Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

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

1. Use the oil just as it is– generally 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 fuel;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The first two methods sound easiest, but, as so often in life, it’s not quite that basic.

1. Mixing it

Grease is much more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing 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 (like # 1 diesel) you’re still utilizing fossilfuel– cleaner than a lot of, however still unclean enough, many would say. Still, for each gallon of

veggie oil you use, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.

People utilize different blends, varying from 10% vegetable oil 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 (that makes veg-oil much thinner), and even use pure grease without it, which would make it much thinner.

You might get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is an extremely hard and tolerant motor– it will not like it however you most likely won’t kill 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 using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there’s no requirement for the blends.

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

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

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

They’re difficult however they’ll only take so much abuse. There’s no warranty of it, however using a blend of as much as 20% veg-oil of good quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, particularly in summer.

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel needs either an expert SVO service or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are usually a poor compromise. But mixes do have a benefit in cold weather.

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