Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least three methods to run a diesel engine on biofuel using vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are utilized with both fresh and pre-owned 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 fuel;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first two techniques sound simplest, but, as so frequently in life, it’s not quite that basic.

1. Mixing it

Grease is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to decrease 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 (very same as # 1 diesel) you’re still using fossilfuel– cleaner than most, but still not clean enough, numerous would say. Still, for each gallon of

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

People utilize different blends, varying from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just use it that way, start up and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), or perhaps 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 really tough and tolerant motor– it won’t like it however you most likely will not kill it. Otherwise, it’s not smart.

To do it correctly you’ll require what totals up to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, using 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 finest”, little or nothing is understood about their results on the combustion qualities of the fuel or their long-lasting results on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing veggie oil 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 designed.

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

They’re hard but they’ll only take so much abuse. There’s no assurance of it, but utilizing a mix of as much as 20% veg-oil of good quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, specifically in summer.

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either a professional SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are typically a bad compromise. But blends do have an advantage in cold weather condition.

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