Biodiesel experiment has class gassed up

They bypassed the fuel system and poured the oily yellow liquid from the glass beakers directly into the injectors of the 1979 Mercedes 300D diesel.

Klahowya Secondary School junior Ben Dekock turned the key in the ignition and the car started.

After the first few samples of biodiesel created in the Advanced Placement chemistry lab were poured in, students piled around the exhaust pipe to take in the scent of French fries.

Dekock, a student in Jobie Flint’s general chemistry class, asked her at the beginning of the school year if she could make biodiesel.

“I wanted to save some money,” he explained.

It turned out, conjuring up biodiesel in the lab was the AP chemistry class’ second semester final.

So on Friday, Flint’s students gathered around Dekock’s Mercedes outside the Klahowya wood shop. It was the culmination of weeks of research, writing papers and experiments to arrive at the right method of producing the veggie fuel.

“Hopefully I can get the biodiesel from her,” Dekock said. “Hopefully she can teach me how to make it.”

The recipe Dekock will need includes vegetable oil, methanol and a base such as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide.

“The thing is people make this in their garage, from stuff they bought at the grocery store,” Flint said.

Potassium hydroxide, for instance, is found in most types of liquid drain cleaners.

Flint, however, did not give her students any tips, they were to research the project on their own in teams of two.

It took two classroom sessions last week to finally make a sample of biodiesel in the chemistry lab.

“I didn’t know it was that easy to make,” said senior CJ Moen. “If I had a car that was diesel, I’d probably try to make some of my own.”

Moen drives a Dodge Dakota and knows all too well the financial pains of pumping regular gas. Biodiesel’s main ingredient is vegetable oil and, in fact, used oil, when filtered, can be made into car fuel, Moen said. But even buying brand new bottles of vegetable oil from the grocery store and cooking up some biodiesel would be cheaper than regular diesel, he added.

Junior Ali Fredrickson was more surprised at the effectiveness of the yellow French fry-scented fuel. She was helping pour the liquid into Dekock’s car and once he turned off the engine Fredrickson exclaimed she didn’t believe it would work.

“I thought it was just one of those experiments where we learn what we could have done right,” she said laughing.

Flint had no doubt the biodiesel would work, but she admitted it must have taken trust on the part of the students, especially Dekock.

“It shows a lot of faith,” she said. “That’s a nice car. He ought to have had a lot of faith in the kids and me that we can pull it off.”

And pull it off they did. The Mercedes’ engine purred even quieter when fueled by the veggie oil mix than with the regular diesel. In fact, Flint said some of her students discovered in their research the original diesel engine was made to run on vegetable oil.

Biodiesel based on crops like corn and soy or even algae, would work just fine, students said.

Flint taught AP chemistry for the first time this year and came up with the biodiesel project to keep students interested in the class after they took the AP test May 10.

“This is very practical, it’s topical,” she said. “With fuel prices going up, it’s current events ... and it worked.”

Dekock, who got a new fuel line from Gilmore’s Automotive Service in Bremerton to replace his after the test, was pumped about the successful experiment. He said he not only wants to make biodiesel for his own car, but also to sell.