Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- Two bucks a gallon to make your own biodiesel sounds like a bargain compared to $5 to pump a gallon of gas or heating oil. But operating a processing plant in your garage might be more of a hobby than you're willing to take on.

Sandi Wilson heats her Knik-Goose Bay home with heating oil. At about $5 a gallon for a 500-gallon tank, a full tank runs $2,500. Ouch. What's not to like about cutting that to $1,000?

So with that idea in mind, Wilson joined 18 other students for Will Taygan's Backyard Biodiesel class June 14 at the Spring Creek Farm north of Palmer.

Taygan has taught the benefits of biodiesel for three years.

"This is almost like a chemistry class. It sounds a little more complicated than I was thinking," Wilson said after class started.

CHEMISTRY 101

Lined up on the table she shared with two others were one-liter soda bottles, graduated cylinders, syringes, chemicals, safety goggles and gloves. Class members prepared first to calculate how much lye or potash they would need to convert the warmed vegetable oil in front of them into fuel. Lye and potash act as a catalyst for the required chemical reaction.

Taygan explained that vegetable oil, salmon oil and other oils used to make biodiesel are triglyceride molecules, a chain of three fatty acids attached to a glycerin molecule. The chemical reaction involves separating the fatty acid chains from the glycerin.

"It's a big, heavy molecule. It makes the oil sticky and thick. We want to replace it with a lighter molecule, methanol," Taygan said.

Taygan explained how to use methanol to split the glycerin molecules off each molecule of vegetable oil, using lye or potash as a catalyst. Following the reaction the liquids separate into a glycerin layer and so-called "fatty acid methyl esters," the chemical name for biodiesel, which floats on top of the glycerin.

A clear two-liter bottle of biodiesel that Taygan obtained from salmon oil showed about one-fifth of the bottle filled with a dark liquid that looked like cola, topped by what looked like orange soda. The dark stuff was glycerin, the light stuff biodiesel. Burn it and it smells like cooked salmon, Taygan said.

But getting to that point involves several steps that determine just how much catalyst is needed to separate the glycerin from the biodiesel. Too much and the fuel turns to sludge, too little and the conversion is incomplete.

"I don't think people knew this was going to be a chemistry class," Taygan said while the students pored over their calculations a second time.

RECOVER, REUSE

Over four hours, the students made a few liters of purposefully bad batches so they could tell the difference between good fuel and bad.

After waiting an hour for the reaction to occur, the students poured off the glycerin and added water to wash the remaining impurities out of their fuel. After drying, the biodiesel is ready to be poured directly into a fuel tank.

Although glycerin is a waste product in Taygan's class, some people refine it through a still to separate the methanol. The most costly ingredient in the refining process, the recovered methanol can be used for another batch of fuel. The glycerin can be sold or used as degreaser or homemade soap.

After the class, Wilson said she didn't foresee making the fuel on her own, although she might buy fuel made by other class members if they have extra. She planned to keep the biodiesel portion of her heating oil to 20 percent. Anything higher and the fuel tends to gel in low temperature.

"If you use it in a vehicle it's great, but to use it as heating fuel, it's a lot of work," she said.

GARAGE REFINERY

The Backyard Biodiesel class was the largest of its kind held in Alaska, Taygan said. He's gearing up to teach salmon fishermen later this year how to turn salmon oil into fuel for their boats. He'll give a biodiesel overview Aug. 9 at the Alaska Renewable Energy Fair at Delaney Park Strip in Anchorage and plans to offer another hands-on tutorial in November.

Tim Smith, a Navy recruiter who took the Saturday class, said he was glad to learn hands-on a process he has been reading about online for months.

Smith is eager to start using biodiesel and already has what's called an appleseed processor set up in his garage. It's a unit he crafted out of a used water heater, a few recycled barrels, some hoses, fittings and pumps to make things flow smoothly from one process to another. He figured he has about $200 into the setup.

"It's all about being an Alaskan and scavenging parts," Smith said.

He said he plans to perfect his brewing process and, eventually, process enough to drive his 1998 Dodge pickup to visit family in Wisconsin entirely on biodiesel.

Making biodiesel is a lot more work than pulling up to a gas tank and swiping a credit card, but Smith said he's committed to the effort on a moral level. It's a meaningful way to buy local and supporting American farmers, he said.

"If it costs me 50 cents more a gallon to make biodiesel, I would because I could do it locally. It's not just about money, it's about people standing up and paying for something made in the U.S. again," he said.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at www.adn.com/contact/rwhite or call her in Wasilla at 907-352-6709.

JOIN THE CLASS: Will Taygan will teach Backyard Biodiesel to small groups for $40 per person. Call him at 688-5288 or e-mail him at will@alaskabiodiesel.org.

NATIONAL BIODIESEL BOARD:

www.biodiesel.org

WILL TAGYAN's site:

vegwerks.wordpress.com

Biodiesel Q&A

Q. What is biodiesel?

A. The National Biodiesel Board defines biodiesel as a "domestic, renewable fuel for diesel engines derived from natural oils like soybean oil, and which meets the specifications" of the federal biodiesel standard. It can be used in compression-ignition, or diesel, engines "with little or no modifications" and is biodegradeable, nontoxic and "essentially free of sulfur and aromatics."

Q. Can I dump a jug of canola oil in my fuel tank?

A. Biodiesel and so-called SVO or straight vegetable oil are different liquids. Biodiesel is vegetable oil that has been refined to remove the glycerin molecules. SVO users must convert their engine with heat exchangers, filters, insulated fuel lines and other parts to burn the thicker oil.

Q. Does it have to be mixed with diesel fuel?

A. It can be blended or used straight. Biodiesel promoter and instructor Will Taygan powers his Volkswagen Jetta with 100 percent recycled and processed vegetable oil. The federal government calls any fuel with at least 20 percent biodiesel an alternative fuel.

Q. Does it provide as much power to the engine as diesel fuel?

A. More, Taygan says, because biodiesel has more oxygen than diesel and provides a cleaner burn. Biodiesel made from virgin soybean oil provides 3.2 units of energy for every single unit of fossil fuel. Using restaurant waste oil, Taygan said, more than doubles that energy balance. Ethanol, comparatively, is one unit of energy to one unit of fossil fuel.

Q. Will burning biodiesel void my vehicle warranty?

A. According to the National Biodiesel Board, "most major engine companies have stated formally that the use of blends up to 20 percent will not void parts and workmanship warranties."

-- Source: National Biodiesel Board and Will Taygan

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