Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least 3 methods to run a diesel engine on biofuel utilizing 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– generally 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 gas;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

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

1. Mixing it

Grease is far more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to reduce the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more freely 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 using fossilfuel– cleaner than the majority of, however still unclean enough, numerous would state. Still, for every single gallon of

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

People use numerous blends, ranging from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just utilize it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), and even utilize 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 difficult and tolerant motor– it will not like it however you probably won’t eliminate 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 using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there’s no requirement for the mixes.

Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gas are “speculative at finest”, little or absolutely nothing is known about their effects on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-lasting results on the engine.

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

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

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

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either a professional SVO service or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a poor compromise. But blends do have an advantage in cold weather.

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