Alternative fuels

Hi Brie,

Spiritus seems to work well with an adapter as I heard from various sources . Diesel does cause soot, but it's tolerable. You just have to clean your nozzle a bit more often and every now and then your vaporizer.

I don't think that non mineral fuel is a good idea. Salad oil has a way higher boiling point than diesel. Furthermore I suspect that those aren't that stable when heated. You might be successful mixing those fuels with normal kerosene or even gasoline. You can't mix Spiritus and Oils. (Spiritus solves only in water, oil doesn't)

There has been a lengthy discussion about using gasoline in a Petromax lamp in the german forums. This is possible with all types of vaporizers. Sure, gas is more dangerous than kerosene, but so is spiritus.

Bye,
Christoph

Hello!

I use parafine-oil which is usually used for lighting the barbecue. As is this parafine-oil complies with the standard VBF-AIII I don´t see any problems. In my 500 HK it works just fine.

Greetz

Petromax

I would strongly discourage from using oils of agricultural origin in pressure lamps (same for mixtures). These will break down in the vapourizer and clog it. In addition they are more corrosive than mineral oils.

Regards,

Aladdin

Note that VbF is the "Verordnung für brennbare Flüssigkeiten" (Order on Burnable Fluids) in Germany and therefore you probably don't see VbF - AIII outside of Germany. VbF-AIII just means that the fluid must be heated over 55°C to be able to burn.

Bye,
Christoph

In Diesel engines the "oil" is injected (sprayed) into the burning chamber with high pressure (note that highly compressed air in the burning chamber is so hot that the fuel starts combusting spontanously, i.e. without the need of ignition sparks). It is not preheated (at least as far as I know). Though this may also work with plant oil in unmodified engines, the manufacturers recommend exchanging serveral parts because this oil is more corrosive and more prone to clogging.
Plant oils are no pure hydrocarbons like (purified) mineral oils but - chemically speaking - esters of fatty acids with glycerol. A fraction of the fatty acids is unsaturated (depending on the origin of the oil) and also a certain amount of free fatty acids is present which is responsible for the corrosiveness of the cold oil. These molecules are relatively instabile compared to pure hydrocarbons, especially when heated. Then the molecules break down and react again which leads to corrosion on the one hand and clogging on the other. So the problem is not the higher viscosity but the higher reactivity (instability) of plant oils. Stronger heating does not alleviate but worsens the situation.

Regards,

Felix

I fueled my old golf mark 2 quite a long time with salad oil. In summer there are no problems because of the high temperature the oil is quite fluxional. In winter it is not possible to drive with salad oil only, it blocks the pipes completely; therefore you have built a special heating system.

I agree to what aladdin said, that the fuel in a diesel engine only explode because of the compression. There are no spark plugs or any other devices, only glow plugs to make the fuel more liquid.

An interesting fact on salad oil in a car is that if the temperature allows using it, the car runs faster (more horse power) with it that results from the oxygen in the salad oil.

I have never tried to use in a pressure lantern, but I reckon if the temperature is right it will work. But don’t forget that salad oil gets frowsty after a while.

Regards Jonas

"If you find any mistakes in my text, keep them :D"

Hi,
i don't agree with Aladdin. In fact, the diesel engine has preheating sparks, which are responsible to
get the mixture exploded at the beginning. Later on, when the engine has its workingtemperature, they
are not needed any more. The system is the same like at the Petromax, which also needs a preheating.
Remember the older Tractors like Lance, they have a preheating solderinglamp, to get the startingtemperature.
In that time no preheating sparks have been aviable. The princip today is the same like in that time, with better technic.

There is no such thing as a preheating spark in diesel motors. (note that spark means "Funke" in german) There is a heater plug that just warms the fuel up a bit when starting the motor. But the fuel is not vaporized before putting it into the cylinder, just sprayed. Only the high compression causes the fuel to heat up and explode.

This makes it a really different principle than the one found in Petromax lanterns.

Furthermore, I do think that higher temperatures would help burning non mineral fuels in Petromax lanterns, but I don't see a feasible way to accomplish that, and it doesn't help in the problem that it that fuel more corrosive.

Bye,
Christoph

Hi Brie,

just found this article. It's good because it's bilingual.

Maybe it helps.

http://www.aramis-research.ch/d/13582.html

See you

Orthotiger

No, Joern, you are definitely wrong. You need preheating of Diesel engines because otherwise the cold metal would cool down the hot compressed air so iginition would be unreliable or even impossible. In bigger/newer Diesel engines there are no preheating sparks any more. Instead, during warm-up fuel is injected at a later time point when compression is higher which compensates for heat loss to the cold metal.
I think it is obvious that a Diesel engine does not care so much if molecules break down already at a lower temperature as long as the mixture does not ignite early (which would mean "klopfen") because this happens in the combustion zone. In contrast, in pressure lanterns and stoves the fuel is strongly preheated before vapourization so the break-down can start already in the preheater which leads to corrosion and clogging (polymerization reactions form large and sticky molecules).
Therefore I recommend using exclusively mineral oils or alcohols (with the well-kown mixing chamber modifications, of course) in pressure lanterns and stoves and leave the other stuff for nutritional purposes .
By the way: Has anyone tried isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol) instead of ethanol (spirit)? It is also quite cheap, contains a bit more energy and needs a bit more air for combustion than ethanol.

Regards,

Aladdin