Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least three methods to run a diesel motor on biofuel utilizing veggie oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are utilized with both fresh and pre-owned oils.

1. Use the oil just as it is– normally 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 techniques sound most convenient, however, as so typically in life, it’s not quite that simple.

1. Mixing it

Grease is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function 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 using fossilfuel– cleaner than many, but still unclean enough, many would state. Still, for each gallon of

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

People utilize different blends, ranging from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some people simply use it that method, launch and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), or even use 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 really difficult and tolerant motor– it will not like it however you most likely will not eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not sensible.

To do it correctly you’ll require what amounts 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 blends.

Blends with numerous solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are “experimental at best”, little or absolutely nothing is known about their results on the combustion qualities of the fuel or their long-lasting impacts on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with utilizing vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical properties and combustion qualities from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are developed.

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

They’re difficult but they’ll just take so much abuse. There’s no assurance of it, however utilizing a mix of approximately 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in .

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

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.