is greenest?
  • How proven is the technology?
  • Chapter 12 Waste streams
  • Glycerol
  • Soapy water
  • Oily empties
  • Chapter 13 Health and safety
  • Heavy things and manual handling
  • Working with/under vehicles
  • Biodiesel risks
  • Practical safety hints for biodiesel production
  • Electrical safety
  • Slippery oils
  • Heat
  • Chemical burns
  • Chapter 14 Biofuel ethics
  • Introduction
  • The carbon cycle – the bike with the wonky chain
  • Interdependence, not independence
  • Can we grow enough biofuels?
  • Biofuels, global warming, and big business
  • Food vs fuel
  • Biofuel from waste oils
  • Biofuel from agricultural waste
  • Fuel from algae
  • Other alternative transport technologies
  • Conclusions
  • References
  • Further reading
  • Chapter 15 Biodiesel and vegetable oil are not just for cars!
  • Introduction
  • Motorbikes
  • Boats
  • Airplanes
  • Portable generators
  • Chapter 16 Epilogue
  • The kids from NERD?
  • Algae
  • Nanotechnology in the production of biodiesel
  • Final remarks
  • Appendix
  • Index