Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least three ways to run a diesel engine on biofuel using veggie oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are utilized with both fresh and used oils.

1. Use the oil just as it is– typically 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 gas;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first two approaches sound easiest, but, as so typically in life, it’s not quite that easy.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is much more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of blending it or blending it with other fuels is to decrease the viscosity to make it thinner so that it 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 utilizing fossilfuel– cleaner than most, but still unclean enough, lots of would say. Still, for every single gallon of

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

People utilize numerous mixes, ranging from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply use it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), or even utilize pure veggie 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 probably will not kill it. Otherwise, it’s not smart.

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

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

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with using vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are designed.

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

They’re hard however they’ll only take a lot abuse. There’s no warranty of it, however using a mix of as much as 20% veg-oil of great quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summertime.

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO service or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a poor compromise. But blends do have an advantage in winter.

Similar to biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel combined with straight vegetable oil decreases the temperature level at which it starts to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter season) More about fuel blending and blends.