Good morning gents, this forum has always been a great source of information in the past so thought I would try again. I have been running B100 and now that cold is getting serious what is the best anti gel additive. I would like to continue using B100 but guess if an additive is more expensive than running B80 I might just blend. Thanks for your opinions in advance. And if you guys have a preferred anti gel for B100 where do you purchase it?. Im a small time garage bio producer. Make 5 gallon batches at a time. Thanks

 

I've been adding Diesel Kleen when it's around zero, otherwise running 30% bio. 30% bio runs fine, just a little harder starting...

 

I've tried every anti-gel on the market, including those made just for biodiesel. Not one has been as good as blending. I just switched from B-50 to B-80 since it's starting to get warmer. Blending has worked good for me for almost 6 years and untill someone comes up with something that works I'll keep on blending.

 

I always use a blend with d#2. When the temps dipped down to the low 20's I mixed down to B30 just to be safe. I see low 30's in the mornings and I blend down to B80 with no problems. Where I get my bio from uses a special process that brings the gel temp's down to 30 deg. So mixing down to B80 gives me a good 10 deg margin. There is another place I get bio from that adds 5% kero which brings the gel temp's down to 25 deg. I add 10% d#2 to blend down to B85 just to be safe. This has always worked for me with no problems. I have never seen a product that actually works better than dino diesel to bring down the gel temp's of the fuel.
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/43672.pdf

 

Same here on cutting with pump #2. When it got into the teens here last December, I went to B50. My soy based bio begins to gel at the mid 20's. I've been doubling up my glycerol pre treatment lately and it seems to help in lowering my gel points. Last year, doing one pre treatment on my oil yielded bio which began gelling in the upper 20's.

I haven't yet heard of any successful bio additives for lowering gel points. My guess is that there are so many different feedstocks and processing methods that it would be difficult to develop one product which would work on all biodiesel.

 

Hard to believe but I actually had to cut my bio to B-80 due to the night time temps in the high 20s. That's in sunny Florida folks. Hope we don't see that again. We are "wimps".

 

It is common practice in the UK to add about 5% gasoline to biodiesel to keep it from gelling when the temps drop to 32F (0c). Below that it might take a bit more gasoline up to about 20% depending upon the night time low.