Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least three ways to run a diesel engine on biofuel utilizing veggie oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are utilized with both fresh and secondhand 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 mix it with a solvent, or with gas;

3. it to biodiesel.

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

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of blending it or blending it with other fuels is to decrease the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more freely 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, however still unclean enough, numerous would say. Still, for every single gallon of

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

People use numerous mixes, ranging from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just use it that method, launch and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), or even 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 an extremely hard and tolerant motor– it will not like it however you probably will not kill it. Otherwise, it’s not wise.

To do it effectively 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 “speculative at best”, little or nothing is understood about their results on the combustion qualities of the fuel or their long-term impacts on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing grease as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion attributes from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are developed.

Diesel engines are state-of-the-art machines with very accurate fuel requirements, specifically the more modern-day, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).

They are difficult but they’ll just take so much abuse. There’s no guarantee of it, however utilizing a mix of up to 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summertime.

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are generally a bad compromise. But mixes do have an advantage in cold weather condition.

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