Make Your Own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least 3 ways to run a diesel motor on biofuel utilizing vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All three are used with both fresh and secondhand oils.


1. Use the oil simply as it is-- normally called SVO fuel (straight grease);


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 very first two methods sound easiest, but, as so frequently in life, it's not quite that basic.


1. Mixing it


Vegetable oil is much more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of blending it or mixing it with other fuels is to reduce the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows 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 a lot of, but still not tidy enough, numerous would state. Still, for every single gallon of


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


People use different blends, ranging from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals just use it that way, begin up and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), and even utilize pure vegetable 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 very tough and tolerant motor-- it won't like it but you probably won't kill it. Otherwise, it's not sensible.


To do it effectively you'll require what amounts to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, ideally using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there's no requirement for the blends.


Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are "experimental at finest", little or nothing is known about their results on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-term effects on the engine.


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


Diesel motor are state-of-the-art makers with very exact fuel requirements, particularly the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).


They are difficult however they'll just take so much abuse. There's no guarantee of it, however utilizing a blend of as much as 20% veg-oil of good quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, particularly in summer.


Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are usually a bad compromise. But mixes do have an advantage in winter.


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