Cotton Seed Oil

[RSeger]

Has anyone used cotton seed oil for making their biodiesel? I have a local Japanese food restaurant that will give me their cotton seed oil, about 10 15 gallons per week.

 

[JoeBioDiesel]

Be careful before you take too much. A restaurant the only produces 10-15 gallons/wk probably uses their oil for too long before replacing it. If the animal fat content is too high it can be a pain to make good fuel. The gel point will be too high. I've never found a Chinese restaurant that had good oil... not once. Other people have had better luck than I have though. I'd feel better about taking it if they produced 25-30 gallons of waste/wk.

I recommend you grab a couple of gallons and make some 1 liter batches to see how they turn out.

My 2 cents,

Joe

 

[BSMiller]

Joe,

Where have you been getting your oil?

Bruce

 

[JoeBioDiesel]

Hi Bruce,

The best oil source I have is a VFW that does fish frys 3 or 4 times/year. Each time I get 40 gallons of nearly new oil. Of course that's not enough... but I wish it was. There is a restaurant a few blocks from my house that changes their oil frequently. I can get amlost 40 gallons/week as long as they're busy. Two years ago I was teaching at a college. I got the oil from the school cafeteria there. It was decent stuff most of the time. Wherever you get your oil make absolutely sure that they don't put the waste water from cleaning the fryers into the waste oil containers. If I find out that they use "Boil-out" or something similar to clean the fryers I don't take their oil at all. You'll know it if they do because you'll end up making solid soap instead of biodiesel. Although it's possible to straighten it out, it's a real pain in the butt.

Joe

 

[Msilbernagel]

Bruce,



I get mine from a local chain of pizza restaurants in the Vancouver WA area. One store gives me 6-8 5-gallon cartons per week; their change interval. More than enough to keep my suburban on the road. They do fries, chicken, ribs, etc with it - and actually filter it back into the jugs when they are done. A source from heaven... Oo.



Mark