yielding a viscosity comparable to that of diesel.
The heat of combustion is 95% of that for conventional diesel (on a volume basis).
They have a Cetane number of 50-80 (compared to 42 for diesel).
The cost of the fuel can be reduced by using waste vegetable cooking oils.
There are 350 million gallons of waste vegetable oil produced annually in the U.S.A., and various quantities available in other countries.
We have developed a process for making the esters from waste vegetable oils and we call the fuel “M-Diesel”.
The oil is reacted with sodium hydroxide dissolved in methanol.
A sufficient quantity of alkali is used to neutralize the fatty acids in the waste oil plus 0.3% excess.
A batch of 300 gallons was made for testing.
We have tested the fuel in a Denver public bus and find power comparable to that of diesel.
A 30% blend with diesel reduced smoke opacity to 60% of that from diesel, while neat M-Diesel reduced the opacity to 26% of that of diesel.