[Stoves] The PROTOS Plant Oil Cooker

[Keith Addison]

> >I had not heard that castor oil binds itself to metals. It is used
> >in lubricants...
>
>Check with the model aircraft engine sites and they discuss it in
>detail.  In fact Castor oil was used in early aircraft engines and it
>needed to be drained after each flight.
>
>I am not expert in this and I hope you can find the details.
>
>
>David G. LeVine
>Nashua, NH  03060

I also have not heard of castor oil binding itself to metals. I used 
castor oil fuels in model aircraft engines when I was a kid and had 
no such problems, nor drained any engines after each flight.

I checked out model aircraft engine fuels a year or two back, quite 
thoroughly, as people quite often ask us if they can use model 
engines to demonstrate biofuels, and I didn't find any such 
information on castor oil.

Both India and Brazil are making a lot of biodiesel from castor oil, 
it's been discussed several times at the Biofuel list (which has 
members from both India and Brazil), and no such disadvantages were 
mentioned.

Castor oil is much more viscous than other vegetable oils, and 100 
times more viscous than petroleum diesel fuel. As with all oils, it's 
much less viscous once turned into biodiesel, but the viscosity is 
still higher than the limits allowed by the national biodiesel 
standards.

Blending it with some ethanol might be a solution. Unlike most other 
vegetable oils, castor oil is ethanol soluble.

This is quite interesting on how castor oil works as a lubricant and 
why it's different to other oils:
http://www.georgiacombat.com/CASTOR_OIL.htm
CASTOR OIL

(That's a model aircraft site, by the way.)

This is an informative website about castor oil:

http://www.castoroil.in/uses/fuel/castor_oil_fuel.html
Castor Oil as Biofuel & Biodiesel - Info, WWW Resources on Castoroil
as Bio-fuel, Bio-diesel

HTH

Best wishes

Keith Addison
Journey to Forever
KYOTO Pref., Japan
http://journeytoforever.org/