Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least three ways to run a diesel engine on biofuel using vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are used with both fresh and pre-owned oils.

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

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

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first 2 methods sound most convenient, however, as so often in life, it's not rather that basic.

1. Mixing it

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

If you're blending veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (exact same as # 1 diesel) you're still utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than most, however still not tidy enough, many would say. Still, for every single gallon of

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

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

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

To do it correctly you'll need 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 gas are "experimental at finest", little or absolutely nothing is understood about their impacts on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-lasting effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with using grease as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are developed.

Diesel motor are state-of-the-art machines with very precise fuel requirements, specifically the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They are difficult however they'll just take a lot abuse. There's no warranty of it, but using a mix of approximately 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer.

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are generally a poor compromise. But blends do have a benefit in cold weather condition.

Similar to biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel blended with straight grease decreases the temperature at which it begins to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter) More about fuel mixing and blends.