Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

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

1. Use the oil just as it is– normally called SVO fuel (straight vegetable oil);

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

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The first two methods sound simplest, but, as so frequently in life, it’s not quite that simple.

1. Mixing it

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

If you’re mixing veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (exact same as # 1 diesel) you’re still using fossilfuel– cleaner than a lot of, however still not clean enough, numerous would say. Still, for each gallon of

grease you utilize, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.

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

You may get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is a really hard and tolerant motor– it won’t like it but you most likely won’t eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not sensible.

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 need for the blends.

Blends with numerous solvents and/or with unleaded fuel are “experimental at best”, little or nothing is learnt about their effects on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting impacts on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with using vegetable oil 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 designed.

Diesel motor are modern makers with extremely precise fuel requirements, especially the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They’re difficult but they’ll just take a lot abuse. There’s no assurance of it, however utilizing a blend of up to 20% veg-oil of good quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, particularly in summer.

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

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