Fuel for Thought.

Used Cooking Oil is fast becoming an alternate to fossil oil. Millions of tons of oil is consumed  and an equal amount of oil is dumped into drains clogging the drainage lines. There are people who use and reuse and reuse till the cooking oil is fully burnt or spent up. Doctors say that we should not reuse oil once utilized.  Since the cost is high most of us are not throwing the oil down in the  drain once it is used for 'one frying'. 

Slowly health-conscious people are not doing so and big hotels and restaurants and factories that use oil for preparations of fried fast food are with lot of oil that cane be converted into with some simple processes. This has to pick up fast. Also the bio-fuel yielding plants have started slowly competing for land and water with our regular food/cereal crops. Naturally the farmers would go for the crops that give them higher yield. 

India is the world's leading importer and consumer of edible oils in the world. Of the total 5.0-5.5 million tons of vegetable oils imported by India annually, 1.3-1.5 million tons is soyabean oil, imported mostly form Argentina, Brazil and US , nearly 3 million tons of palm oil is purchased from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Biodiesel is an organic, non-toxic and biodegradable fuel made from everyday renewable resources, like vegetable oils or animal fats. It can power your car's engine and help the environment at the same time. It doesn't contain any petroleum, so forget about escalating gas prices. Biodiesel cuts down on CO2 emissions; in fact, it's the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the US Clean Air Act. Biodiesel can be purchased at a growing number of fuelling stations around the world but you can also make it in your own backyard. Even if you don't like chemistry, you can brew your own.

Steps

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   Take appropriate precautions. There are a few important factors to keep in mind when making your own fuel. During all stages of making bio-diesel, always work in a well-ventilated area and away from pets and children.
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   Collect your oil. You can spend the extra money and buy new cooking oil or you can find a restaurant and ask them if you can take their used cooking oil off their hands. Used cooking oil will have a darker color to it and will most likely have chunks of your favorite fried foods floating around. You will need to get rid of these before making biodiesel homebrew.
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   Remove the chunks. Filtering your used cooking oil will eliminate the chunks of food and other particles before your begin your biodiesel homebrew process. Larger chunks can contain water and can mess up your biodiesel reaction.
• As you pour out your used cooking oil let it completely run through the filter. The filter doesn't need to be too fine. A paint strainer or window screen will adequately remove the particles that are large enough to affect the biodiesel reaction.
• You will notice large chunks of fried mystery food collecting in the filter. This filtration process can be fairly quick, but you can let the filtered biodiesel settle anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days to let the smaller particles settle out.
• Smaller suspended particles should also be allowed to settle so they doesn't attach to your heating element and muck up your processor.
• Once settling is complete, begin transferring your used cooking oil to the reaction tank on your processor.
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   Transfer to the tank. Take the hose that connects the collection barrel to the reaction tank on your biodiesel compressor and connect it to the pump.
   • Open up the valve on the reaction tank and open the valve on the bottom of the collection barrel.
   • To activate the transfer, simply turn on the pump on your processor.
   • You will notice the dark, used cooking oil traveling out of the bottom of the collection barrel, through the pump, through the processor and up into the hose that empties into the reaction tank.
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   Heat it up. As your cooking oil makes its way into the reaction tank, you need to heat up the oil to about 120 or 130 °F (49 or 54 °C). During the heating process, the pump on your compressor will circulate the oil. Circulating and heating the oil distributes the heat and prevents the oil from getting too hot right near the heating element. This heating and circulation process will take approximately one to four hours. Factors that affect heating time:
   • amount of oil
   • temperature of oil
   • air temperature
   • processor insulation
   • strength of heating element
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   Begin your bio-diesel fuel process. You have just finished properly filtering your used cooking oil. By choosing to use an alternative fuel, you are helping to cut down on CO2 emissions, cut dependence on oil imports and saved yourself some money.
7. Caution: Remember you are dealing with a fuel.  The ideas are for thorough professionals and experts and definitely  not for amateurs, students and fun lovers. 
8. Source: Wikipedia

For further information pl do visit Wikipedia