Racer's Lounge - Biodiesel from corn?

I'm not up on my diesel tech, but i've done some reading about biodiesel from veggie oil from deep fryers...you can make it yourself at home

can something like this be done from corn? I'm surrounded by corn fields, so I know I can get corn for cheap...just thinking about a possible alternative for my next new truck

You can manufacture ethanol and biodiesel from corn. Will it be cost efficient? possibly.

I saw a company out there selling a kit to make it in your garage, but for veggie oil

i'm sure there's one out there for corn...has anyone found anything?

You can make it yourself even though it is more than throwing it in your tank. Some additive needed. Not sure on what exactly you need but there is some big Mo. research project with Biodiesel.

You might want to check up on this info but I have heard you have to switch back and forth because regular diesel has additives which help clean the injectors and so forth. Even still might be worth looking into cause what else do they do with the veg oil anyways? Throw it out?

where im from a bushel of corn ~ 56 pounds, is 3.85 +

According to some quick research it takes ~ 26 pounds of corn to make one gallon of ethanol (not sure about bio diesel)

So if you need 20 gallons to fill up your truck, your going to need to spend 35.75 dollars on corn. Not to mention the processing costs and whatnot.

But Bio diesel does have the same additive packages that regular fuel does, however it does not protect against gelling like regular fuel. So if you live in a cold climate you might need to run reg in the winter.

If you can come up with a kit it might be worth while.

we need to create a kind of vegetable that produces more than ten times the amount that can be derived from corn to make it a viable source.

where im from a bushel of corn ~ 56 pounds, is 3.85 +

According to some quick research it takes ~ 26 pounds of corn to make one gallon of ethanol (not sure about bio diesel)

So if you need 20 gallons to fill up your truck, your going to need to spend 35.75 dollars on corn. Not to mention the processing costs and whatnot.

But Bio diesel does have the same additive packages that regular fuel does, however it does not protect against gelling like regular fuel. So if you live in a cold climate you might need to run reg in the winter.

If you can come up with a kit it might be worth while.

the main reason for my asking, is that I'm looking at some property to build a house on. Included is 5 or 7 acres of fields. My neighbor is a farmer, so I could pay him for the work and the seed etc, and then I can 'grow' my diesel in my back yard

1.5 gallons of ethanol will get you as far as 1 gallon of gasoline

1.5 gallons of ethanol will get you as far as 1 gallon of gasoline

how do you figure? It's less powerful under combustion.

we need to create a kind of vegetable that produces more than ten times the amount that can be derived from corn to make it a viable source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchgrass

Switchgrass has the potential to produce the biomass required for production of up to 100 gallons (380 liters) of ethanol per metric ton.[8] This gives switchgrass the potential to produce 1000 gallons of ethanol per acre, compared to 665 gallons for sugarcane and 400 gallons for corn.[9]



how do you figure? It's less powerful under combustion.

You just answered your own question. :)

If I was going to go through the procedure of distilling the corn, I'd probably just drink it instead of burning it - White Lightin' - I haven't had any of that "Home-Brew" in quite a while

Not sure about biodiesel from corn... but they had a really cool show on yesterday on history channel.

Modern Marvels was showing alternative fuels... there's research to change the corn stauks and such into ethanol as well... currently it takes 1 gallon of gasoline/fuel to harvest enough corn to make 1.3 gallons of ethanol (so it's basically a break even point since ethanol only has 75% the energy of gasoline)

but if they can get ethanol from every part of the plant, they'd be able to make more ethanol per acre of corn than can be had from sugar cane (like they do in brazil)

edit:

Lol! as posted above, switchgrass is what they were talking about hah

My dad is working on the corn stalk reasearch for a company to be left nameless. We just got done doing a bunch of baling and going to weather piles of bales over the winter in MN, IA, and ND. Taking samples and monitoring decompostion based on different moisture contents of the bales. We baled some just after a rain to have a worst case scenario even.
This is going to be THE biggest thing for fuel production as we are seeing almost as much sugar in the base of the stalks as in the cobs themselves, and as a side effect we are netting better yields on average by removing the upper half of the stalk from the field. So far its basically a straight win situation.
Also as a side note, Ethanol production is going to become much more efficient as said company has developed a new process that enables the plants to react more sugar from each kernel. As corn has 3 base sugars in it, current technology only reliably can extract 1 of those, this new process can reliably remove all 3 sugars and provide a huge gain in product. This along with using the stalks and switchgrass as mentioned above will dramatically reduce the impact on our actual corn markets.
Gary