Skipping the Gas Pump, and Getting Fuel From a Deep Fryer

Todd Heisler/The New York Times Gerard Lynn, the owner of a business in Red Hook, Brooklyn, making diesel fuel from leftover cooking oil from a fish and chips restaurant in the Bronx.

Gerard Lynn says he has found a way to buck the prices at the gas pump. He makes his own biodiesel from the used cooking oil of a Bronx fish and chips restaurant.

“This is before,” Mr. Lynn, the owner of Murlynn Air Compressor in Red Hook, Brooklyn, said recently as he held up a glass jar filled with a murky brown mixture, tiny particles of black, charred residue floating inside. “Those are bits of French fries.”

“And this is after,” he said, proudly displaying a similar glass jar containing a clear liquid the color of golden amber.

Once a week, Mr. Lynn stops by Parkchester Fish and Chips in the Bronx. He exchanges an empty 40-gallon barrel for one filled with enough used soybean oil to have deep-fried a week’s worth of chicken wings, shrimp, fish, onion rings and French fries. And it smells like it.

Back at his shop, Mr. Lynn unloads the liquid and begins the process of converting it into 40 gallons of biodiesel, enough to run his two vehicles for the next seven days.

His setup looks like a giant chemistry lab test. Neatly assembled on a platform, its primary components consist of a water heater and two large, plastic funnel-shaped containers. They connect through a well-ordered configuration of pipes, pumps, hoses and valves.

Mr. Lynn first strains out any food remnants. He then pumps the filtered cooking oil into the larger container and begins a heating and blending process involving a carefully measured compound of methanol and lye. The mixture gently agitates for at least four hours before sitting overnight to allow any fat to sink to the bottom. In the morning he will drain it off along with any moisture.

“There’s a lot of waiting around,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot of doing.”

Mr. Lynn, a gregarious sort who hails from Ireland and speaks with a subtle brogue, began making biodiesel about a year ago after stumbling across an article about the process. “It seemed pretty simple,” he said.

He bought a used biodiesel processor for $1,000 on eBay. It was being sold by a field worker for the Environmental Protection Agency whose enthusiasm for home brewing had waned.

Mr. Lynn initially secured his raw material in smaller batches from an assortment of restaurants. Then he discovered Parkchester Fish and Chips on Archer Street. “I rate their fish and chips very high,” said Mr. Lynn, who would stop there for lunch whenever working in the Bronx. He still polishes off a meal before hauling away the used cooking oil.

Before he offered to take it for free, the family-operated restaurant, with its hand-painted seascape murals and a fluorescent sign that reads “Always Delicious,” had been paying someone a nominal fee to remove its discarded oil.

“We’ve got to get rid of it,” Gerald Franklin, the restaurant’s manager, said as he set up his four-basket fryer operation before the noontime rush. He refills the fryers every day with fresh oil.

“It’s cool what he does,” Mr. Franklin said, referring to Mr. Lynn. “It’s good for everyone. He’s recycling.”

Competition is growing for used cooking oil. Some companies, like Greased Lightning in Newark, now specialize in collecting and paying for large quantities of used oil from restaurants to refine into biofuel. Smaller restaurants are also increasingly becoming victims of petty oil thefts, according to law enforcement officials.

Randazzo’s Clam Bar in Sheepshead Bay, for instance, discovered in March that the lock on its 1,000-gallon barrel of used cooking oil was clipped and that thieves had been pilfering it for a while. Rosemary Randazzo, an owner, watched a surveillance video recording that captured one of the nighttime operations. “They were doing it so quickly,’’ she said, “and they were so good at it, that it only took them a few seconds to get it out.”

Mr. Lynn estimates that brewing his own biofuel saves him about half of what he would pay for a gallon of diesel fuel at the pump. But it isn’t all about cutting costs. Mr. Lynn has an 11-year-old son with autism and wonders, along with other parents and medical researchers, if environmental factors aren’t contributing to today’s prevalence of autism. Biodiesel burns cleaner and more efficiently than petroleum-based fuels. “I think we all have to do our bit,” he said.

To encourage the safe home brewing of biodiesel, which does not require registration for personal use, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation posts an online fact sheet that explains the rules, risks and best practices, including how to deal with its byproduct, glycerol.

Widely used in foods and pharmaceuticals, glycerol is a key component of glycerin soap. In its raw form, though, “it doesn’t smell so good,” said Mr. Lynn as he opened a drain valve at the bottom of his mixing container to allow the black liquid to ooze into a bucket. He scooped up a small amount. “It smells a little like French fries,” he said.

Todd Heisler/The New York Times Mr. Lynn collecting the fuel from Parkchester Fish and Chips. He enjoys a meal there each time he retrieves the oil.