Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least 3 ways to run a diesel engine on biofuel using 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 grease);

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 very first two approaches sound easiest, however, as so often in life, it’s not rather that simple.

1. Mixing it

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

If you’re blending veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (like # 1 diesel) you’re still utilizing fossilfuel– cleaner than the majority of, but still not clean enough, numerous would say. Still, for each gallon of

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

People use different mixes, from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply utilize it that method, start up 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 a really tough and tolerant motor– it won’t like it however you probably will not kill it. Otherwise, it’s not sensible.

To do it effectively you’ll require what totals up to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyway, ideally using 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 gas are “experimental at best”, little or absolutely nothing is learnt about their results on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with utilizing veggie 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 motor are modern makers with extremely precise fuel requirements, especially the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).

They are difficult but they’ll only take so much abuse. There’s no guarantee of it, however utilizing a mix of as much as 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, specifically in summer.

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either a professional SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are usually a bad compromise. But mixes do have an advantage in cold weather condition.

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