Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least 3 ways to run a diesel engine on biofuel using veggie oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are used with both fresh and secondhand oils.

1. Use the oil simply as it is-- usually called SVO fuel (straight vegetable oil);

2. Mix it with kerosene (paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or blend it with a solvent, or with gas;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The first 2 methods sound simplest, however, as so often in life, it's not quite that basic.

1. Mixing it

Grease is much more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of blending it or blending it with other fuels is to reduce the viscosity to make it thinner so that it streams more easily through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.

If you're mixing veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (same as # 1 diesel) you're still utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than a lot of, but still not clean enough, lots of would say. Still, for each gallon of

veggie oil you utilize, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.

People utilize numerous blends, varying from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply use it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), or perhaps utilize pure grease without pre-heating it, which would make it much thinner.

You might get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is a very tough and tolerant motor-- it won't like it however you most likely will not kill it. Otherwise, it's not smart.

To do it appropriately you'll require what totals up to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, preferably utilizing pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there's no requirement for the mixes.

Blends with different solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are "speculative at best", little or absolutely nothing is understood about their impacts on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-term effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with using grease as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical homes and combustion attributes from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are designed.

Diesel engines are modern devices with very precise fuel requirements, particularly the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They are difficult but they'll only take so much abuse. There's no guarantee of it, but utilizing a blend of as much as 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, particularly in summer.

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel needs either a professional SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a bad compromise. But mixes do have a benefit in cold weather.

As with biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel combined with straight grease reduces the temperature level at which it starts to gel. (See Using in winter) More about fuel blending and blends.