Make Your Own Biodiesel Part 1
There are at least three methods to run a diesel engine on biofuel utilizing veggie oils, animal fats or both. All three are utilized with both fresh and pre-owned 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 gasoline;
3. Convert it to biodiesel.
The very first two techniques sound simplest, however, as so frequently in life, it's not quite that simple.
1. Mixing it
Vegetable oil is a lot more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of blending it or mixing it with other fuels is to lower the viscosity to make it thinner so that it streams more freely through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.
If you're blending veg-oil with petroleum diesel or (like # 1 diesel) you're still using fossilfuel-- cleaner than the majority of, however still unclean enough, many would state. Still, for every single gallon of
vegetable oil you use, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.
People utilize various mixes, varying from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals just use it that method, start up and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), or even utilize pure vegetable oil without pre-heating it, which would make it much thinner.
You might get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is a really hard and tolerant motor-- it will not like it however you most likely will not kill it. Otherwise, it's not smart.
To do it effectively you'll require 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 absolutely nothing is understood about their impacts on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting results on the engine.
Higher viscosity is not the only issue with using grease as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion attributes from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are created.
Diesel engines are modern devices with really precise fuel requirements, specifically the more modern-day, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).
They are difficult however they'll only take so much abuse. There's no assurance of it, however utilizing a mix of approximately 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summertime.
Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either an expert SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are typically a bad compromise. But blends do have a benefit in cold weather condition.
Just like biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel blended with straight veggie oil lowers the temperature at which it begins to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter season) More about fuel mixing and blends.
