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Vegetable Oil Has Car Cookin'

TRIBUNE PHOTO CANDACE C. MUNDY

Zikry allows the oil from the vat that has passed through the 3 stage filtering system to return into the vat to continue filtering the oil before putting it into his car.

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By TRACY SMALL

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 25, 2008

COUNTRYWAY - These days Akram Zikry often smiles when he catches a whiff of french fries while driving down the street.

Zikry, 41, a major in the Army Reserves, who works as a biochemist at MacDill Air Force Base, sat down recently and thought about the cost of fueling his vehicles. With a family of four, he wants to save wherever possible. So, he intensely researched an idea on the Web for a few months until he decided on a logical way to spend less time at his local gas station. He now uses waste vegetable oil to fuel the diesel engine of his 1991 Mercedes 350 SD.

"I wanted to try to cut the cost of fuel." said Zikry.

The method involves using a 12-volt utility pump with two hoses on either side, one to suck in vegetable oil and one to push it out. A strainer on the end of the sucking hose is frequently checked for clogs and wiped clean. The next step is called "drying" in which he boils the oil or exposes it to the sun to remove water. The whole process usually takes anywhere from a half hour to an hour to produce 25 gallons of fuel.

Zikry says he usually has to filter the oil three to four times go get it pure enough to use in his car. Zikry gets the oil from a friend's restaurants, particularly from Sabal Cafe. According to Zikry, oil from local fast-food franchises is not as easy to process, because they cook too many items with animal fat, and that is hard to filter out. Oil used for french fries, on the other hand, is fairly easy to filter. He says he can tell when the oil he is filtering has been used with sweet items, or with food coated with flour. When he cleans the filters, he sometimes gets sugar particles and sometimes gets a doughy substance.

As for the oil supplier, Louis Makarious, owner of Sabal Cafe, said he is happy to offer it to Zikry.

"It's great that I can help a friend since gas prices are so high," Makarious said. "I do it with an open heart." A company has been paying Makarious to take away his waste vegetable oil, but now he lets Zikry take as much as he needs.

Zikry has tried mixing a little of the filtered vegetable oil with a high percentage of gasoline, and it worked in a gas-powered car. Though he has not done extensive testing with that method, he believes it can potentially be an invaluable supplement to rising fuel costs, but the oil can not be used alone in gas-powered cars as it is in his Mercedes' diesel engine. The only modification he has made to the diesel engine is that he replaced a paper fuel filter with a stainless steel filter that is marketed as an oil filter but serves his purposes as a fuel filter. The nice thing about the stainless steel filter, he said, is if it starts to get clogged, he can take it apart, wash it, and reuse it. Zikry said the filter can be ordered from shops that cater to race cars.

Because the waste vegetable oil is an organic compound, it is better for the environment, he said.

The vegetable oil "gives off carbon dioxide and water, which is beneficial to plants," said Zikry. The oil cleans the fuel lines, especially in the Florida heat, he said.

Though it does take some time to convert the vegetable oil from the restaurant fry vat into useable fuel, he figures when he works for an hour, he saves on the cost of about two tanks of diesel.

But there are the down sides to everything. Zikry said the process can be messy from spills and can smell bad.

Nick Tier, 36, who works at the Shell station on Hillsborough Avenue and Silvermill said, "There are not enough resources for this to really become a trend."

Zikry agreed. "It's not for everyone, and right now it works only in diesel vehicles, but you will see people using it more and more," he said.

Those seeking information about using waste vegetable oil as fuel for a diesel engine can call Zikry at (813) 833-9273.

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