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100% of all the waste cooking oil we collect is processed into bio-diesel. For every 1 Litre of waste cooking processed 1 Litre of bio-diesel is produced
Bio-diesel may be treated as an alternative fuel to diesel produced from crude mineral oil, but the fact is diesel engines were originally designed to run on vegetable based oils by Rudolf Diesel
The only reason why petroleum diesel has been so popular, is that it is cheaper than its vegetable based brother as crude oil has little other purpose than to be turned into plastic or burnt!
Bio-diesel may have as strict definition for tax purposes, but we see it more as a generic term, which covers all diesel which is purely vegetable based, for example:Yes the basic diesel engine will run on pure vegetable oil without modification. What you need to realise is diesel engines like to run at speed and under load. If this is not achieved engine temperatures will not build up and you will get an incomplete combustion. Hence the reason why cars running on cooking oil smell like a chip shop due to unburnt and partially burnt oil in the exhaust gas!
Most modern diesel engines now have high pressure fuel pumps and so much add on equipment like DPF’s (Diesel Particulate Filters) , Ad Blue etc that running on SVO is no longer possible.Same as above but waste cooking oil is settled to remove heavy acidic fatty content and later filtered down to 10 micron or less.
Bio-diesel is produced by chemically reacting pure vegetable based oil and or animal fats (both are types of Tri-Glyceride), with methanol using sodium hydroxide (lye/causitc soda) as a catalyst.
See basic equation Below.
This equation (transesterification), show the reaction of synthesising oils into bio-diesel and its bi product Gylcerin in its simplest form. This equation would be correct if only using pure fresh vegetable oil as the feedstock and 100% pure reactants.
It does not take into account that when using WVO and animal fats some of the Triglcerides will be broken down into Diglycerides and Monoglycerides + Free Fatty Acids during cooking. Therefore the actual process of treating used cooking oils is a lot more complicated and will involve pretreatment such as acid esterification,
When using used cooking oil, there is also the added difficulty of water being present in the oil. Luckily most of the water falls out of the oil under heating, but some remains “stuck” to the oil and when this is added into the reaction and it creates soap rather than bio-diesel.
This is fine is small quantities as it can be washed out in a further process, but is something that needs to be avoided.
Commercially water will be removed by using high force centrifuges, but it is just as effective to use some gentle heat and settle the oil out over time.
Cater oils does not produce bio-diesel
We are specialists at selling fresh cooking oils, collecting used cooking oils and refining used cooking oils into a pure used cooking oil product, ready to be turned into bio diesel at one of the UK’s leading bio fuel plants such as Greenergy.Greenergy operates one of the UK’s largest bio diesel production plants in Immingham bieing capable of producing 300 million litres of Bio-diesel per year.
Greenergy also operates its own petroleum and diesel distribution selling in excess of 20 million litres per day.