Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

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

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

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

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first 2 methods sound simplest, however, as so typically in life, it’s not quite that easy.

1. Mixing it

Grease is a lot more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to decrease the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more easily through the fuel system into the .

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

grease you utilize, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, which 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 simply utilize it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), and even use pure veggie oil 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 an extremely tough and tolerant motor– it will not like it but you probably will not eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not wise.

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

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

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with using vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical properties and combustion qualities from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are created.

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

They’re tough but they’ll only take so much abuse. There’s no guarantee of it, but utilizing a blend of approximately 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summertime.

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either an expert SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a poor compromise. But blends do have a benefit in winter.

Just like 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 blending and blends.